Genre is not a good sorting system.

          I am a chronic sorter. I love putting things in categories, terms, lists, and in general groups and sorting. It is one of my flaws as a writer that I get so obsessed with the organizing of the world that I forget that the world is disordered and illogical at the best of times. But this isn’t about my world-building. It’s about genre. The organizing system of genre that is. In film, books, and other forms of media, we have a poor system of organization, in my opinion. The Curtin system mixes groups and is overloaded with categories. There is Sci-fi, Romance, Fantasy, Thriller, Horror, Action-adventure, historical, non-fiction, and so much more, making it nearly unnavigable. And even then the genres themselves are so varied that you still can not tell what your getting into. Now, I am not one to openly complain about a subject without even a small suggestion for a solution. So here is my system of categorization.

             For starters there is non-fiction. Non-fiction, which is the one I put the least amount of work in and may change around for me in the future, is split into three groups. Historical, these pieces cover historical events and themes, they can center around historical figures but cannot center them as characters. Personal, these are biographical works centering around a persons life and who they are, how they felt, and what they did. Finally, there are Informational works that talk about modern subjects and are made to inform the reader.

             Fiction, for me, is far easier to categorize because it is the form of entertainment that interests me the most. For these groups, it can be split into four categories, each with subgroups that, overall, are easily understandable. These categories are Genre, Setting, Rating, and Style.

             Genre is the most fluid of the group. It is the main story structure and has loose tropes that are mostly suggestions. Its subcategories are Horror, Comedy, Drama, Romance, Adventure, and Mystery. A story can easily shift between these genres as you can be reading a romance that turns into a horror or an adventure that becomes dramatic. Most of these speak for themselves. They can also be wholly more than one genre

Horror: Written to induce fear from the audience and intensify the action.

Comedy: Made you make the audience laugh or make fun.

Drama: Big feelings in the story and the manipulation of the character's thoughts and emotions, usually very relatable or realistic situations. Usually, but not always, low stakes

Romance: the intention is to make the audience feel/want the character’s romantic exploits to be fulfilled.

Adventure: The intention is for the audience to feel excited and thrilled by the events of the story. Usually, but not always, high stakes.

Mystery: The writing intention is that the audience wants to see a mystery and that mystery at least be partly solved.

             The setting is less fluid and usually stays in the same setting from beginning to end. You can change over, but it will take considerable work and time. The setting is most linked to world-building and is often confused with the genre. The subgroups are Science Fiction, Fantasy, Mundane, and Historical. Now, these groups can be mixed together at the start, but if so, they must stay that way the whole time, and in most cases, they take place wholly in one or the other. These groupings are still very simple, and there could be more, but that would overcomplicate the categorization.

Science Fiction: Has advanced science that changes the whole of the world. It can take place in the future, but that isn’t required. It may take place in space or another dimension, the post-apocalypse, or a dystopian.

Fantasy: Has magical elements that play with the way we understand the world. This usually takes place in the past but can take place at anytime even mixing with Sci-fi they don’t even have to happen in our world.

Mundane: This setting is anything but. It takes place in our world at a fairly recent time to when it was created and can follow fake or real people.

Historical: This setting takes place in the past (the past from when it was created) and does not depict completely true events (it can have true events but it is not completely true).

             Rating is pretty simple. It is the intended age of the Audience. Adult, young Adult, Children, toddlers, and Infants.

             Style on the other hand is a little more complex. It is the creators want for the audience interaction level. The subcategories are Popcorn, casual, and close reading.

Popcorn reading: This is just filler it is for the audience just to get their fix of romance or sci-fi or other. They aren’t really out their attempting to make the audience think.

Casual Reading: This is trying to ingage the audience a bit more by making them really care about the plot and characters and attempting to have powerful scenes.

Close reading: Every word, scene, and choice that the creators made matters and the piece can be analized deeply. Also it will have a deep discussion of life, humanity, or just reality in general.

             Welp now that I got my categorization lists off my chest all you readers will know now that you will be subject to my thoughts on how stories should work. But onto news for the blog. This Thursday I will be releasing my first chapter to my web serial Heroes From. An anthology series about a superhero form a random city or place in my superhero universe of Impact. I will write eight to nine chapters for each story and switch over to the next group and city. This is for me to stretch my writing skills and world build my world. The first Story is Heroes from Lincoln where we follow Lone Wolf and his reintegration to the city he abandoned and to rekindle his life from before. It is a Action, Romance, Mystery in a Sci-fi Fantasy setting. Rated for Young adults and is supposed to be a casual read.

Thank you for reading. The short story chapter will take the place of Thursdays blog post so you can read my thoughts next Tuesday.