Fiction and Generic Consciousness

In contemporary times novels are divided neatly into genres for the reader’s convenience, or should I say the market’s. In book-stores books are generically divided so that buyers can reach their desired novels without having to prick their minds. This division helps because few have the time to go through so many novels to reach the ones of their choice. But the help that comes by this arrangement has far reaching effects when it comes to the quality of fiction being produced. Authors have to be conscious of the genres they need to be writing in to fit a certain slot of the book-shelf space that is readily reserved for their books. They have not only to think of whether they would write a thriller, adventure, fantasy, mystery, paranormal, horror or a novel that falls under the category of science fiction but they have to worry about whether the market of a particular time demands a paranormal mystery, a horror mystery, a literary mystery, or a science fiction thriller, paranormal science fiction, a science fiction fantasy or any other sub-generic combination of these. Generic requirements put constraints on novelists to write to order as it were.

Writing these novels is similar to providing dishes that have been cooked in accordance with very specific recipes that are standardized and given the approval of the general palate.  The scope of experimenting with newer tastes is reduced to a minimum when the general gets precedence over the particular. Standardization is the bane of our times. It kills the soul of genius.

A novelist who has struggled to complete a novel, sometimes in more than four or five years (my novel, The Tailor’s Needle, was written in seven years) would not like it to lie in a slush pile just because it has not been written to order. He would therefore seriously consider changing the particularities and allowing the standardizing generalities to enter his work. It is only after his talent has been accepted by the market that he can start putting his particular vision, taste, indeed his soul into the making of his future novels. The process of standardization of the literary genre can be soul killing.

Sometimes a multi-generic novel can be richer because it has a completer picture of life in it. It is difficult to put some of the greatest novels into neat generic divisions. Who can think of putting Dostoevsky, Tolstoy or Dickens into genres? I do not claim that the multi-generic nature of a novel makes it great. But I do feel pained if a novel like The Tailor’s Needle does not find an appropriate slot of book-stores to fit into.