Genre fiction

Writings by multiple authors thatvery similarthemestyle, especially where these similaritiesintendeddeliberately pursued byauthors,often grouped together as genres. Well-known genresfiction include romance, western, science-fiction, fantasy, Crime fictionmystery storiesnovels.

Often as appliedwritten workterm "genre"used pejoratively, suggesting not just similar writings but artificial, derivative,and generally bad writing. Perhapsconnectionthis,term also suggests writing aimed atparticular audiencereaders construed as having limited taste. It sometimes connotessortliterary "ghetto,"be contrastedLiterature proper.

Only certain sortsfrequently repeated settingsplot deviceslabelled "genre fiction," andselection ofsettings so labelledsomewhat arbitrary. Stories about detectives, fantasies about romance, or talesspace aliensusually considered genre fiction, while talesAdulteryAcademia, My Jewish Childhood, or Beatniks WanderingMidwestnot considered genre fiction, thoughnovelsmay well be clichés.

Many fiction genres can be traced tosmall numberimportant or extremely popular literary works written before that genre came into existence. "Genre" fictionportrayed as those works that seek,some degree, justemulate these paradigms. Science fiction beganH. G. WellsJules Verne. Much, perhaps most fantasyderivative of--where not plagiarised from--J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord ofRings. Horror storiesmystery stories can both be tracedlarge measurePoe andfew others.

Many worksundisputed literary merit dofact bearcharacteristic traitsone or another genre. The resultthat fans ofgenre will tendtreatwork as onetheir ownas showingvaluethat genre; while those who look down on genre writing will tenddeny thatworkquestion belongsthat genre at all. Ursula K. Le Guin's The Left HandDarknessMervyn Peake's Gormenghast areworksscience fictionfantasy, respectively, most often taken seriously as literaturetheir own right outsidethose genres; correspondingly criticsoften hesitantso classify them. A more extreme example would be Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow, widely considered one ofmost important novels ofcentury. Itnever called science fiction, despitefact thatgreat dealfictional sciencecentralits plot.

The word "genre" also appliesfilmtelevision, but notmost others arts. Onother hand, popular media thatnot generally treated as artrarely categorized into genres either. This suggests again that "genres"particularly categoriesapproachesarts thatused assimple toolproducing popular rather than good works.

See also: stock character, plot device, melodrama