Genre... What is it?
One widely accepted definition states: A genre is a
specific category of fiction often decided by content or plot...
But if that is the accepted definition of genre as a
category, wouldn't non-fiction also be considered a genre as it is a
category of writing too? Of course it would because it is a "type" or "kind"
of category of writing. This is what makes understanding genre so difficult.
What does the word mean?
Genre is a French word from the Old French language meaning, kind or
type, from the Latin word genus.
So, Genre by definition means "kind" or "type", but wait, let's add more
confusion to the subject.
If Genre can be a type of category in writing such as Fiction and
Non-Fiction, can you break the categories down again and come up with
even more "types" of genre? Of course you can, from Fiction and
Non-Fiction "type" genres you can break those down into smaller groups
such as poetry, drama, prose. These types or kinds of categories tell
us something about the writing.
Another "kind" of category break-down for genre is style or
physical design of the book such as picture books, novellas,
novels, short novels, and short stories. This type of genre break-down
tells us about size.
Also, you can categorize fiction by what "kind" of theme it has such as
adventure stories, science-fiction, fantasy, mystery, horror, romance,
realistic fiction, and historical fiction. These are all genres too.
Now if that wasn't confusing enough, think about this, you can also
combine the different "kinds" or "types" of themes such as
romance/historical fiction, mystery/fantasy or any number of multiple
combinations to make many different "types" or "kinds" of genre. So if
you thought understanding genre was difficult, you are right. It isn't
just one, well-defined definition it can be many things. The reason
that we have so many different types of genre is because over the last
400 years, as writing and publishing has developed, writers and
publishers discovered different ways to define writing and now today it
comes to us with the label of genre and can be very confusing.
One hint to help you understand why we use genres to define or
categorize our writing is
to help the reader define what "types" or "kinds" of stories, books or
writers they enjoy reading the most. It also helps book stores and
publisher to market and sell the books by defining a category the book
best fits. And besides all that, genres also helps writers specialize
in one "type" or "kind" of writing, so they spend focused time
developing their skills, such as my writing which specializes in
Documentary Historical Fiction... Opps! That is another genre!