The Genre Scam

"I want to read a romance."
"For who?"
"Young adults."
"What kind of romance for young adults?"
"One that won't make me cry."
"So you want a YA rom-com?"
"Yes, but I want the guy to be taller than the girl and for him to fall in love first."
"So you want a he-falls-first, height-difference, YA rom-com."
"Yes."

And so the cycle goes on. In the modern day and age of genres, we can define the book we want down to every last detail. This is due to the abundant normalization of genres, sub-genres, and tropes. While the trope-ification of books stems mostly from the surge of readers on TikTok during the pandemic, genres have been around for a long time. We use them to define movies, music, and most especially, literature. But when it really comes down to it, what is a genre?

Genres Define Reader Demographics

The obvious first answer is an age rating. Children's, Middle-Grade, Teen, Young Adult, New Adult, Adult, etc. These are the genres that divide up libraries and bookstores, and they lead us to age-appropriate reading. However, these categories overlap, especially when it comes to the grey area of the young adult genre. This is a topic that has been filled with controversy in recent discourse, as content written for adults is repeatedly marketed to young adults. The issue with this is that the audience of the Young Adult genre is mostly equivalent to that of the Teen genre. This means teenagers and children are being marketed books filled with content that is sexual or otherwise adult in nature, leading to the rise of the New Adult genre, which was designed to bridge the gap between content and writing style. However, New Adult hasn't reached a substantial enough popularity to actually be effective in shifting Adult content out of the Young Adult market. In short, there is a huge overlap in the content of demographic-based genres. 

The only other way for demographic-based genres to function is for their divisions to be set in writing style, rather than content. An author can certainly put a bomb or fire in a Middle-Grade book, but would violent events like that be written the same way in a Middle-Grade book as they would in an Adult book? The answer is no. To this end, while the content of demographic-based genres overlaps, their writing styles and the way that content is presented can be quite different. The only problem with demographic-based genres being divided by literacy alone is that most adults read at a 7th or 8th-grade level. This would leave us with only Children's and Middle-Grade books, which is why demographic-based genres are separated using a steaming mess of content and writing divisions.

Genres Define Content

The more familiar definition of a genre is that of a category that defines what the book (or other media) is about. This is where we get into Romance, Mystery, Fantasy, Non-Fiction, etc. These categories are arguably the most useful for choosing a book, as they give you a vague idea as to what the plot is about without spoiling it. They are also the most prone to subgenres and overlap, such as Historical Mystery, Rom-Com, Thriller, Gothic Fiction, and Romantic Fantasy. While the divisions between plot-based genres are pretty clear at the surface (a romance is about people falling in love, a fantasy contains magical or fantastical elements, etc.), their divisions are so definitive that it is hard to fit a piece of media into just one of these categories, hence why we have overlaps such as Romantic Fantasy (where people fall in love and there are magical elements). 

Classics are Hard to Classify

There is also the genre of Classics, which is often tossed in with plot-based genres like those discussed above. However, the term Classics simply refers to a book that is old, usually with societal impact, and generally differing only slightly from books categorized as Canon. However, even though Classics are usually treated as a plot-based genre, two books both being Classics in no way means that they have even relatively similar plots. For example, Shelley's Frankenstein and Austen's Emma are both Classics, but they have wildly different plots. The term Classic at its simplest refers to the age of the book, similar to the way Contemporary books are set in the present or recent past. 

The reason the genre of Classics is often categorized as being a plot-based genre rather than a time-period genre is that in lots of cases we have nowhere else to put these books. While Austen's Emma or Pride and Prejudice could be shelved as Romance, these particular romances are so influential, genre-defining, and high quality that it could be practically an insult to shelve these alongside titles such as Grace's Icebreaker or Hoover's Ugly Love. The same goes for Shelley's Frankenstein. While it could be categorized as Gothic Fiction, Science Fiction, or even Horror, it could be a demerit to both the value of Shelley's work and the work of newer writers in those genres. 

There is also the issue of Classics that don't really fit into another genre. While most of Austen's work is clearly romance, what about books like Nabokov's Lolita, Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire, or Bronte's Wuthering Heights? To what plot-based genre do they belong? Gothic fiction? Romance? Psychological? It's hard to define works like these as anything other than influential and old. 

Genre Defines Format and Length

This establishes genres as demographic-based, plot-based, and time-period-based. While this may seem like a lot, the fact of the matter is that there's more. Yes, all of the above are used to define the novel, but literature comes in more forms than just the novel. So much so that the novel itself becomes a genre. Literature can also be categorized based on its length, as seen in the divisions between Epics, Novels, Short Stories, and Poems. Even within the categories of Novel and Short Story, there are subgenres, such as Novella and Flash Fiction. Length-based genres provide yet another lens for the division of literature. 

Genres Don't Actually Exist

With all this variety, there still isn't an answer to what a genre is. Is it a description of the demographic, plot, time period, length of the work, or some mixture of them all? No. The answer is this: A genre is just a marketing ploy. There is no standard or consistent definition because, in reality, genres don't exist. 

This is crazy, you say. No, I say, it's not. There's a reason most books overlap into so many of these genre categories, and that's because art cannot be boxed into one genre, no matter what type of genre that is. A book can't be only a romance. It's not even possible, because that romance has to have a target audience. Every work of literature must have a demographic-based genre. A book can't be only YA either. There has to be a plot, and where there's a plot, there's a plot-based genre. Within these plot-based genres, in most cases, it's simply boring for a book to revolve around nothing but a single plot line, with no tropes or arcs that allow it to overlap into another plot-based genre. 

If it is virtually impossible for books to fit into a genre, why do we try so hard to box them in? Because it makes people buy the books. Despite how strange and undefinable the genre landscape is, it's a huge marketing asset. It's screwed up, but it works. People buy things when those things are labeled. It helps audiences to find books they may like, and by guiding readers, it helps publishers to sell more copies. We categorize books because it makes them easier to label, and thereby easier to sell. Even those of us who desire intellectual reading become caught in this trap. We want to chase inspiring literature and abolish the wrongful labeling of our favorite authors, yet when we see "Intensely moving historical thriller" or some other enticing label, we click add to cart with hesitation. 

In short, genres don't make sense. They overlap, they mislabel, and the idea of a genre has so much variety that it's impossible to define. However, from a marketing standpoint, genres do exactly what they're supposed to. They make money. Because of that, publishers and readers alike still keep using them, and I expect we'll continue to use them for a long time still.