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Is this more of a common thing in Eastern work than Western? Maybe I've lost perspective, as for the longest time I've mainly been influenced by manga and light novels--specifically Seinin and other weird work like Boogieboop Phantom.

I've always preferred to read stories and visual novels that pay homage to but also defy genre classification. Like the collective story of romance, mystery, science fiction, fantasy, and historical episodes or of different genres.

I've always preferred to read stories with slice of life segments with the occasional horror episode or science fiction episode a much more commonly accepted within visual novels. Or in some way defy classification.

If the work you do isn't set in any particular time or space, rather can go everywhere at once: any time/separate three dimensional space, any genre, any character point of view like some of the JRPG anthology series I grew up with. It seems like this poses a multitude of problems for genre.

Such as with an epic fantasy that time travels, a relatively common thing in games I grew up with. Dragon Warrior series comes to mind specifically. Final Fantasy in fact in earlier games like FF3.

Better put: is limiting a genre as important in games as genre fiction.

Specifically talking about genre fiction like Epic Fantasy/Epic Science Fiction like Star Wars. Literary fiction is a whole other conversation and a half, what it is and what its merits are in the 21st century.

I think that blending genres isn't necessarily a bad thing; just another challenge that the writer has to address. But I also think that there's nothing special to games when it comes to this, because, from what I can tell, other mediums have the same struggles.

I think an important insight is to realize that genres aren't some predetermined categories that we use to sort out and label different stories; they're merely groupings of similar stories that share some of the same content, styles, and themes. When something falls outside of the established norm, it's not really an outsider - just a particular combination that isn't common enough to be easily recognized. In a way, that's a strength, because the stories automatically have more to set them apart from the rest. But that is the very same reason that they have to be created even more carefully, because there are no tried and tested setups that the creator can fall back on.

There's also a difference between simply blending genres, and shifting from one genre to the next. As long as the story clearly establishes the unorthodox combination of genres early on, and doesn't lead the audience to expect one thing and deliver something else entirely by the end, I wouldn't mind the mix, and would even welcome it warmly.

Tentacles wrote:Is this more of a common thing in Eastern work than Western?

Strange, I actually would've thought of it the other way around, mostly because when I hear about "genre-bending" in pop culture, the two people I think of are Edgar Wright and Dan Harmon. Different cultural reference points, I guess.

Kailoto wrote:As long as the story clearly establishes the unorthodox combination of genres early on, and doesn't lead the audience to expect one thing and deliver something else entirely by the end, I wouldn't mind the mix, and would even welcome it warmly.

I'd actually disagree with the first part of this sentence about having to establish genre at the beginning of a story.

Without spoiling too much, I played the VN Three Guys That Paint on these boards not long ago, and I was super-duper happy when midway through, the genre of the game started going in a very different direction than what I'd expected based on the introduction. Unexpected genre changes can be fun and exciting.

This is super unhelpful as advice and kind of tautological, but when it comes to genre conventions, it's been my experience as a reader that a good writer can do pretty much anything and get away with it, while a bad writer can take pretty much any good idea and mess it up.

I was curious about Dragon Warrior, though I just mean any story that has some elements that have (baring in mind the absence or presence of technology makes the difference) tends to be more the area of science fiction.

Actually the peculiar oddity I'm coming across now learning to write prose after a hiatus from VNs, is that I tend to set the world in the every day more these days rather than in the past or far flung futures.

So genres are some limiting factor that excludes other genre elements from stories?

Glad I know that now.:/

Like one of the strange things despite trying to write science fiction, is my friends who read my work have lately referred to my work as magic realism, yet I find this strange as in reading 100 years of solitude I don't get the similarity. I also do the waking/dreaming time thing, but more focused on how technology effects the dream time. It's a subtle difference, but the difference is there. Specifically how current technology negatively effects the perception of cultures more attuned to the mystery of the universe.

Or maybe I just feel funny as I haven't been exposed to much magic realism. Why call it that if I hadn't read it?

YossarianIII wrote:

Kailoto wrote:As long as the story clearly establishes the unorthodox combination of genres early on, and doesn't lead the audience to expect one thing and deliver something else entirely by the end, I wouldn't mind the mix, and would even welcome it warmly.

I'd actually disagree with the first part of this sentence about having to establish genre at the beginning of a story.

Without spoiling too much, I played the VN Three Guys That Paint on these boards not long ago, and I was super-duper happy when midway through, the genre of the game started going in a very different direction than what I'd expected based on the introduction. Unexpected genre changes can be fun and exciting.

Hmm... I'll have to play that game to see how it plays out. I still stand by my statement about keeping things consistent, although I'll admit that it's a personal opinion.

I tend to dislike things that are designed to trick the audience without simultaneously offering something else for betraying that trust. If you have a reason for doing it, and that reason is implemented well, then I can accept it... it's still a negative aspect, but in those cases it's offset by something positive. With regard to genres, there's very few cases I could imagine where switching things around serves a purpose. Maybe if you're using the juxtaposition to deconstruct something, or are using the tonal shift to reinforce a theme... but otherwise, I just don't see the benefit of it.

Kailoto wrote:I tend to dislike things that are designed to trick the audience without simultaneously offering something else for betraying that trust.

I think that's the key and I agree -- jerking the audience around for the sake of jerking the audience around is no good. But a deliberately disorienting shift in genre or tone can be an effective tool for the right creator.

I'd even argue that this is a fairly popular technique. In addition to Edgar Wright and Dan Harmon, these are a couple of relatively well-known people/things that are famous for unexpected shifts in genre or tone: Satoshi Kon, Charlie Kaufman, Chris Ware, Joss Whedon, Suda51, Daniel Clowes, "Bohemian Rhapsody," Hatoful Boyfriend, The White Album, Kurt Vonnegut, and pretty much any other writer who has (rightly or wrongly) been referred to as "postmodern."

It's not a technique for every creator (or every audience), but when it works, it can be great.

Well I think the main thing in my experience, is I'm finding my genre styles gradually change the more I write. And so even if I had originally started with science fiction (way back in 2008), my stories pretty much no longer resemble science fiction in the traditional way one might think of it. (High technology, philosophical plots, other traditional SF aspects.)

My current work has taken this odd slight fantasy like embellish within our own world turn. Like water that flows uphill, a city like Venis within the United States. But the essential aspects of my early science fiction is mostly the same. It's just set in our own world, instead of some secondary world. Oh and technology only about a year or two ahead of where we are now, to the point where calling it "science fiction" feels slightly disingenuous.

So I'm not sure how an audience would be receptive to that change.