Genre: Mash-Ups are Like Mulch and Will Let Your Stories Bloom

Cyclical Anxiety: Writer Edition Critiques For Beginners

Genre: Mash-Ups are Like Mulch and Will Let Your Stories Bloom

I stumbled upon this fabulous article about genre and just had to get it up on Anxiety’s Facebook and Twitter. If you didn’t see it or read it, I think you should try to. I was so excited after reading it –and not just because the article focuses on a book that brings King Lear and a comic book to a cultural par!

Joshua Rothman, the writer of the article, gives a short and broad -but useful- overview of the history of genre, specifically what was considered culturally relevant in the 1700s and how that evolved to the present. He also undermines the “literary fiction” vs. “genre fiction” debate by proving (in my mind) that the “differences” between the two are weak at best (although I understand where the Modernists were coming from and their legacy today).

After he explains the irrelevancy of genre as a donor of value, Rothman brings in the benefits of genre by connecting the idea to organization. Genre provides a legacy and classification so that readers can find texts similar to ones they naturally gravitate towards and enjoy the most. He uses this point to segue into Northrop Frye’s Anatomy of Criticism.

This is the part where I get a little leery. I haven’t read Frye’s work and I don’t have a grasp of his four identified genres (romance, novel, anatomy, and confession), although AC has now made it onto my to-buy list. If you’ve read Frye’s criticism, please let me know whether you think Rothman did a good job of using him as a focal point. I’m just going to bring up parts that struck me.

Like this:

“Wuthering Heights” [is] a romance, [hence] “The romancer does not attempt to create ‘real people’ so much as stylized figures which expand into psychological archetypes[.] That is why the romance so often radiates a glow of subjective intensity that the novel lacks.” Novels take place in the regulated world—in “society”—and are driven by plots. Romances take place “in vacuo,” on the moors, where “nihilistic and untamable” things tend to happen.

To this end, Rothman equates some YA books to Frye’s romances –like the Hunger Games trilogy. I can see that; Collins’s books are full of carefully crafted characters who all serve a purpose/represent an ideology and are steeped in horror and adventure. Months ago I wrote a post comparing Katniss Everdeen and Hermione Granger. This idea of romance kind of illuminates my comparison. Hermione, as far as I’m concerned, has more depth than Katniss because she’s not an archetype. I love both series equally but their characters work towards vastly different ends. I’m sure the entirety of the Harry Potter series could easily be equated to a mashup of the romance and novel genres.

As a reader and a writer, I am attracted to romantic tales. I love the idea of characters going off on quests and fighting for their notions of good despite the odds against them. Perhaps some of my favourite books involve beings more archetypical than “real,” but that doesn’t bother me. In the short haul at least.

This leads me to my next favourite point: the mixing of genres allows books to bloom. Mix romantic adventure with novelistic plot and defined characters and I will be hooked.

Genre shouldn’t be used as a tool to denigrate one book and exalt another. As a culture we need to move away from this incessant need to compare everything in order to assign arbitrary value. I’d rather use genre to experiment than try to prove that my book is better than someone else’s book. As usual, labels are both good and evil.

How does this all tie in to writing? Well, how do you play experimental scientist without knowing what you’re playing with? Happy accidents occur but I’d rather learn and then toss all the rules up in the air.