Sunday, June 11, 2023

Writing in a 'mode,' not in a 'genre'

corpse face

Marketers are fussy about genre boundaries, understandably. They have to know the audience to whom they're pitching the product, and they have to define the product for that audience. The boundaries are "imaginary," and artists don't have to enforce them. If the artist is also a marketer, that's another matter. But very often artists act like marketers without being aware of the conflict of values that can arise: Should they enforce these boundaries? Why? What if we think of certain features not as "genres" but as "modes" — there's a feeling, a tone, an approach, but not a firm category?

molly tanzer: Part of my dig-in over cozy horror being 'fine' is that as primarily a writer of SFF I have seen so many purity test discourses and they're (1) exhausting and (2) largely conservative. Policing these imaginary boundaries from within is doing the work of marketers, and it (1/7)
hurts only artists. I don't see the difference between horror must NOT be cozy vs science fiction MUST have actual science, vs fantasy MUST be heroic/hopeful, or have magic, or whatever. Art must not be defined by what it excludes. First of all, horror is a mode, not (2/7)
a genre. It can be applied, but never defined. Second, what feels cozy to some will be bleak to others, akin to what feels like hard science to some will be lite to others, and what feels heroic to some will be ghastly or even fascistic to others. Like--there are people   (3/7)
who spit 'grimdark' like an epithet, with the same moral disgust as people once said 'torture porn.' But the best, most 'hopeful' fantasy I read for @TheKitschies (IMO) would probably be marketed as grimdark. And most of the 'hopepunk' I've read  (4/7)
makes me want to quit writing and reading forever. And speaking of hopepunk, if we're circling the wagons it should be against those artists, fans, & critics who would seek to ascribe a morality (or gender!) to aesthetics instead of trying to herd only the correct cats (5/7)
around the campfire. I was thinking about this because I've been doing a playthrough of my favorite video game of all time, Dragon Age II, which for me is a total comfort text. There are also multiple online essays out there about how it is bleak, bankrupt, grimdark, etc. (6/7)
Who's right? Who cares? And to be clear, this isn't me wailing 'let people enjoy things,' it's more about not wanting to see artists forming Genre HOAs. We already have corporations telling us to make sure we weed our aesthetic garden beds so we can be more easily marketed. ~fin~

Tanzer's Patreon: patreon.com/toad_and_typing

Sadie Hartmann: Molly, I feel you. I'm disturbed by what we witnessed at a core level because the implications of telling readers and fans they’re wrong or don’t know how to talk about the genre they love is frustrating. I will do my best to welcome everyone to Horror on my book tour this summer
Mother Suspiria: Nuance is important- social media makes it impossible. Labels are *helpful* but EVERYTHING is subjective & language is fluid. How 'I' define Horror is my *opinion*- the prob w SM discourse is ppl needing to be 'wrong' or 'right.' Ultimately I'm for horror* against gatekeeping (shruggie emoji)
Mother Suspiria: *meaning anything w/ spooky or scary shades to it. I may not even personally agree with it, but I also don't care in the end- let it all sit beneath the giant horror umbrella. Let everyone have their frights however/whichever way they want
Sadie Hartmann: I mean, for me, if it means wider appeal, expansion of retail space in stores, and fuckin' more eyeballs on horror, people can relate to it however they want, I do not care.
Mother Suspiria: Right. Perhaps part of it is the proprietary feeling ppl have about horror because of how it's been perceived over the years by the mainstream. Maybe ppl genuinely don't WANT it to be popular, so they feel like they're in on a secret? (Just musing, on the oddness of it all.)

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