When i wanna watch a movie with a friend, i ask "do you wanna watch a horror/comedy/adventure movie?" this gives that friend a picture of what i mean and what im talking about. This applies to everything, from music to games to writing, to movies. When it comes to writing, genre is one of the first and most important things you must decide. It determines the shape of an entire project. Without following any type of genre, writing becomes unorganized.
So what is a genre? It is the categorization of any literature, art, or culture. It is also used to explain differences in styles. From writing a letter to writing a poem. just like Singing rock lyrics or rap lyrics, or what type of movie me and my friend should watch.
A good example of a genre is:
It is written for times magazine, so it follows a certain setup and looks a lot like other entries we would expect in a new magazine because it follows the same genre.
- Ron Rhodes
The researchers from "how people learn" talk about transferring information from one situation to another, this also applies perfectly to genre. As genres classify types of movies, we take information we know about previous movies of that genre and make associations to create assumptions on what the movie's plot line will be like.
When writing anything, there are three important aspects to think about before even starting. These are audience, rhetorical situation and genre. these three are all correlated, as changing one would effectively change the others. This idea follows the same rules of a math formula. If the director of a horror movie we wanted to watch wanted to appeal to 7 year-olds instead of general horror fans, he might not want to follow the normal horror genre. In fact, he might want to rethink creating a horror movie all together, as many parents wouldn't allow their young children to watch horror movies at that age.
Paul Auster, the American novelist, in his publication of "why i write" talk about different inspiration based stories that give people a reason to write. He ends with a story that allows him to always keep a pen in his pocket for autographs (another genre type!). Whenever this pen is used, however, whether it be for autographs or to write a great novel (he is a novelist afterall!) it will be writing some form genre.
So when me and my friend decides to watch Die hard 4.0, how do you think we got to that conclusion? Well, my friend used his knowledge of all different genre's he has seen in the past, and concluded that he felt like an action movie.... Which allowed me to list a few action movies i wanted to watch... Besides... how can you go wrong some some Bruce Willis (hint: you have to highlight it)
awwwwww the bruce willis didnt come out in white text :(
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