S2 Ep.22 Genre Expectations

Genre Expectations - Transcript

[JAMIE] I don't know if you've watched it yet. But that Explained on Netflix, it's like little mini docs.

[KARLI] No, I need you to send me that. And I need you to send me those TED talks you were telling me about because I keep forgetting.

[JAMIE] Yeah, the little mini documentaries, like some are better than others. But the one on time I suggest everybody watch because it's just really interesting. Especially after like, the ole uh...

[KARLI] The last several years.

[JAMIE] The last two years.

[KARLI] Listen, save your recommendations for the end, okay? The Two Cent Recommendation portion. We don't have any space in this free form podcast that we've come up with the structure all on our own, we cannot change it at any time.

[JAMIE] I feel like I'm just trying to help the world. [Karli laughs] I always like to emphasize my power, like I'm going to impact more than like, 30 people. That's probably more than I'm really reaching.

[KARLI] Oh, and then those people impact other people. You're such a humanitarian, for sure.

[JAMIE] I'm basically a philanthropist. [Karli chuckles]

[KARLI] Yeah, sure, mhmm.

[INTRODUCTION MUSIC PLAYS]

[JAMIE] Welcome to The Act Break, where we're talking about all things story.

[KARLI] Take a break from your creative endeavors and hang out with us.

[JAMIE] Have a little simulated human interaction.

[KARLI] Because internet friends totally count.

[INTRO MUSIC FADES]

[KARLI]  Hello, good insert time of day here. And welcome back to The Act Break, your third favorite podcast. I'm Karli or K.C. Ash, procrastinating writer extraordinaire.

[JAMIE] And I'm Jamie Redact. I don't even know what I am anymore.

[KARLI] [chuckles] That tracks.

[JAMIE] I'm just really excited that we're your third favorite podcast.

[KARLI] I know, right? I figured that was a really good number. We can't possibly be everybody's first favorite. There's so many good podcasts out there. We are potentially someone's second favorite. Maybe but probably not.

[JAMIE] I'm just happy to have placed. I'll take bronze any day.

[KARLI] Right? I was gonna say third or fourth. But I was like third sounds so much better.

[JAMIE] When like the reality is like a top 10. If we even broke anyone's top 10 I'd be pretty, pretty excited. [chuckles]

[KARLI] Right? Exactly. Like I'd be I'd be cool with number 10. Yeah, my standards are real low these days. [both chuckle] All right. All right. So let's get to the topic. Today we're going to have a bit of a discussion about genre and expectations therein. When you stroll into your favorite bookstore, and you walk to the science fiction section, what do you expect to see there probably like, space miners and aliens, right? [Jamie laughs]

[JAMIE] Space miners. [Karli laughs] You know how I feel about space miners!

[KARLI] I know you feel about them, which is why I had to bring it up. [Jamie sighs] You're welcome. Um, you know, fantasy, definitely magical unicorns, obviously. And you know, mysteries, like, Let The Bodies Hit The Floor. When you walk into the bookstore, you know what to expect when you're walking to a certain section, and what those genres are going to provide to you. They are a structure by which you know, a story is going to be delivered to you.

[JAMIE] Yeah, genre expectations help us pick books that we are more likely to enjoy. Because we are getting into something that we know, horror, I know that it's going to be a little more dark, a little more gritty. Science fiction, it's going to have some sort of weird thing that seems impossible, but maybe it's possible. I don't know. Romance, somebody's going to fall in love.

[KARLI] Get their heart broken, and then put it back together again.

[JAMIE] Yeah. And when you like a certain type of book, genre expectations help you just find more books that you're going to like like that.

[KARLI] Absolutely. It's a signal to readers. It's like a forecast of what to expect whether star showers or a bloody hurricane.

[JAMIE] Eek. [Karli laughs] Sounds like a bad way to go.

[KARLI] I figured you'd like that. So within that, as readers, we have expectations of our genres. We go in wanting something specific.

[JAMIE] I rely on genre expectations because I do read genre fiction 90% of the time. You mentioned space miners, [both laugh] which is like a running joke we have because for a long time, all of the science fiction's I was picking up set in space seemed like everybody was mining some planet for its resources. And I just got really sick of the trope. And so we always joke about that.

[KARLI] She did. She was—she rage quit a few a few things for that.

[JAMIE] I've have to talk to one more space manner. [Karli laughs] Oh my gosh. But when I feel like I'm in the mood for something dark. I know that there's like suspense-thriller that's gonna give me what I'm in the mood for. So, mood reader is like a big thing in the community where it's like, I can never set a TBR because I don't know how I'm gonna feel.

[KARLI] Yeah.

[JAMIE] Genre expectations. Help the mood reader pick up what they want to read.

[KARLI] Absolutely.

[JAMIE] Yeah. Because it's like, I want an adventure.

[KARLI] Exactly.

[JAMIE] I want a romance. I want to be, I want to get hurt. I want to hurt inside. [laughs]

[KARLI] I want to walk away questioning my life. Yeah, absolutely. So having those expectations help you know whether or not you're going to be satisfied by that book. Usually, obviously, there's hopefully, obviously there's exceptions to that. But we'll get to that later. [chuckles] Obviously, some readers have more rigid expectations than others, which is where it gets a little bit squishy, I think. But as writers, we want to meet certain expectations within our genre.

[JAMIE] Yeah, on the writer side, I feel like genre expectations become much more important, much more important, because that is a promise you're making when you pitch your book as a mash up between this and that. There are things like, okay, like, let's try and put an example together. It's a mash up. Game of Thrones meets The Sopranos. So then, I'm automatically going to be like, alright, I expect it to be fantasy, maybe dragons. And then there's going to be a family involved, where they have like a family business of—

[KARLI] Crime lords of some kind, maybe. It's probably going to be gritty and violent. And yeah, absolutely. So it's like you can pick out those things. And know, the general things that are going to happen without the entirety of how it comes across.

[JAMIE] Yeah, well, the thing becomes, if you're going to pitch something that way, that tells the reader these expectations are now implemented onto the story.

[KARLI] Yeah, subconsciously, most of the time.

[JAMIE] That will also dictate how you market it, all these things become exponentially more important as a writer than really as a reader. Because as a reader, you're just like, oh, these helped me decide what books to pick up. But as a writer, you're trying to make good on promises, hook people, get more books sold, honestly.

[KARLI] Yeah. I mean, because as a writer, it's our job to tell a story plain and simple. Like that is our goal, to tell a story. And obviously, what kind of story we choose to tell is, is up to us. But if you walk in with no concept of genre expectation, that you're going to have a hell of a time marketing it, whether it's to an agent, because [chuckles] you best believe that's marketing. And or, or whether you're marketing it yourself, because you're self publishing or something's squishy in between. You have to understand what your genre expectations are, in order to market what you've written. I used to get really hung up on genre expectations. Let me take that back. Just do—roll that back. I still in my first draft get hung up on genre expectations. And it freezes me. But really, like that's something for the editing, when your next pass, making sure that you're meeting certain marks when you take a step back and look okay, like, what is this thing that I wrote? I mean, I have a vague idea. But I need to go back through and make sure like, is this actually the genre that I set out to be? What are the sub-genres that have either, I've purposefully put in or have trickled their way into I want them there. All of that.

[JAMIE] Yeah. Especially in the marketing of it. I feel like that's the easiest place to go wrong the fastest. All the things I've seen on online, like if there's things that they warn you against, it's marketing to the wrong group of readers. That's what you need people to read your stuff before, which we say all the time.

[KARLI] It's so true.

[JAMIE] Then it also becomes the battle of making good on the promises that you've given so that people feel satisfied enough that they are giving you good reviews, or not tearing you up like I picked this up thinking, you know, on the back cover, it tells me figure out the mystery [Karli laughs] of who murdered this person, along with your characters.

[KARLI] She's ripping on one of my favorite books again, we already did this episode!

[JAMIE] Well, if somebody didn't hear it, let me tell them whether it says it If it says on the back of the book, [chuckles] figure out who murdered this person. And by the end of the book, you're like, oh, it's they're not murdered, and I didn't get all the information—like it doesn't—

[KARLI] I couldn't possibly have figured it out.

[JAMIE] You literally made it impossible. And it didn't happen, how can something not happening be a sign?

[KARLI] [chuckles] You're not wrong.

[JAMIE] And that's not to say that when you go into writing a story that it needs to be cookie cutter, copy, paste, it does not have to do that. We're gonna get into the subversion of genre expectations in a bit, but it needs to be just the right amount. And that's part of the balance. And that's part of editing, that's not something you're going to achieve first go. Sometimes it's not something you're going to achieve your fourth or fifth go around. It's just something that has to balance over time. You just have to write it first.

[KARLI] Taking practice. Yeah, absolutely. Because with genre expectation, readers want certain things from a genre. But if you give them cookie cutter, if they're going to walk away going, it was fine.

[JAMIE] It was like every other one of these types of books.

[KARLI] It was like every other one of these types. Exactly. Exactly.

[JAMIE] And sometimes you want that. And sometimes you don't.

[KARLI] Yeah, absolutely. And there is something to be said, for reading a book that you can predict. Sometimes I want that and need that in a comfort read when I'm feeling a certain kind of way.

[JAMIE] Mhmm.

[KARLI] And I genuinely enjoy a good cookie cutter from time to time. But the books that really stick with me and that really have a lasting impression are the ones that found a way to subvert my expectations of the genre.

[JAMIE] And to quote the quote from somebody who's quoting somebody else, and I couldn't figure out I couldn't I didn't.

[KARLI] You couldn't place it.

[JAMIE] Let's not lie, it's not that I couldn't find it. It's that I didn't take the time to go and look for it.

[KARLI] That tracks.

[JAMIE] But it's give them what they want, in a way they don't expect it.

[KARLI] Mmm. Yeah. Howard on Writing Excuses Podcast always talks about canned green beans and making them taste fresh.

[JAMIE] Good metaphor.

[KARLI] Yeah. It's good to set expectations as a writer, this is what you're gonna get. This is, this—I mean, that's really what your opening sequence is all about. You're setting up your story, you're saying this is what you're going to be in for. Is this for you? Is your your opening scene, really, I mean, obviously, all the way up to I think the climax, but even just the first scene, if people aren't into the first scene, they're going to put it down. So if you subvert all of the genre expectations, then you're no longer writing that specific genre.

[JAMIE] Right.

[KARLI] You can't subvert everything. It is a challenge to find the right things to subvert and the right things to leave in place. When you're writing something, do you have ideas of—like how, how do we decide what things to leave and what things to subvert?

[JAMIE] So I look at it this way. Let's say that doesn't matter what genre it let's just say you're writing genre fiction, we'll call it science fiction. Because usually, that's what I say, even when I'm talking about something else, because my brain automatically says science fiction. [Karli chuckles] Let's say that there are five things that you need in a science fiction, to to have expectations met. This is just, I'm just really randomly thinking off the top of this. So don't tear me up anyone. You need a likeable protagonist, you need a piece of technology, you need a antagonist who is evil. And there's a very specific thing I'm saying a likeable protagonist, some sort of evil entity. And at the end, you need a love interest, whatever, it could be anything. So you have five key points of a genre that you need to hit. If you are wanting to do something new, or twist something or change it. I would never suggest not reaching three of those key goals. You could change one or maybe even two. And it could be any of the one or two as long as you're still hitting the other three. So that's what I'm trying to say is you can't take away every column, you have to keep some of the columns in place. And you have to choose specifically, what's going to be the most impactful thing to change.

[KARLI] But even those columns that you keep in place, you can choose to look at them from an angle that that genre doesn't usually look at them from.

[JAMIE] Yeah, it whenever you're going about doing a subversion or trying to make it fresh, you don't want to go like you said, you don't want to go too far out. You don't want to go so far that you're no longer meeting any expectations.

[KARLI] Yeah, exactly. There are things that fit within a larger genre that go about it in completely different ways. But there's still that genre. For example, back to the future science fiction. It's also comedy adventure.

[JAMIE] Right. Right.

[KARLI] Okay. Then you have alien. Also science fiction, but that's horror. So it's like, just because it's science fiction doesn't mean that all science fiction looks exactly the same. And you can go about how you want to tell your story in completely different ways, based on your personal preference as a writer.

[JAMIE] Yeah, subverted expectations are on my mind a lot, because that's like, another quote is comedy is expectations subverted, you think you're gonna go left but you go, right.

[KARLI] Kansas City shuffle.

[JAMIE] Pretty much. In a good book, there should always be some sort of subversion in different aspects. And how you do it and what you do with genre expectations is up to you. There's no prescriptive advice that we could really give.

[KARLI] Because it's entirely I think, how people go about subverting expectation is part of writ—author voice.

[JAMIE] Yeah, it's a it's uh heavily influenced by style. Often.

[KARLI] Yes, absolutely. It's hard, because you want to be like, Well, if you just do these things, then you can successfully subvert expectations. But they're really unfortunate. I mean, unfortunately, like for our delicate writer egos, there is no formula for that. But also, fortunately, there isn't a formula for that, which is why we can constantly go into stories and be excited and surprised and all of these things. Because if there was a formula, then it would no longer be surprising.

[JAMIE] My structure writer brain, I think that there are right answers [both chuckle] in story and plot. And so that I feel like also has to do with when you can subvert and when you can make a good because sometimes to make a good on a promise, it's the wrong answer for the story. It's the wrong answer for the characters arc, or where you've ended up. So that kind of sometimes, it ends up being where I end up subverting is where, yes, this would normally be where the two people fall in love at the end, or their, this is where the final kiss would be. That's just using that as an example.

[KARLI] Sure.

[JAMIE] But because of everything that our protagonist went through, she's realized something about herself, and she needs to not be with this person now. The expectation becomes the wrong answer for the character. It just feels like the wrong answer. In my head of the story, it doesn't fit.

[KARLI] Which entirely comes into play with writer preference. You know, I mean, there are a lot of writers out there that would completely disagree with you, they'd be like, that means I need to go back and change my character's arc so that she can fall in love.

[JAMIE] So yeah, cuz that's, if you want to do that then you do that.

[KARLI] I like how you said I shouldn't say this. And then you said the F word. So what were you planning to say before? [laughs]

[KARLI] Exactly. But for you, you're like, well, then that can't happen. And that's why we get such varied results within a certain genre and where we get subversion of expectation, and they might choose to suffer expectation elsewhere, instead of in that moment, and that's the moment that they choose to hold true to the genre standard. At the end of the day, it's your book, write it however the heck you want. But also, take a moment and go look at your genre, check the expectations of that genre, and decide where you're going to say, yep, that sounds like a great idea. And where you're going to say—I probably shouldn't say that. [chuckles] Are you gonna say F*@% 'em, and do your own thing.

[KARLI] No, I was planning on saying it. I said it anyways.

[JAMIE] Okay. You leaned into it.

[KARLI] I leaned into it. Sorry. [laughs]

[JAMIE] That's okay. I'll figure it out.

[KARLI] She's glaring daggers at me right now, too.

[JAMIE] I'm just waiting for you to ask me about my recommendation. [laughs]

[KARLI] Oh, sure. [Jamie laughs] Sure. Sure. Sure. Sure. Yeah, I can do that. That's that would be good. That's at this portion of the podcast, insert recommendation here. Hey, Jamie?

[JAMIE] What?

[KARLI] Do you have a Two Cent Recommendation for us?

[JAMIE] I do. I actually have decided to do two.

[KARLI] Oh, two two cent recommendations you're getting. You're getting four cents worth of recommendations for the price of just one.

[JAMIE] Wow.

[KARLI] Nice work.

[JAMIE] We're really generous. Like I said, I'm a philanthropist. [Karli laughs] They're both going to be movies that I feel subvert but also hit on some of these things. And the first one is 500 Days of Summer with Joseph Gordon Levitt And Zoey Deschanel. You go in feeling like it's a romantic comedy, and many aspects of it feel that way. But subversions. And then it's a newer one that I actually just watched, and I'm sure a lot of people will be like, that sounds like a trash movie, but it was fun. And that's The Lost City with Sandra Bullock, Channing Tatum, [Karli gasps] and Daniel Radcliff.

[KARLI] I want to see that so bad! Oh, I saw the preview for that. Like, I don't care I'm in. I'm in. It looks ridiculous. [laughs]

[JAMIE] It was a really just like a fun adventure. But also had were you like, oh, I'm getting everything I would normally want out of this style of movie but subverted.

[KARLI] Yay, I love subverted expectation.

[JAMIE] I was surprised how much we [laughing] enjoyed it.

[KARLI] Nice. I'm so excited. Okay, well, thank you so much for listening. You can find us on Instagram @theactbreak_podcast on Twitter @theactbreak_. All of our other links are listed in the description of this episode. You can go to our website and sign up for newsletter. You can also find transcripts there. And if you're so inclined to support us more than just listening to us you can leave a review or check out our Ko-fi.

[JAMIE] Thanks for listening.