Talk:Genre fiction

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A Strange Claim[edit]

""Genre" fiction is portrayed as those works that seek, in some degree, just to emulate these paradigms. Science fiction began with Jules Verne and then H. G. Wells, as a recognizable genre (although Mary Shelley is generally credited with having written the first science fiction novel, Frankenstein)."


I'm wondering how exactly it can be claimed any sort of speculation on the future, of social institutions and technology, are all attempts to emulate H. G. Wells? Running From Zombies (talk) 15:37, 16 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]


Other "Genres"[edit]

"Though not as widely acknowledged as works of genre fiction, less conventional genres like comic books and video games often follow certain patterns and conventions which make them appeal to selected audiences."

I strongly question defining "Comic books" and "Video games" as "genres" -- they're *mediums*, no? That's like saying "film" is a genre. There's horror comics, sci-fi comics, et cetera...

Penner Theologius Pott 19:10, 26 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

what was the purpose of the Warsaw ghetto?

Warsaw ghetto?[edit]

I suspect that the article on the Warsaw Ghetto is likelier to answer your question. Smerdis of Tlön 22:56, 2 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Plans for Article[edit]

Over the next few days I propose to go through the article and expand or add material, especially material on listing and defining the main fiction genres. I'm also thinking of adding material on the origin and history of the genres. PaulV 19:09, 18 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Added subheads for fiction genres; wrote text for the first two. Plan to keep on with it... PaulV 14:52, 20 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Decided to delete some of the older material seeking to distinguish genre fiction from other forms of fiction that have common elements. The definition and conventions of genre are discussed under their own headings.

Also deleted material suggesting that genre conventions are essentially a time-saver for writer and reader (not having to define or explain certain things). It seems rather that the stability of genre conventions comes from the fact that readers like those elements, rather than that they are simply familiar with them.

Deleted the heading Genre in general, since this material is covered in the separate article for genre.


Deleted the paragraph discussing fantasy fiction and its evolution, since this is covered in depth in the Fantasy fiction article.

Still working on the heading The evolution of fiction genres. It's a work in progress. PaulV 18:50, 29 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I think that is a good idea.Goblyglook (talk) 00:48, 18 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Erotica[edit]

I see someone has deleted the erotica heading, but has given no reason for doing so. Since it is a mainstream fiction genre, I intend to restore it. PaulV 00:40, 16 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I think you should reconsider your definition of Crime Fiction. Suggesting that all crime fiction takes place from the point of view of the perpetrator of the crime leaves out millions of books that are clearly part of the genre. The most common definition of crime fiction (and one that appears on Wikipedia) would be: Any fiction that deals with crimes, their detection, criminals and their motives.Detective Fiction is a sub-genre of crime fiction, not its own genre. So is noir, courtroom drama, police procedural, psychological thriller, etc. They all fit the parameter of crime fiction, but they have their own seperate indicators. Hope this is helpful.

One other thing - this is a highly objectionable sentence: "This is due to its relative lack of the highly developed and artistic language found in literary fiction, and the formulaic nature of many pieces of genre fiction - genre fiction is produced as a commercial product with the intent of appealing to a mass audience, rather than as an original work with intellectual interest."

True, this probably describes MOST genre fiction - but to say that anything that falls into a genre isn't an "original work with intellectual interest" overlooks the hundreds of writers who have produced works that are included in the classic canon - or modern literary landmarks - but still fit neatly into genre categories. What about Poe, or, more recently, Daniel Woodrell? You probably didn't mean it like this - but this sounds extremely dismissive and closed minded. Often, the only thing that makes a work "literary" is the subjective opinion of the reader. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Grken (talk • contribs) 20:32, 8 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

conrad as example of ...[edit]

how about mentioning some of Joseph Conrad's works (maybe Lord Jim or one of his shorter novellas) as examples of of the statement at the end of the section 'Genre fiction#Genre fiction and literary fiction'

"Indeed, many works now regarded as literary classics were originally written as genre novels."

Doldrums 17:17, 5 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]


Romance[edit]

"Romance is currently the largest and best-selling fiction genre in North America. It has produced a wide array of subgenres, all of which feature the mutual attraction and love of a man and a woman as the main plot, and have a happy ending."

Does this preclude the possibility of homosexual romance novels? 68.255.232.59 19:14, 31 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I changed "all" to "the majority". While this describes most romance novels, there are exceptions. There are exceptions - unrequited love, for one, and a romance novel doesn't have to have a happy ending.--RLent 20:21, 29 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
To be a genre romance, it does indeed have to have a happy ending. Radway's Reading the Romance spends a couple of chapters on the structure of the "ideal romance". To be fair, Radway's a little bit dated, but the structure of genre romance, while it's changed, hasn't changed that substantially.
Novels featuring romance don't have to have happy endings, but genre romances really do. Deborah-jl Talk 21:32, 29 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Expansion of scope[edit]

This article appears to define genre fiction as a category only of literature. Is this term not also often used to describe other formats? Zombie movies are a good example. Preconceived plot structure and eventual outcome are expected by the audience. Kung-fu movies especially of the 70's also often followed the specifications of genre fiction.

If "fiction" in this context is meant to only refer to the written word and an expansion of definition of the term is inappropriate, I think at least a more significant mention of such literature’s influence on other aspects of pop culture would be. For example, the work of Quentin Tarantino is not only based off of but completely dependent on the concept of genre fiction.

I fully expected the discussion to be focused on solely literature based on the title and given I came to the link via another literature-related article (“speculative fiction”). I did not expect other art forms to be covered, in fact, and was not aware of their critical use in other areas (namely, cinema). IMHO this article reads better when focusing ONLY on printed media/literature. To the extent there is cross-over (i.e., adoption of these genre categories by film), that might be mentioned but would better seeve the topic as its own (separate) article. Cynthisa (talk) 05:26, 25 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Undisputed Literary Merit[edit]

The sci fi/fantasy works cited are in no way taken seriously as literature by the mainstream academic community. Very little of what people would call "sci fi" or "fantasy" is considered literature; even Tolkien doesn't always make it on people's lists. I'd say if you're going to cite so-called "literary" sci-fi writers, go with Robert Heinlein or perhaps Harlan Ellison, though I still think any sort of claim that that stuff is literature is tenuous at best. You occasionally see Stranger in a Strange Land taught in high school classrooms, though. I'm removing it, if for no other reason that it cites nothing and reflects a non-neutral point of view. This is why fanboys/girls should not be allowed to write encyclopedia articles.--Stonedinvenice 18:09, 16 January 2008

So my doctoral work on science fiction and fantasy is a creation of my fevered brain? And the academic journals for which I wrote essays? And the various conferences I attended, with all the papers read by university faculty? What was I smoking? RLetson (talk) 21:26, 25 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Your assertion that science fiction has no literary merit is extremely POV, and is circular reasoning.--RLent (talk) 15:57, 16 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Romances sometimes have sad endings[edit]

Some romances do have endings besides the "and they lived happily ever after" or happy endings. Even though they have differnt endings the section of the article dealing with the genre of romance/fiction says that they all have happy endings.Goblyglook (talk) 00:48, 18 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Elizabeth is a beutiful woman! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.90.45.137 (talk) 22:05, 9 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Musical fiction[edit]

Musical fiction harnesses music as its defining feature, using music both as subject matter and as the tool of its prosaic rhythm and flow.

Inspirational = Christian?[edit]

The section currently reads "Inspirational fiction is a term that refers to fictional works with religious themes and aimed at a Christian audience." Is inspirational literature really an exclusively Christian genre? Does this reflect a world-wide perspective? Kime1R (talk) 00:16, 26 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Extensive edits[edit]

My original plan was to essentially rewrite the article (this time, with sources), but it proved to be a bit too overwhelming. Also, I was worried that such a drastic change would prove to be too controversial. Instead, I settled for rewriting individual sections (the intro, some of the genre descriptions), adding a new section where I discussed the critical reception of genre fiction, and the controversy that has erupted over its increasing acceptance in critical circles. I generally kept the tone positive, but I don't think it should be a problem. I think that, overall, my edits are fairly neutral. I would have preferred to source a few more statements, but they proved to be problematic. For one, I really don't have any source that says that critics dislike genre fiction, which really kind of amuses me. One would think that such a statement would be trivially easy to source, but I found nothing satisfying. Instead of settling for a second-rate quote from a third rate source, I just left it unsourced. If anyone truly disputes such a statement, I can cough up something from Google, but I don't really see any particular need, at this time.

I found an interesting rant, written by a romance author. I wanted to use it in the article, but there are a couple problems.

  1. The background image has erotica in it
  2. It's on a personal home page (of an apparently notable author, though—she's got a Wikipedia entry)

So, I didn't use it. It just seemed too potentially contentious. If there are no complaints, I'd still like to use it, but I figured I should at least give people a chance to comment on its validity. In particular, I wanted to quote the part where the author claims that romance novels and chick lit are looked down upon by men, because it's written by women. It seems like a legitimate complaint. She also rants a bit about the legitimacy of other genres, as well as the tendency of critics to retroactively legitimize what was once considered pulp/genre fiction.

Does anyone else find the list of genres to be a bit gratuitous? I'm not 100% sure that it needs to be in this article, though I did end up expanding it. I figure that, since it's here, I should probably try to make it as presentable and complete as possible. Still, if others agree that it's unnecessary, I wouldn't mind removing it.

If I get around to it, I'd like to expand the article further and rewrite some of the other sections, but it's a bit too much work for right now. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 08:09, 11 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

controversial subject to begin with[edit]

so "genre" is either used to label stories by their theme settings (eg. crime, fantasy, sci-fi, etc) or it is used as an adjective in itself to call a story shallow as contrary to "literary value focused" though the latter can as well have a theme setting and threfore can be labeled in the first sense of the word. but the bad news is that on the one hand it isnt very informative to label a story about a detective as a detective-story and on the other hand there seems to be no useful definition of what should be considered shallow and what valuable. 80.98.114.70 (talk) 00:01, 22 April 2016 (UTC).[reply]

British literature article[edit]

The long section on genre fiction in the British literature article could well be used to expand this article (where it would be more appropriate). The original – which is too long for the Brit. lit. article – could then be reduced in length. See also the shorter section in English literature. Rwood128 (talk) 17:14, 8 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

There is also a section on nineteenth-century genre fiction [1]

Literature for children and young adults[edit]

This was recently added with the material from British literature. I don't think that it is genre fiction (which I'm presuming just includes adult fiction) but I'm no expert. Unless there is objection I'll delete. Rwood128 (talk) 20:25, 17 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I have been thinking further about this while editing Young adult fiction, and now wonder if there is YA genre fiction? In addition to the main YA article there is one on Young adult romance literature. Rwood128 (talk) 23:39, 23 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

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Agatha Christie[edit]

The description of the The Murder of Roger Ackroyd might be a bit misleading. It is not the twist ending that makes the work groundbreaking, but its use of the unreliable narrator trope. Like previous works of detective fiction, the novel is narrated in the first person by one of its major characters. But in this case the narrator himself is the murderer, and he has omitted details about his own involvement in the crime. It went against the conventions of the genre. Dimadick (talk) 17:50, 27 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

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Magic realism[edit]

I'm not a student of magic realism but thought it was generally associated with literary writers like Salman Rushdie and others in South America than with genre fiction? Where is it listed as a popular literature genre?Rwood128 (talk) 16:27, 1 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

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