The Genre Fallacy
Does anyone reading this know Gene Wolfe? No? Alright. In a nutshell, his books are basically science fiction… except all the characters speak and act like fantasy novel characters and the super-technology is treated like magic.
Anyone heard of MC 900 Ft. Jesus? Didn’t think so. His musical style is a mix of hip-hop, reggae, post-punk, poetry and rock.
Speaking of rock, has anyone really considered what it is? The Beatles are rock: guitars, bass, drums and vocals, all used pretty cleanly. Nine Inch Nails are rock: noise-filled, ugly, heavy-guitar driven. Devo is rock: quirky, keyboard-y and vocoded. Reel Big Fish is rock: fast, horn-driven and kinetic. This isn’t something that has any kind of clear division. Rock doesn’t have any strict set of instruments, any strict set of chords or scales, any rules at all. Folk, ska, metal, punk, grunge, industrial, are just facets or a larger thing. Jazz can be rock. Rock can be techno. It doesn’t matter at all whether your band has an orchestral set-up, a classic rock set-up, or three basses and a tuba.
I digress. What I’m trying to say is that genres are not definitions. They’re categories. They’re ways of putting together things that are similar. They shouldn’t be something you just use. You shouldn’t say, “I’m going to play ska,” or “I’m going to write a science fiction novel.” The entire idea that you should use genres to dictate your ideas is ridiculous. You should use your ideas regardless of whatever mold larger society says they should fit into. Hyrotyr could be called an SF setting, because there’s decently high technology. But it could also be called fantasy, because characters can use their special abilities and mess stuff up. Or even speculative fiction, if I reveal it as a “what-if” story about human development. Or a psychological horror story, if I reveal that maybe Valens is trapped in a CIA tirture facility and is hallucinating the whole thing. If a line becomes blurred enough, it isn’t a line anymore.
And then, if you zoom out further, and get into things like nonfiction versus fiction… well, there is an argument there, because you could say that maybe there’s only one real sense, and it’s really all just information, know what I’m sayin’? You feelin’ me? Yeeaahhh…
Well, I’m not going to argue that, because I’m not a new age hippy. I think that once you get to that point, genres stop being important. They’re just facts. You can argue that Lord of the Rings is speculative fiction, but you can’t say it’s nonfiction unless you’re one of those hardcore Tolkies. Basically, the idea that there are genres that your work has to fall into is ludicrous. Do your own work, not what other people want you to do. It’ll be better.
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