Genre is a fancy word that simply means category in the literary world. Fantasy is a genre and so is fiction, then there's history, biography, science fiction, and cooking. Those distinctions used to be very clear, sharply defined, and rigidly adhered to. That doesn't seem as true these days. I don't mind. There are now so many cross-over styles that saying something is fantasy isn't all that useful. We even have a vampire genre--sparkly ones included.
I think what this means is that stories aren't being restricted, that they are leaping past any boundaries and finding new places to bear fruit. Modern stories can be difficult to pin down because they pull from so many sources. It's like defining the shapes of clouds--in the end you throw up your hands and say clouds are "cloud shaped" and leave it at that. This is a good trend in my view. To me, stories matter far beyond the limited definition of their genre.
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| Now these are weird clouds! |
Categories are useful though, if for no better reason than finding other similar things. We humans categorize everything, so it's only natural. But, thinking "outside of the box" is a good thing. Never be limited by definitions, or boundaries. Seek to break free to bigger things. Stretch. One of my new favorite tee shirts is one that shows a tic-tac-toe game with a typically tied setting... but this one has an X outside the box and connects that one with two inside the box, making Xs the winner. That is a great concept.
Here's a toast to taking things beyond their definitions!
- M
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