Beem Weeks's Blog - Posts Tagged "genres"
Genres
Genre: (noun) a category of artistic composition, as in music or literature, characterized by similarities in form, style, or subject matter.
That's how The Oxford American College Dictionary defines the word Genre. There are dozens of genres and sub-genres in the marketplace these days. There's mainstream and indie fiction, paranormal romance, science fiction, western, historical fiction, coming-of-age, erotica, chick-lit, dude-lit, dog-lit, monkey-lit, and a hundred others! It seems new genres are coined every other week. But are so many of these labels even necessary?
Genre labels exist to point readers toward preferred story content. A person who loves being swept away by romance novels won't likely be interested in reading a work of science fiction--unless, of course, this science fiction story follows the budding love affair between a cyborg warrior princess and KITT, the car from Knight Rider. Then a new genre pops up: Mechanical Romance Fiction.
The truth of the matter is, a good story is just a good story, no matter the genre. I enjoy coming-of-age novels. I find historical fiction that's been well-researched to be quite entertaining. A Clive Barker short horror story is always a treat.
Genre tags and sub-genre labels often turn potential readers away from what just might be an amazing reading experience. Case in point: I'm not a fan of the science fiction genre. It's just not what interests me. So when I'm approached by authors asking me to read and review their work of science fiction, I usually try to find an excuse as to why I won't be able to read said book. But then I came across a copy of a novel entitled Idlewild by Nick Sagan, the son of the late Carl Sagan. I fell headlong into one of the better stories I've read in the last ten years. Now, I won't say it's in my top ten, but it certainly fits somewhere within my top thirty.
My point in this is: Forget the labels. Take a chance on something you might not normally bother reading. And for the record, I've read other science fiction novels that did little to draw me in as a fan of the genre--so don't start inundating me with requests to review this Sci-Fi story or that one.
I'm not a fan of the erotica genre, either. I don't mind sex in a well-told story, mind you; I'm just not interested in reading about it from start to finish. A story based on sex alone exposes the characters as one dimensional, the plot as weak, and the author as limited in creativity. So imagine my surprise when I was asked to read and review a story set in that particular genre, and upon finishing the book, found it to be quite entertaining, well-written, and full of imagination. The same thing happened when I decided to read and review a chick-lit book.
The moral here is: Never judge a book by its genre. How many great stories have you missed just because of a label like paranormal romance, sci-fi, or lesbian-vampire-racecar-drivers-fiction? Don't put so much stock into the ever-growing field of genre labels that you cheat yourself out of great and entertaining reads. Approach with an open mind.
That's how The Oxford American College Dictionary defines the word Genre. There are dozens of genres and sub-genres in the marketplace these days. There's mainstream and indie fiction, paranormal romance, science fiction, western, historical fiction, coming-of-age, erotica, chick-lit, dude-lit, dog-lit, monkey-lit, and a hundred others! It seems new genres are coined every other week. But are so many of these labels even necessary?
Genre labels exist to point readers toward preferred story content. A person who loves being swept away by romance novels won't likely be interested in reading a work of science fiction--unless, of course, this science fiction story follows the budding love affair between a cyborg warrior princess and KITT, the car from Knight Rider. Then a new genre pops up: Mechanical Romance Fiction.
The truth of the matter is, a good story is just a good story, no matter the genre. I enjoy coming-of-age novels. I find historical fiction that's been well-researched to be quite entertaining. A Clive Barker short horror story is always a treat.
Genre tags and sub-genre labels often turn potential readers away from what just might be an amazing reading experience. Case in point: I'm not a fan of the science fiction genre. It's just not what interests me. So when I'm approached by authors asking me to read and review their work of science fiction, I usually try to find an excuse as to why I won't be able to read said book. But then I came across a copy of a novel entitled Idlewild by Nick Sagan, the son of the late Carl Sagan. I fell headlong into one of the better stories I've read in the last ten years. Now, I won't say it's in my top ten, but it certainly fits somewhere within my top thirty.
My point in this is: Forget the labels. Take a chance on something you might not normally bother reading. And for the record, I've read other science fiction novels that did little to draw me in as a fan of the genre--so don't start inundating me with requests to review this Sci-Fi story or that one.
I'm not a fan of the erotica genre, either. I don't mind sex in a well-told story, mind you; I'm just not interested in reading about it from start to finish. A story based on sex alone exposes the characters as one dimensional, the plot as weak, and the author as limited in creativity. So imagine my surprise when I was asked to read and review a story set in that particular genre, and upon finishing the book, found it to be quite entertaining, well-written, and full of imagination. The same thing happened when I decided to read and review a chick-lit book.
The moral here is: Never judge a book by its genre. How many great stories have you missed just because of a label like paranormal romance, sci-fi, or lesbian-vampire-racecar-drivers-fiction? Don't put so much stock into the ever-growing field of genre labels that you cheat yourself out of great and entertaining reads. Approach with an open mind.
