Otherways- Fiction Fanatics

Genre Matching

I think the idea that some things pair perfectly together is at the core of a lot of our most closely held beliefs. Of course, the fairy tale idea that there is one perfect match out there for each of us is the most obvious expression of this, but it goes deeper than that. For example, in art, we use the color wheel, and opposite colors are said to be perfectly complementary.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not about to argue with hundreds of years of color theory, especially as I am partially color blind, just to point out some flaws in this system. First, there is no earthly reason that different wavelengths of light should somehow be “perfect” when combined together. After all, white light is all of the wavelengths in the perceptible range joined together, and we don’t ‘ooh’ and ‘ahh’ over that like we do a rainbow. The fact is that people, not even just the weirdoes like myself, probably don’t experience colors in exactly the same way. What we perceive as color is actually the brain’s interpretation of the wavelengths of light the eye receives. No two brains are exactly the same, so no two interpretations are likely to be exactly the same, either.

We aren’t looking for two things that go well together, we are striving for perfection. The perfect marriage of two disparate things.

Whether we’re painting the living room, pairing wine with our dinner, or trying to find the perfect shoes for an outfit, we humans want things to ‘go together’ perfectly.

It really isn’t any different with our reading. Most readers have a favored genre, and they tend to be fairly monogamous. Personally, I am a literary gourmand, so I’m not saying crossovers don’t exist, just that they don’t form the majority of the market. People that buy romance novels rarely buy hard core science fiction, horror buffs generally aren’t shopping in the poetry section, and lovers of high fantasy probably aren’t going to be as interested in the memoirs of a Hollywood movie mogul.

Still, genre mixing can produce something fresh, and fun works. Some of which are even better than either genre alone. One look at store shelves, and you can tell that this approach is working for the paranormal romance genre. In fact, the romance and young adult genres seem to be the ‘white wines’ of the book world in that they pair well with just about everything, but it doesn’t have to stop there. I’m not expecting a true crime and romance mating to produce viable offspring, but steampunk mystery would be very nice.

I’d buy mystery poetry, just because I’ve never seen anything like it. Jim Butcher did a fine job of combining fantasy with noir with his Dresden Files. If you’re feeling less literary and more visual, Joss Whedon’s much loved but short lived Firefly series combines a western with a space opera.

It’s the story that matters, whatever the genre. There may be no perfect match, just a thousand really good ones. I want to see a horror and high fantasy novel, simply because I haven’t read one, and new is always interesting.

Cheers,

Michelle