Comments on: Genre Quibbles http://www.errantdreams.com/epiphanies/2007/09/04/genre-quibbles/ A home for writing and creativity exercises Tue, 24 Mar 2009 15:32:40 -0400 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 By: heather http://www.errantdreams.com/epiphanies/2007/09/04/genre-quibbles/comment-page-1/#comment-900 heather Sat, 15 Dec 2007 16:22:44 +0000 http://www.errantdreams.com/epiphanies/2007/09/04/genre-quibbles/#comment-900 <b>bettie:</b> Absolutely agreed! I do find genre useful in terms of hunting down books I'm more likely to enjoy, but sometimes we really need to take a step back and remember that we're allowing the marketing people to define these words for us, and that sometimes this shapes our thinking in unexpected ways. The most obvious example, for me, is the horror genre. Publishers are so desperate to avoid the 'stigma' that comes with horror, or any possibility of being associated with the slasher or gross-out sub-genre, that they deliberately try to package plenty of stuff that could easily be labeled as horror as anything but. And as a result, more and more people believe that anything labeled horror must contain buckets of blood. I personally find this kind of frustrating, because one of my favorite genres is the much more psychological or atmospheric horror genre. It's tough to find (and tough to sell) because of what is, essentially, a largely marketing-created terminology confusion! bettie: Absolutely agreed! I do find genre useful in terms of hunting down books I’m more likely to enjoy, but sometimes we really need to take a step back and remember that we’re allowing the marketing people to define these words for us, and that sometimes this shapes our thinking in unexpected ways. The most obvious example, for me, is the horror genre. Publishers are so desperate to avoid the ’stigma’ that comes with horror, or any possibility of being associated with the slasher or gross-out sub-genre, that they deliberately try to package plenty of stuff that could easily be labeled as horror as anything but. And as a result, more and more people believe that anything labeled horror must contain buckets of blood. I personally find this kind of frustrating, because one of my favorite genres is the much more psychological or atmospheric horror genre. It’s tough to find (and tough to sell) because of what is, essentially, a largely marketing-created terminology confusion!

]]> By: bettie http://www.errantdreams.com/epiphanies/2007/09/04/genre-quibbles/comment-page-1/#comment-899 bettie Sat, 15 Dec 2007 16:11:51 +0000 http://www.errantdreams.com/epiphanies/2007/09/04/genre-quibbles/#comment-899 Great post, and so well said! "Genre can be a handy convention for matching books to readers." Your post got me thinking about shelving, genre and marketing, and how genre is nothing more than a marketing tool--albeit one which we as readers and consumers have accepted as gospel. Great post, and so well said!

“Genre can be a handy convention for matching books to readers.”

Your post got me thinking about shelving, genre and marketing, and how genre is nothing more than a marketing tool–albeit one which we as readers and consumers have accepted as gospel.

]]> By: heather http://www.errantdreams.com/epiphanies/2007/09/04/genre-quibbles/comment-page-1/#comment-504 heather Tue, 04 Sep 2007 16:43:39 +0000 http://www.errantdreams.com/epiphanies/2007/09/04/genre-quibbles/#comment-504 <b>annie:</b> Thanks! The excellent conversation over at your blog got me thinking, and <i>Bestiary</i> neatly ended up illustrating some of my thoughts. annie: Thanks! The excellent conversation over at your blog got me thinking, and Bestiary neatly ended up illustrating some of my thoughts.

]]> By: annie http://www.errantdreams.com/epiphanies/2007/09/04/genre-quibbles/comment-page-1/#comment-503 annie Tue, 04 Sep 2007 16:19:22 +0000 http://www.errantdreams.com/epiphanies/2007/09/04/genre-quibbles/#comment-503 Nice post! I think you make some great points-- Nice post! I think you make some great points–

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