-TimK

A similar thing happens in linguistics, speaking of words and their meanings. Linguistics is the study of language. When a linguist talks about the meanings of words, he’d say, for example, “In this sentence, the word board refers to a wooden plank, a two-by-four.” He doesn’t talk about what a word “means,” as a layman might, because each word has ranges of meaning, and when these ranges of meaning come together in a complete sentence, only then can they refer to specific objects or concepts. But laymen commonly confuse meaning and referent, as though the two-by-four were the “meaning” of the word board. It isn’t. If you have doubt, look up board in the dictionary. That particular sequence of letters has dozens of meanings, each of which can refer to a whole host of things.

The same thing can happen when we talk about genres, or any marketing category, if we’re not careful. A genre, like a word, has a range of meaning, in which a range of stories (referents) can fit. And as we can confuse the word’s meaning and its referent, thinking they’re the same thing, we can confuse a genre and the stories that fall in it. In reality, a word only takes on a concrete referent within the context of a sentence, and a genre only includes a story within the context of a sale.

This may seem like a picky distinction for me to make. But failing to make this distinction is one of the things that holds back industries, or at least the establishment players in an industry. Take podcasting. The newcomers don’t know much about broadcasting, but we have plenty of time to learn, because the establishment isn’t going to move on us for some time. They’re too caught in the old way of marketing the goods.

One short story to demonstrate what I’m getting at, courtesy of Peter Drucker, from his book Innovation and Entrepreneurship. In the ’50’s, Macy’s, the number-one New York department store, faced a problem. They were selling too many appliances. So what’s wrong with that? Appliances had a larger profit margin, fewer returns, and less pilferage, compared to clothing sales. But you see, in that kind of store, it was considered normal to have appliance sales account for only about 30%. Macy’s saw double that, Customers used to come in to buy clothes, buying applicances only as an afterthought; now the opposite was occuring. And the only thing Macy’s could think to do was to sabotage appliance sales, to push them back down to the normal levels.

Bloomingdale’s, on the other hand, at that time number four, saw that the market had changed. They took advantage of this change and skyrocketed to the number-two spot, unseating all the contenders inbetween.

Peter Drucker writes, “The Macy’s story will be called extreme. But the only uncommon aspect about it is that the chairman was aware of what he was doing. Though not conscious of their folly, far too many managements act the way Macy’s did. It is never easy for a management to accept the unexpected success.”

-TimK

There are some authors that can successfully transcend genres and defy easy classification. but those are few and far between.
Seeing genre classifications as a springboard into whatever strikes your fancy is a brilliant start. i’ve given up on asking for my personal perfect combos, so instead, I look for books I know will have at least one aspect I enjoy. If they do more than one, and do it well, all the better.

In summary, i don’t think we’re at too opposing ends of opinion.

A final note: space opera is a genre in its own right nowadays, as a sub-genre of sci-fi.
Sub-genres are insanely confusing (and shifting)… But at least you know what you’re getting. ^_-

Thanks for plugging my show!

~Kiki