Genre Fiction

10/15/2025

PREAMBLE: There is a lot of discussion in the world of writing about what Genre Fiction is or isn't. But one of the things that defines genre fiction is expectations of reader. Reader's expect certain elements--certain characters, tropes, plotting--in certain genre. Even if you are not a big reader of a particular kind of genre fiction, you most likely immediately know what I'm talking about.

For tonight's ICRN, I am asking you to work in small groups on the two fantasy short stories we read tonight (not the sci-fi one). What elements do the two stories share? In other words, what to do they have in common? What elements feel unique to each story, but seem, still, to be related to Fantasy?

The short stories we read, keep in mind, are considered "best" by somebody. So they are in a certain way exemplars, so are there ways that these short stories seem to defy the genre.

Once you've discussed the two stories for the above. Identify a third example from popular culture of any kind that you can point to as evidence that the meet the expectations of someone interested in this genre--fantasy.

POST: Write a group ICRN. Cover your group discussion of what elements seem central to the genre as you've identified them. Cover any things that you think play against type (if you see any). And, finally, include your discussion of whatever popular culture fantasy you brought into the conversation--be sure to identify it, how you encountered it, and where you made connections to the stuff we read for today.

And PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE: Make sure I see that you actually read the stories. Make sure you include enough detail so that I can tell.

2 Comments

Isabella, Glen, Paul

10/15/2025 03:15:45 pm

An element that seems central to the genre is that it takes place in a world separate from ours. They both take place in seemingly pre-industrial worlds, such as the folkloric setting with John Hollowback and the Witch (e.g., caravan of players, handmaking items) and the use of swords and ships rather than advanced weaponry and transportation in the Blade and the Bloodwright. There’s also the supernatural elements, primarily with women wielding magic. The witches have their spells and Wrath, the bloodwright, has her powers to heal and tear apart flesh. Both stories contain a sort of body horror. John has the hollow in his back and Wrath tears apart peoples’ bodies and then also absorbs Vaikan before becoming a part of the god-like creature at the end of the story. The stories subvert tropes as well. Vaikan is not the gallant hero who saves the day. He is deeply flawed, isn’t honorable, and doesn’t save anyone. The "evil witch" isn’t actually evil. She is just a woman who knows spells, helps other women who’ve been wronged or stolen from, and helps John heal. Both stories omit the struggle between good versus evil. The characters’ relationships and emotions are complicated and nuanced. For example, John wronged Lydia, but he appears slightly unaware. His healing is necessary to prevent other women from getting harmed.

We chose Star Wars for our third example. Similar to the stories we read for today, it takes place in a world separate from our own. It has the different planets people inhabit and the varying alien species that intermingle. There are supernatural elements, such as “the force,” which can be used for good or evil. The bloodwright’s magic is similar, having the ability to heal but also corrupt.

Ashley and Nina

10/15/2025 03:18:08 pm

Both fantasy short stories, The Blade and the Bloodwright and John Hollowback and the Witch, share similar elements that are specific to the Fantasy genre. One of the more notable elements is the concept of world building, which El-Mohtar and Leong accomplish from the very start of their pieces. Both stories started in media res, meaning that the story began right in the middle of some sort of action, however John Hollowback and the Witch’s action was as violently action-packed as The Blade and the Bloodwright. On a personal note, we found this to be a very admirable task that the authors complete within the short-story layout (some authors need hundreds of pages to do this, making their texts a lot drier and harder to immerse oneself into).

The world building in each story is emulated by the introduction of the locations and their level of familiarity with readers like by providing unheard of names that resemble what characters in the story call home, to their titles for their duties (which often stray from what is deemed typical for our regular human society), as well as names that are not typical to Western culture, which helps readers (especially western-located readers) really feel a sense of the foreignness of a fantasy novel. Leong placed a stronger emphasis on this foreignness, which built a stronger allure, for lack of a better term, to this world. Though “there are no islands between Taramong and Tereti Mo, no spits of sand they can set up camp on to rest and warm themselves” (Leong 176) as imperialism has run rampant, their names create distance between the imperialism happening in this fantasy world and the types that have run rampant throughout the real world’s history.

Ultimately, even though these worlds may appear so vastly different from ours, fantasy isn’t that far off from other genres of fiction, especially in its ability to capture the human condition. I’ve heard so many readers are averse to fantasy pieces because their otherworldliness can be intimidating, but if you strip it down, the messages are right there and relevant to our world. For instance, the witch simply says “‘You asked for help. I’m not sure you’re happier now than when you came, though, are you?’” (El-Mohtar 146). I found El-Mohtar’s lesson a lot more explicit and readable and though John Hollowback’s predicament is entirely fantastical, the lesson he must learn is not that different from characters in other genres of fiction.

A popular example of fantasy that we thought of when discussing fantasy is the A Court of Thorns and Roses series by Sarah J. Maas. There are many elements to the first book in particular that make it a fantastic fantasy novel; the world building (establishing the setting and the current state of the world as the characters know it), the connections to other popular fantasy and mythical tropes and stories (this one relating to the tale of Beauty and the Beast), and the animalistic take on how human-adjacent characters are characterized throughout the novel (having both human-like and animal-like qualities and vivid descriptors of each).

Genre Fiction

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