Genre Conventions

Genre Conventions: Diagnostic and Generative Skill

You diagnose genre-level story problems and generate genre-specific elements. Your role is to ensure stories deliver on their emotional promises to readers.

Core Principle

Genre is a promise. The story must deliver on that promise or readers feel betrayed.

Elemental genres are about emotional experience, not bookshelf categories. A story set on a spaceship can be any genre. The setting is not the genre. The emotional experience is the genre.

The Eleven Elemental Genres

Note: Science fiction, fantasy, historical, contemporary are settings, not genres. A fantasy story can be mystery, romance, or thriller. The setting is where the genre lives.

The Genre States

State G1: Missing Genre Promise

Symptoms: Story lacks clear emotional contract with reader. Unclear what experience is being offered. Opening doesn't signal what kind of story this is. Readers don't know what to expect.

Key Questions:

• What emotional experience should readers have?
• In the first chapter, is the genre signaled clearly?
• Does the opening promise the emotional payoff the story delivers?
• If someone asked "what kind of story is this?" could you answer in one word?

Interventions:

• Identify the primary emotional experience you want to create
• Establish genre markers in the opening scene
• Check that your hook promises your actual story

State G2: Wrong Genre for Story

Symptoms: Story elements don't match the emotional experience being attempted. Thriller pacing with relationship content. Mystery structure with adventure payoff. Material fights against chosen genre.

Key Questions:

• What emotional experience are you actually creating?
• What genre would best serve this material?
• Is there a mismatch between what you intended and what you're writing?
• What genre would make this material sing?

Interventions:

• Align genre to material rather than forcing material into genre
• Consider whether your concept wants a different emotional delivery
• Reframe the story using the genre that fits

State G3: Genre Elements Misplaced

Symptoms: Right elements but wrong timing. Mystery clues all dumped at once. Thriller tension before stakes established. Horror dread without vulnerability setup first. Romance obstacle introduced too late.

Key Questions:

• Are mystery clues distributed for progressive revelation?
• Is thriller tension escalating or static?
• Is horror dread earned through vulnerability setup?
• Are relationship obstacles preventing connection, then releasing?
• Does wonder build through discovery or dump revelation?

Interventions:

• Use genre-specific pacing templates
• Map element placement against reader expectation curves
• Check that setup precedes payoff

State G4: Secondary Genre Undermining Primary

Symptoms: Subplot genre dominates main story. Romance overwhelms thriller. Humor breaks horror atmosphere. Idea content slows adventure. Reader can't find footing.

Key Questions:

• What's the primary emotional experience?
• Is the secondary genre serving or competing?
• When does secondary genre get screen time?
• Does secondary genre enhance or interrupt primary experience?

Interventions:

• Establish clear hierarchy of genres
• Contain secondary genre in specific scenes or subplots
• Use secondary genre to deepen, not distract from, primary
• Consider cutting secondary genre if it persistently undermines

State G5: Genre Without Required Elements

Symptoms: Mystery without fair-play clues. Thriller without ticking clock. Horror without vulnerability. Relationship without obstacles. Adventure without escalating challenges.

Key Questions:

• What are the non-negotiable elements for this genre?
• Which are missing from the current draft?
• Can they be added without restructuring?
• Are you relying on setting to do genre's work?

Interventions:

• Use genre requirements checklist
• Generate missing elements using genre-elements tool
• Ensure each required element appears before final act

State G6: Genre Cliches Unexamined

Symptoms: Genre elements feel tired. Reader predicts everything. Nothing fresh about execution. "I've read this before" response.

Key Questions:

• Which genre conventions are you using by default?
• Which could be inverted or transcended?
• Where can you deliver the genre promise unexpectedly?
• What would an orthogonal approach look like?

Interventions:

• Hand off to cliche-transcendence skill for Orthogonality analysis
• Audit each genre element for freshness
• Deliver expected emotional experience through unexpected means

State G7: Setting Mistaken for Genre

Symptoms: "It's sci-fi" when asked about genre. Worldbuilding without emotional core. Setting elements don't serve genre needs. Story would have no genre if setting were removed.

Key Questions:

• If you remove the setting, what genre is the emotional story?
• How does your setting enhance the genre experience?
• What would this story be in a contemporary setting?
• Is the setting doing all the work?

Interventions:

• Identify the genre beneath the setting
• Align setting elements to serve genre needs
• Ensure story has emotional throughline independent of setting

State G8: Ensemble Without Genre Assignment

Symptoms: Multiple POV characters with no coherent genre experience. Tonal whiplash between POVs. Reader doesn't know what to feel. Each thread works alone but they don't combine.

Key Questions:

• What's the umbrella genre for the whole story?
• Does each POV thread have its own subgenre?
• How do the genre experiences combine?
• Is there a dominant POV that sets genre expectations?

Interventions:

• Establish primary genre that all threads serve
• Assign compatible subgenres to each POV
• Map POV transitions to ensure tonal coherence
• Use ensemble elements to unify rather than fragment

Genre Requirements Quick Reference