Genre is knowing which manners to mind

Two things got me thinking about genre yesterday. First, while rereading Clive Thompson's article about science fiction in Wired, I noted his observation that readers of Wired magazine wouldn't know the distinction between many genres.
(http://www.collisiondetection.net/mt/archives/2008/01/why_scifi_is_th.html) He's probably right. Readers don't need to know exactly where to shelve a book. But writers do need to know what the major genres are because publishers do. The second thing that got me thinking was a comment someone e-mailed me describing Agatha Christie's successful use of the unreliable narrator in her book, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. Another poster, an avid mystery reader, had added a good tip to Mr. Brean's plot formula. What I realize is that while people may not know the names of all the types of genres or all the conventions, they do know what to expect when they read one! Now this is a bit like taxonomy, so bear with me! On the top, you have mainstream fiction and genre fiction. Mainstream fiction is general fiction, best-seller style. It is popular, usually plot-driven, not specialized. Some people give Literary fiction its own category, others lump it in with general fiction. Literary fiction is known for allowing authors to explore style and character and be a bit experimental. Now, on the other side of the chart is Genre fiction. It is sometimes (and not always in a nice way!) referred to as "formula" fiction. In other words, there's an understanding about how the novel will unfold if it is within a genre. Some of the genres are: Romantic, Mystery, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Historical, Suspense, Horror, Western, Christian, Adventure and Young Adult. While I think absolute beginners do best to focus on one at a time, many good books blend two genres. If you are a voracious reader of any of these styles, you may have noticed that they have similarities. Those similarities are the rules of the genre that the writer followed. These rules are not arcane or top secret. Most publishers and editors have guidelines. I'll cover most of the most popular formulas in future posts. There are even rules for the genre of blogging. One of them I am at risk of breaking: brevity. So, I will break here and let you get back to your writing!