More on classic major genres...
BLOG SESSION
November 2nd, 2017
Afternoon Session
Welcome back Novelists! It is National Novel Writing Month, and we are all busy working on our Novels over on NaNoWriMo.org. If you are interested in writing a Novel this year during the month of November, then you are in the right place to learn more about writing a Novel in 30 days and enjoying the process.
If you were here for our morning Blog Session, then you have been filled in on some of the literary genres that many of the Writers and Authors are writing their Novels about. We covered the genres of Comedy, Drama, and Horror Fiction. While we have many Novelists following along, we also have Writers who are interested in writing for Film, Cable and Television. Keep in mind that some of the genres that we are covering spill over into Film, Cable, Television and Theatre.
This Afternoon we are going to cover more Genres. On our list are the following genres...
Literary Realism
Romance
Satire
Tragedy
Tragicomedy
Fantasy
Mythology
Literary Realism: is a part of the realist art movement beginning with mid nineteenth-century French literature (Stendhal), and Russian literature (Alexander Pushkin) and extending to the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Literary Realism, in contrast to idealism, attempts to represent familiar things as they are.
Romance Novel or Romantic Novel: Novels of this type of genre have a primary focus on the relationship and romantic love between two people, and must have an "emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending." There are many sub-genres of the romance novel including fantasy, historical romance, paranormal fiction, and science fiction. Walter Scott defined the literary fiction form of romance as "a fictitious narrative in prose or verse; the interest of which turns upon marvellous and uncommon incidents".
If you take a look at the above chart with the five (5) Romance elements, they include:
1) Both the Hero and Heroine must be likeable;
2) The Hero and Heroine must be early in the story;
3) A barrier must keep the Hero and Heroine from finding
true love together until the end;
4) The romantic tension must be strong and gradually
increase throughout the book; and
5) The romance must come to a satisfying conclusion.
Satire: Satire is a genre of literature, and sometimes graphic and performing arts, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, corporations, government or society itself, into improvement.
[ILLUSTRATION: Scales of balance: Tragedy & Comedy]
Tragedy: Tragedy is a genre that combines a story of human suffering with a sense of audience fulfillment, and has its roots in ancient Greek theatre and is still associated with drama. Traditional tragedy portrays the protagonist's fall from high authority or renown to ruin, often predetermined by fate or driven by a tragic flaw.
Tragicomedy: Tragicomedy is a literary genre that blends aspects of both tragic and comic forms. Most often seen in dramatic literature, the term dramatic literature can variously describe either a tragic play which contains enough comic elements to lighten the overall mood or a serious play with a happy ending. Simply put, Tragicomedy as a genre is a play or Novel containing elements of both comedy and tragedy.
Fantasy: Fantasy is a genre that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary plot element, theme, or setting. Fantasy is primarily a genre of fiction set in a fictional universe. Often, but not always, fantasy is without any locations, events, or people referencing the real world. Its roots are in oral traditions, which then developed into literature and drama. From the twentieth century it has expanded further into various media, including film television, graphic novels, and also video games.
Magic and magical creatures are common in many of these worlds. Fantasy is a sub-genre of speculative fiction and is distinguished from the genres of science fiction and horror by the absence of scientific or macabre themes respectively, although these genres overlap.
The identifying trait of fantasy is the author's reliance on imagination to create narrative elements that do not have to rely on history or nature to be coherent. This differs from realistic fiction in that whereas realistic fiction has to attend to the history and natural laws of reality, fantasy does not. An author applies his or her imagination to come up with characters, plots, and settings that are impossible in reality. Many fantasy authors use real-world folklore and mythology as inspiration, and although for many the defining characteristic of the fantasy genre is the inclusion of supernatural elements, such as magic, this does not have to be the case. For instance, a narrative that takes place in an imagined town in the northeastern United States could be considered realistic fiction as long as the plot and characters are consistent with the history of the region and the natural characteristics that someone who has been to the northeastern United States expects; however, when the narrative takes place in an imagined town, on an imagined continent, with an imagined history and an imagined ecosystem, the work becomes fantasy with or without supernatural elements.
Fantasy has often been compared with Science Fiction and Horror because they are the major categories of speculative fiction. Fantasy is distinguished from science fiction by the plausibility of the narrative elements. A science fiction narrative is unlikely, although seeming possible through logical scientific or technological extrapolation, whereas fantasy narratives do not need to be scientifically possible. The imagined elements of fantasy do not need scientific explanation to be narratively functional. Authors have to rely on the readers' suspension of disbelief, (an acceptance of the unbelievable or impossible for the sake of enjoyment), in order to write effective fantasies. Despite both genres' heavy reliance on the supernatural, fantasy and horror are distinguishable. Horror primarily evokes fear through the protagonists' weaknesses or inability to deal with the antagonists.
Mythology: Mythology or godlore refers variously to the collected myths of a group of people or to the study of such myths. Myths are the stories people tell to explain nature, history, and customs.
Myth is a feature of every culture. Many sources for myths have been proposed, ranging from personification of nature or personification of natural phenomena, to truthful or hyperbolic accounts of historical events to explanations of existing rituals. A culture's collective mythology helps convey belonging, shared and religious experiences, behavioral models, and moral and practical lessons.
F R I E N D S
Until Our Next Blog Session ~
Keep your Novel on your mind
Peace, Love & Light
By René Allen
©Copyright - René Allen - 2014-2017 - All Rights Reserved
