ABSTRACT
As with most terms possessing both informal and formal meanings, genre is
often used casually by people who see the term as having to do with recognizing
families of texts with common plots and structures. This creates a problem for
us. If we follow that traditional description of genres, we find ourselves with no
rhetorical tools for describing them. If I say “mystery,” everybody might think
they know what I am envisioning, but that is not possible. What they are doing
is projecting their own visions onto my statement. The problem is that some
people are imagining traditional mysteries, others are envisioning male-bonding
stories, while others might have just read a horror story with a mysterious bent.
If I attempt to define a good mystery, I am out of luck because the word mystery
is simply too big. I can pare it down to “traditional mystery” or “sci-fi mystery,”
but even these terms are too broad. Worse, if I am trying to describe a genre
of one, this definition does not permit it to exist. If I name genres, I have very
limited vocabulary for discussing them. As professionals, we need tools we
can use, and that traditional definition of genre isn’t the right tool.
