Genre as a spoiler

[SHiNKiROU]

Is it a good idea to make the genre of the work part of a spoiler? For example:
- In the 80% of a modern high school story (expected genre: drama), the problem is solved by a sudden appearance of magical powers (actual genre: supernatural/urban fantasy). (Imagine a writer who wrote himself into a corner and pulled off a worse-than-deus ex)
- In a medieval setting with magic (fantasy), in the end, magic is revealed to be alien technology (science fiction/science fantasy)
Then if you actually write these types of story, how should you (and the bookstore) categorize your work?

I think putting the genre in the backcover is as important as putting nutritional facts and allergy warnings on the back of the cereal box. It's a right-to-know business. I would not write the stories above.

(The TV Tropes article is "How Unscientific")

[TwilightOfTheSoul]

What decides the genre is not the facts, but the way in which the facts are presented. Therefore, in the example of "magic" being alien technology...as long as the bulk of the story focuses on it being "magic" then it is Fantasy, not sci-fi.

For example, take the story of Utawarerumono.

It is presented as a medieval tale with magic, but by the end of the story you learn that it is actually a post-apocalyptic world where the special abilities are based on long lost human technology. There are only subtle hints to this fact throughout the story, so the bulk of the time you are expected to treat it as a Fantasy Medieval story. I don't think anyone who has read/played it would argue with that, either.

For your high school example, I would say it depends on how strongly the supernatural stuff is tied to the plot, and if it is a prevailing theme or just something added in for flavor, as to whether it should be included in the genre consideration.

A relevant example to this point is Chobits.

It is presented as a school-life drama with elements romantic comedy and tragedy. There is one background element that ties it to sci-fi in the form of "Persocoms" (basically Androids with the functionality of PDAs) but the story otherwise feels very grounded in modern-day reality. While the existence of these Persocoms is a key element to the story, the lack of other sci-fi elements disqualifies it as sci-fi.

The only exception I can think of is in the form of potentially offensive materials. You want to avoid overly surprising people by failing to disclose elements that they may find reprehensible or sacrilegious. Please be honest about these things even if it may spoil your story, because the hit to your reputation will be much, MUCH worse if you surprise someone with something they have absolutely no desire to read about.

Overall, what do *you* think it should be labeled as? You have a point you want to make by writing it, so what kind of point is that and how to you intend to lead your audience to it? That is what you want to keep in mind. Don't offend people, but don't give away your climax before they've even started either.

[SundownKid]

Is it a good idea to make the genre of the work part of a spoiler? For example:
- In the 80% of a modern high school story (expected genre: drama), the problem is solved by a sudden appearance of magical powers (actual genre: supernatural/urban fantasy). (Imagine a writer who wrote himself into a corner and pulled off a worse-than-deus ex)
- In a medieval setting with magic (fantasy), in the end, magic is revealed to be alien technology (science fiction/science fantasy)
Then if you actually write these types of story, how should you (and the bookstore) categorize your work?

I would truthfully state the genre. I know that if I was reading the first book, and it turned into a fantasy story, I would feel betrayed by the author unless it made sense in terms of the story. As a deus ex machina, definitely not. However, if it was a magical realism story and they were searching for magic powers (which turned out to be real at the end) it would make more sense and be a cool twist. I would still put the genre there as urban fantasy.

In the second one, it's more arguable. But it would probably be characterized as science fantasy rather than just fantasy. Depends on how in depth the alien tech really is explained. However, if you go deep enough, probably all fantasy magic could be explained by pseudoscience of some kind.

[やまと]

What decides the genre is not the facts, but the way in which the facts are presented. Therefore, in the example of "magic" being alien technology...as long as the bulk of the story focuses on it being "magic" then it is Fantasy, not sci-fi.

I do not agree with you.

In my oppinion, the genre is defined by which aim do the characters want to achieve, never in how the story is told or pressented.

So for example, if we have a medieval world with swords, spells and ugly orcs, it could be a fantasy novel, for example, The Lord of the Rings, because the aim of the characters is to kill A, reach B, slay C and finally destroy D and the novel was written to told us how they battle and how the managed to destroy a giant eye.
Right now, if those characters from LOTR were aiming to fall in love with some hot Nâzgul female, even when they need to slay orcs, trolls and giant spiders, it would be a romantic novel because love is what the story is written for, not to relate their battles or their use of magic, even when they got related and detailed.

In both cases you may present the facts in a similar way, but one is a fantasy novel and the second one is a romantic novel pressented in a fantasy world, but afterall, a romantic novel.

Of course, a novel can embrace many genres if in each part of the novel the aim of the character changes. For example, Mario Bros, let's say he can rescue the princess in the very first map. This first map is a romantic thing. But after the rescue, he is trapped and must slay turtles and walking mushrooms to kill the big bully. His aim is the killing spree, not the love, so this will be now a action or fantasy thing, even when the maps, Mario Bros, the turtles and the fireballs are exactly the same and nothing has changed apparently.

In the second one, it's more arguable. But it would probably be characterized as science fantasy rather than just fantasy. Depends on how in depth the alien tech really is explained. However, if you go deep enough, probably all fantasy magic could be explained by pseudoscience of some kind.

Sciencie-Fiction. Like Star Trek. It is fantasy, does not exists, it is all invention. But it is based in some real science facts.

[TwilightOfTheSoul]

I can write out the exact same plot three times without changing a single fact. Using purely alterations in diction, I can change the entire feel and focus of the story. The same sequence of events can be a love story, a comedy, or a social commentary. Of course it would be all three regardless, but where the focus lay is in the diction, not the plot.

I believe the spoilers above support me in this as well.

[やまと]

I believe the spoilers above support me in this as well.

I never read those novels you tip us in the spoilers.

But in your first spoiler, of course it is a medieval-fantasy story or a Final-Fantasy-ish thing.
The player is always presented a fantasy world, medieval, with medieval weapons (again, i never read that novel), and the characters probably have something to be with achieve some magic power or killing the big boss or something similar.
Only at the end, the post-apocalyptic thing is revealed for both the reader and the characters.

But if you look closely, the characters are acting and probably aiming to a fantasy-medieval world goal (killing the big bully? saving the captived princess? finding the Orb of godlike magic?), so the characters actions made the genre, not the diction.

Lets take a well known story: Game of Thrones. At first sight, you may think that it is a medieval-fantasy tale, similar to LOTR where we read about two or more factions fighting each other to rule the world and be the king. It is dicted as a medieval story, with a lot of fantasy elements basically like LOTR, maybe even like COnan the Barbarian, with more protagonists and more complex. But it is not a medieval-fantasy story. It is more like a political-fiction thing set in a fantastic medieval world. The aim of both the characters and the plot is not to relate the battles, but the political relations between the kingdoms, the kings, the characters, and how they, using their political tools (call it war, diplomacy, arranged marriages, etc...) manage (or not) to be the king or the emperor or whatever political goal they want.

Definetely you cannot clasify LOTR like Game of Thrones even when they both have a similar diction.

In the school VN, if the aim of the characters is to fall in love, it does not mind how much magic, orcs, plasma weapons, Jupiter martians or gory content has. It is a romantic novel. Unless both the characters and the reader do not know what the aim/s of their actions are. But I think that is a different thing.

[Elmiwisa]

1. Comparing genre to ingredient list would be a bad analogy. Genre is more like section in the store, and the ingredient list should be compared to synopsis and character list. The main purpose of genre is navigating: people don't have time to search through a bazillion number of books in a book store, so genre is a tag to guide them to the section they are most likely to like. Just like people going to the seafood section if they want to find seafood, even if that section might not have all stuff that contains seafood as an ingredient. However, people would end up reading the ingredient (probably) to make their decision. VN is different: how often do you see one being made anyway? I am sure people have time to read through all the synopsis. Further more, people can't actually read the book before buying, but you certainly can provide a demo for a VN consisting of parts that is cherry picked to show what the VN is about.

2. How important is the spoiler? People seems to exaggerate the importance of avoiding any spoilers no matter what. Imagine this: let's say you have a murder mystery, but the murder don't happen until nearly the end of the book. Classifying it under the genre murder mystery immediately spoil that there would be a murder, but that is hardly the problem, since the importance spoiler (who is the culprit) are not spoiled. I can't imagine discovering magic being really science being a big deal. And your other example is not really a spoiler in any sense.

3. Science fiction and fantasy is basically the same pot really, so I doubt anyone are going to get issue with one thing being the other. In fantasy there is wand and in science fiction there is sonic screwdriver. Same thing, different name, and equally implausible. Just classify them as "speculative" and you are done.

4. Using "genre" is highly restrictive, since it also imply exclusion. Using "tag" is better, since it just means something is there. The moment someone call something "otome" you will immediately know what's there: single girl MC pursuing one guy among the whole array of guys as the main focus; you get that guy by focus on meeting him, raising his preferred stats, and choosing correct dialog options to increase affection point; there is a main branching point to focus on one guy somewhere in the middle, and another branching point near the end to get good or bad endings. There is very little deviation. It's simple, and thus anyone who is familiar with the genre immediately know what to do to get the ending they wanted, which make it an excellent selling point to anyone who prefer that format (and drive away anyone who get tired of it). On the other hand, you can simply tag it as "romance GxB" you just means that the MC is a girl and there is at least a possibility of romance with at least 2 boys. Everything else is still up for grab: for example the story might focus on a heroic quest, there might not be any main branching point at all (or there might be many main branching point not all being related to romance), you might have to be friendly to multiple guys to actually get to romance one of them, and the stats might not be related to romance at all.

[TwilightOfTheSoul]

Definetely you cannot clasify LOTR like Game of Thrones even when they both have a similar diction.

No. The diction in Lord of the Rings focuses the reader on the rich lore and glorifies the traditions and fantastical elements of Middle Earth. The diction in Game of Thrones focuses the reader on the tension of the world and doesn't try to glorify anything (or if it does, whatever has been glorified is doomed to fail in the most spectacular way possible).

I don't think either of those examples is similar enough to the other to be used for a meaningful comparison since the only thing they have in common is a "medieval setting" and "supernatural elements".

[SHiNKiROU]

For the genre vs tag thing, I found there are two ways to shift genres:
The "horizontal" shift, where a thriller turns into a romance, BxG adding BxB elements, slice-of-life comedy, detective fiction and/or medical drama. Any romance have scenes where comedy happen, and any thriller may get into a moment of medical drama. Maybe they are not shifts: they are additions.

Then there is the "vertical" shift, where boundaries are broken and a realistic fiction turns into science fiction, fantasy or alternate history, or any pair of four.