Genre Formulas: Are They Good or Bad?

If you’re a big reader, you’ve probably noticed that most genres have a formula that nearly every author stays within. For romance, it’s boy meets girl (or girl meets boy), they’re attracted, they have issues, they resolve the issues, they live happily ever after. For a cozy mystery, it’s person (usually female) in a non-crime-related career stumbles across a dead body and for one reason or another, decides to get involved in the investigation – usually to the chagrin and grudging help of the police detective in charge of the case. (Inevitably, that non-crime-related heroine participates in at least one action that, if not for the fact that she was firmly rooted in fiction, would end up with her arrested, dead, or both.) Legal thrillers have the lone ethical lawyer against the world. Political thrillers have the single former-military hero (here he’s usually male) who gets results regardless of the rules he has to bend and the conflict of the powers that be turning a blind eye to his actions in exchange for those results.

Point being, once you see the genre of a book – you generally have a pretty good idea of what you’re going to find within the pages. But what authors have to do (and sometimes we struggle, and other times we’re more successful) is keep the story fresh even as we stay within the confines of the rules. Cause if you want to be published by a traditional press, you’re going to have to follow the rules until you’ve got a big enough name (and therefore following) to break them and get away with it.

As a reader, I enjoy knowing what I’m going to get. I don’t tend to be put off by the “predictable” nature – if I pick up a romance, it’s because I want that happy sigh of two people overcoming the odds and falling in love. If I pick up a thriller, I’m looking for those heart stopping moments when I wonder how he’s going to manage to get out of this one without facing political repercussions.

For me, what keeps it fresh is a refusal to fall into a rut even though you’re following the rules. There are some authors I read (and still enjoy) who I know book 1 of the series will be the brunette and it’ll have x, y, and z conflict. Book 2 will be the blonde, book 3 the redhead. And sure, sometimes the predictability there gets a tad tiresome – but I still pick up the books when I want that comfortable guarantee. Because on the flip side, there are authors who throw in twists–probably in their quest to keep it fresh–and then…I feel cheated. The book didn’t follow the formula and, unless it’s done really REALLY well, it messes up that happy sigh that I’m looking for at the end of the book. (I’ll never forget a book I read by a new-to-me author, billed as a romance, great chemistry between the characters, but one was a Christian and one wasn’t. And rather than having the non-believer come to Christ, the author had the other character walk away. And yes, absolutely, that’s what we should do in real life, but I just don’t think you can bill a book as a romance and end with the lovers exiting in opposite directions.)

So what about you? Do you find the formulas comforting? Or are you looking for the next big avant garde novel? Or do you fall somewhere in between?