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Genre-fication
Literary genres and subgenres are horribly limiting and absolutely necessary. They can kill creativity or allow it to flourish. Talk about your love/hate relationships.
I’m not even going to explore “literary fiction” vs. “general fiction” because it’s a meaningless differentiation that too often comes down to whether some (usually self-appointed) critic thinks a work has artistic merit or not. I love me some “great” books, but my idea of artistic merit is probably a little different than the Booker Prize panelists.
The stuff that is generally referred to as “genre fiction” gets placed into some pretty broad categories, like mystery, romance, horror, science fiction, western, etc. Science fiction and fantasy used to get lumped together but I’m happy to see that they’re generally now seen as distinct.
And then there’s erotica. Let’s be honest — most people outside our little circle of happy degenerates don’t even think about erotica as a genre. Or maybe they think of it only as the steamier side of the romance genre (which is, of course, also part of our thing).
In general, genre classifications help us find the stuff that we’re interested in. Bookstores have their separate sections, the librarian can direct you to a particular shelf, and we can narrow our search down online.
All good, right? But what about that historical drama set in Deadwood in the 1800s that features magic, and a schoolmarm in love with a vampire? Is it Western? Horror? Fantasy? Romance? Yes? My ex-bookseller wife says it would probably be in fantasy unless it’s super bloody, in which case it would likely be considered horror.
That implies that there is at least an implicit hierarchy to these things that may be more apparent in subgenres than the broad categories (I’ll talk about that in a minute). But you can see how this might be a little limiting. Genres have their rules and I’m pretty sure one of the rules of Westerns is “no magic and no vampires.” Some of the best stories are genre-busting, but there’s an implicit understanding that we know how this stuff works.
So, about those subgenres, which I feel sure exist in all genres. Mystery encompasses noir, procedurals, detective, and cozies, among others. My wife is a big fan of the latter. Science fiction includes space…
