The Genre Game
There are a lot of things to love about living here in the the Northwest. One of them is the Seattle International Film Festival.
It's a great way to escape the predictable regurgitation Hollywood forever lives up to.
It's been a few years since I've attended, what with life and other distractions, but I used to enjoy creating as pure a movie-watching experience as I could for myself, an experience as untarnished by expectation as I could make, by choosing a film based strictly on its title. No reading summaries or reviews; no wondering who its starring or directed by. Title only. The only way I could have known less about what I was going to watch would be to have someone blindfold me, drive me to the theater, and place me in a seat - not too close, please. In this way I was sure to enjoy (or not) the movie without any preconceived notions based on some carefully worded blurb or...by its genre.
That is what annoys me about genres - their promise to give you exactly what you expect. Like watching a movie preview where, when its over, you feel as though you've already seen the whole movie, which you probably have, just in a different package. Book publishing is a business like any other, and so markets its products to sell. And like any other marketing, there's a certain amount of brainwashing done upon the consumer. Using genres, aimed at a particular audience of readers, is part of it. Publishers will argue that they're only giving people what they want, but, really, people are programmed to want what they want. That's the voodoo of advertising. When a formula has been found to sell, there's then an onslaught of products, the next just like the one before. Twilight spawned a nauseating, and seemingly endless, trend, as did the Harry Potter series. Every summer we movie-going lemmings march to see the latest "blockbuster," even though we've seen it all before. You know what I'm talking about; we all get sucked in because we like the comfort of the familiar.
But, the genre game is merely about packaging and presentation, a superficial veil to entice a given demographic. Let's use my book, Gospel for the Damned, as an example, because this is my blog and it's all about me. The basic premise is: a journalist is chosen to spend three days in the quarantined city of San Francisco and experience how people cope with a seemingly hopeless situation. There's some speculative aspects to it, a sprinkle of dystopic sci-fi, and hints of a mystery to be solved but, otherwise, that's it in a very small nutshell.
Now, I could have written it with a strong emphasis on the mystery and marketed it as a bio-tech thriller, I guess. Or I could have built a wall around the city, like a fortress where all the infirmed of the planet are placed, thus pushing the dystopian elements to the hilt. Or, if I placed the events in the time of Europe's Black Death, I could've played an historical fiction angle. Throw in some airships and steam-powered technology and - abracadabra! - I'd have a steam-punk novel. The story itself would never have to change. It would all be a matter of how it's presented.
This has become my greatest challenge in being a writer, or more specifically, a financially successful writer: to get an audience of readers who appreciate a book strictly for the story, who can see beyond the expected dressings of genre to only the writing itself. What I seem to be up against, however, is represented by one online review of my book that reads, "Very interesting take on 'zombies' I just wish the author would go more in depth with the zombies."...sigh...There are no zombies, or references to zombies, in my book. I don't think the word zombie even appears anywhere. Well, maybe once or twice. But it's used strictly as an adjective.
Gordon Gravley