Eh, I have some vaguely articulated issues with some of these definitions.
Fantasy can be as much about breaking the bonds of fate as it is about the acceptance of it, for one--this is a newer trend but definitely well-represented. I see fantasy as being more about the engagement with fate rather than the acceptance of it.
Romance is way off of the mark--from what I see of it, it's more of an affirmation that love is real rather than an emphasis on beauty, especially in this era when the indie component is stronger in the genre than tradpub. Love conquers all in the end, and while beauty might be a tool, it isn't the focus.
Cleverness does not resonate with science fiction for me at all. That label could be just as easily applied to mystery as well, and perceptiveness could equally be applied to science fiction. Both are problem-solving genres with the difference being that mystery focuses on solving a crime, where science fiction is about solving a problem. If you don't have a crime, you don't have a mystery. And science fiction revolves around problem-solving, whether that's scientific, social, or the impact of advanced technology on society.
These elements can also skew quite differently based on the originating culture of the work. Euro-centered storytelling modes can be very different from Asia-centered storytelling modes. It requires careful thought.
I agree with this! I think writers tend to be more fluid with the characters and themes within tropes and conventions than the other way around, and I think it makes for better storytelling.
It occurs to me that sometimes the development of a genre involves a reversal of its tropes. So I suppose it would make sense that acceptance of fate in fantasy would give way to rejection of fate -- the chose one chooses not to be chosen.
I'm very much looking at romance from the outside, but I'm not entirely dissuaded yet. I can see that the affirmation that love is real is an element of it, but that doesn't quite fit my schema, since it is not a virtue. The capacity to love and accept love are virtues, and I'm going to stick to my guns, at least a while longer, and claim the beauty is a metaphor for these things. It is a powerful metaphor too since the biological function of beauty is mate selection.
You are right that SF and mystery are both solving things. SF is more about solving technical problems and mystery about solving human or social ones. This is why I think cleverness fits SF and perceptiveness fits mystery. What seems notable to me is that there is not a lot of overlap between the audiences for these genres. The nearest they come is perhaps the forensics based mysteries, but I don't see a real SF element in that.
You are certainly right about the cultural differences though, and I am beginning to think more about how a genre can be the product of a specific cultural moment that can give it some very particular characteristics that are not necessarily paralleled in other genre.
I really have to strongly disagree about physical beauty being a characteristic of romance. Perhaps if all you read is older material, or by exclusively white authors--but if you read Black authors such as Beverly Jenkins, or more contemporary work, it is much more about personal connections rather than overt beauty. Additionally, attraction is not always physical in contemporary romance. Intellectual and emotional attraction are greater factors than in the days of the old Harlequin Romances. The field has changed drastically over the last forty years! Besides Jenkins, I recommend Alyssa Cole and Courtney Milan, to start with, or Selena Montgomery.
I also disagree about there not being a lot of overlap between the audiences for SF and mystery. I know people who read and write both, and there are SF mysteries out there. Where there is not a big overlap is the subgenre of "cozy mystery," but if you look at assorted SF stories, there can be a mystery element as well. Additionally, SF does address solving social and human issues--I for one tend to be more of a writer in that aspect of SF writing. There's more than one story out there about murder on a space station, and one of the greatest stories I've ever read--Cyteen, by C.J. Cherryh--has the question about who murdered the progenitor of the clone protagonist as a driving plot factor (and note, Cyteen is not that recent of a book). For that matter, Cherryh's Foreigner series focuses very much on the solutions around the clash of the interaction between two species--human and atevi--with the arrival of a third species that adds more issues to the mix. Lots of political maneuvering that doesn't necessarily fit into the cleverness mode.
But Cherryh is not the only one who writes in this mode. Ann Leckie's Ancillary Justice series is well worth looking at. Or Ken MacLeod's Fall Revolution books, which are heavily political. Or Rebecca Roanhorse, or Aliette de Bodard.
I'm not thinking so much about "cultural moments" as I am about the many and varied contemporary cultures we have today. I have read excellent arguments from non-European writers who point out that our European structures are not the only means for telling a story.
But I didn't say "physical beauty", I said "beauty", and I didn't say it was a characteristic of romance, I said it was a characteristic virtue of romance novels. Yes, there is a whole debate about what the basis of attraction is these days, which is, to my mind, a debate about what beauty is. Indeed, "beautiful on the inside" is such a common expression as to constitute an cliche.
And while there is certainly overlap between the SF and mystery audiences, as there is between any two genre you care to name, I see no evidence that it is large compared to the size of the individual markets. Indeed, the majority of the avid mystery readers I know would blanch at the very thought of picking up a SF novel. I have been in many writers workshops and critique groups and if I had a dollar for every mystery I have read by an author under 30 and every SFF written by an author over 50, I wouldn't have a dollar.
As to whether political maneuvering fits into cleverness mode, I would point to The West Wing or House of Cards, though in the end I would argue cunning is the defining virtue of that genre, with cleverness serving as an attribute of the cunning mind.
And again, my point is about the defining virtue of a genre. I never made the claim that the motifs of one genre never show up in another. Indeed, my whole point was that they often do. That was my point about Longmire being shelved as a mystery rather than a Western, despite having many of the features of a Western. It sounds like Cyteen, which I have not read, would be another such case it point. The existence of these book does not contradict my point. It is precisely the think I am attempting to find an explanation for.
And yes, there are other modes of storytelling. My essay is couched as a proposal, a thought experiment, and acknowledges that the analysis is incomplete. It makes not claims to be comprehensive.
All that said, thank you for pushing me on this. It is forcing me to think through the problem further and changing my mind about some things.
In my research, genre is a catch-all term for a variety of attributes including plot, setting, mood, audience, characters, reality factor, topics, style and more. It would seem classifying a story is a matter of assigning weights to each relevant attributes' importance. To satisfy marketers, librarians, retailers, and audiences who know a story, one can make permutations from the most relevant attributes and let them decide which single label or combo suits them.
Thanks for the comment, Mario. Yes, it is that tendency of genre to be defined by an eccentric variety of attributes that interested me in the problem in the first place. I felt that there had to be something more fundamental at work. I still think there is, but I am coming to think now that genre's specific sets of attributes are not timeless generalities but the expression and consequence of a particular cultural moment. Art isn't neutral. It belongs to a time and place, and its specific conventions are a product of how it grows in that time and space. The question then is, are genre's as they exist at a particular time accretions of conventions around something more fundamental and general, or are they all accidents of the moment. Much to think about.... Thanks.
Eh, I have some vaguely articulated issues with some of these definitions.
Fantasy can be as much about breaking the bonds of fate as it is about the acceptance of it, for one--this is a newer trend but definitely well-represented. I see fantasy as being more about the engagement with fate rather than the acceptance of it.
Romance is way off of the mark--from what I see of it, it's more of an affirmation that love is real rather than an emphasis on beauty, especially in this era when the indie component is stronger in the genre than tradpub. Love conquers all in the end, and while beauty might be a tool, it isn't the focus.
Cleverness does not resonate with science fiction for me at all. That label could be just as easily applied to mystery as well, and perceptiveness could equally be applied to science fiction. Both are problem-solving genres with the difference being that mystery focuses on solving a crime, where science fiction is about solving a problem. If you don't have a crime, you don't have a mystery. And science fiction revolves around problem-solving, whether that's scientific, social, or the impact of advanced technology on society.
These elements can also skew quite differently based on the originating culture of the work. Euro-centered storytelling modes can be very different from Asia-centered storytelling modes. It requires careful thought.
I agree with this! I think writers tend to be more fluid with the characters and themes within tropes and conventions than the other way around, and I think it makes for better storytelling.
Thanks for your thoughts, Joyce.
It occurs to me that sometimes the development of a genre involves a reversal of its tropes. So I suppose it would make sense that acceptance of fate in fantasy would give way to rejection of fate -- the chose one chooses not to be chosen.
I'm very much looking at romance from the outside, but I'm not entirely dissuaded yet. I can see that the affirmation that love is real is an element of it, but that doesn't quite fit my schema, since it is not a virtue. The capacity to love and accept love are virtues, and I'm going to stick to my guns, at least a while longer, and claim the beauty is a metaphor for these things. It is a powerful metaphor too since the biological function of beauty is mate selection.
You are right that SF and mystery are both solving things. SF is more about solving technical problems and mystery about solving human or social ones. This is why I think cleverness fits SF and perceptiveness fits mystery. What seems notable to me is that there is not a lot of overlap between the audiences for these genres. The nearest they come is perhaps the forensics based mysteries, but I don't see a real SF element in that.
You are certainly right about the cultural differences though, and I am beginning to think more about how a genre can be the product of a specific cultural moment that can give it some very particular characteristics that are not necessarily paralleled in other genre.
I really have to strongly disagree about physical beauty being a characteristic of romance. Perhaps if all you read is older material, or by exclusively white authors--but if you read Black authors such as Beverly Jenkins, or more contemporary work, it is much more about personal connections rather than overt beauty. Additionally, attraction is not always physical in contemporary romance. Intellectual and emotional attraction are greater factors than in the days of the old Harlequin Romances. The field has changed drastically over the last forty years! Besides Jenkins, I recommend Alyssa Cole and Courtney Milan, to start with, or Selena Montgomery.
I also disagree about there not being a lot of overlap between the audiences for SF and mystery. I know people who read and write both, and there are SF mysteries out there. Where there is not a big overlap is the subgenre of "cozy mystery," but if you look at assorted SF stories, there can be a mystery element as well. Additionally, SF does address solving social and human issues--I for one tend to be more of a writer in that aspect of SF writing. There's more than one story out there about murder on a space station, and one of the greatest stories I've ever read--Cyteen, by C.J. Cherryh--has the question about who murdered the progenitor of the clone protagonist as a driving plot factor (and note, Cyteen is not that recent of a book). For that matter, Cherryh's Foreigner series focuses very much on the solutions around the clash of the interaction between two species--human and atevi--with the arrival of a third species that adds more issues to the mix. Lots of political maneuvering that doesn't necessarily fit into the cleverness mode.
But Cherryh is not the only one who writes in this mode. Ann Leckie's Ancillary Justice series is well worth looking at. Or Ken MacLeod's Fall Revolution books, which are heavily political. Or Rebecca Roanhorse, or Aliette de Bodard.
I'm not thinking so much about "cultural moments" as I am about the many and varied contemporary cultures we have today. I have read excellent arguments from non-European writers who point out that our European structures are not the only means for telling a story.
But I didn't say "physical beauty", I said "beauty", and I didn't say it was a characteristic of romance, I said it was a characteristic virtue of romance novels. Yes, there is a whole debate about what the basis of attraction is these days, which is, to my mind, a debate about what beauty is. Indeed, "beautiful on the inside" is such a common expression as to constitute an cliche.
And while there is certainly overlap between the SF and mystery audiences, as there is between any two genre you care to name, I see no evidence that it is large compared to the size of the individual markets. Indeed, the majority of the avid mystery readers I know would blanch at the very thought of picking up a SF novel. I have been in many writers workshops and critique groups and if I had a dollar for every mystery I have read by an author under 30 and every SFF written by an author over 50, I wouldn't have a dollar.
As to whether political maneuvering fits into cleverness mode, I would point to The West Wing or House of Cards, though in the end I would argue cunning is the defining virtue of that genre, with cleverness serving as an attribute of the cunning mind.
And again, my point is about the defining virtue of a genre. I never made the claim that the motifs of one genre never show up in another. Indeed, my whole point was that they often do. That was my point about Longmire being shelved as a mystery rather than a Western, despite having many of the features of a Western. It sounds like Cyteen, which I have not read, would be another such case it point. The existence of these book does not contradict my point. It is precisely the think I am attempting to find an explanation for.
And yes, there are other modes of storytelling. My essay is couched as a proposal, a thought experiment, and acknowledges that the analysis is incomplete. It makes not claims to be comprehensive.
All that said, thank you for pushing me on this. It is forcing me to think through the problem further and changing my mind about some things.
There's also a long tradition of robot detective stories, which directly blends the mystery and sf genres.
In my research, genre is a catch-all term for a variety of attributes including plot, setting, mood, audience, characters, reality factor, topics, style and more. It would seem classifying a story is a matter of assigning weights to each relevant attributes' importance. To satisfy marketers, librarians, retailers, and audiences who know a story, one can make permutations from the most relevant attributes and let them decide which single label or combo suits them.
Thanks for the comment, Mario. Yes, it is that tendency of genre to be defined by an eccentric variety of attributes that interested me in the problem in the first place. I felt that there had to be something more fundamental at work. I still think there is, but I am coming to think now that genre's specific sets of attributes are not timeless generalities but the expression and consequence of a particular cultural moment. Art isn't neutral. It belongs to a time and place, and its specific conventions are a product of how it grows in that time and space. The question then is, are genre's as they exist at a particular time accretions of conventions around something more fundamental and general, or are they all accidents of the moment. Much to think about.... Thanks.