Fiction Genres

Casino Royale
(Fleming, 1953)

What makes it action/adventure?

• Search for a pirate treasure

• Traveling the seas on a ship

• Dangerous hidden agendas

• Introduction of the James Bond character

• Spying and intrigue

• Cold War setting

Quote

“The Hispaniola still lay where she had anchored; but, sure enough, there was the Jolly Roger--the black flag of piracy--flying from her peak.”

“It is pointless to say that this or that night was the worst of my life. I have so many bad nights to choose from that I've made none the champion.”

“History is moving pretty quickly these days and the heroes and villains keep on changing parts.”

A Midsummer Night’s Dream
(Shakespeare, 1595)

What makes it a comedy?

• Exaggerated situations: mistaken identities

• Light tone: puns and wordplays

• Comic characters: comic relief

Quote

“Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.”

“Evil in general does not sleep, and therefore doesn't see why anyone else should.”

“Methinks, mistress, you should have little reason for that. And yet, to say the truth,  reason and love keep little company together nowadays”

Hamlet
(Shakespeare, 1601)

What makes it a drama?

• Fleshed out characters

• Social comment on the excess of the Roaring Twenties

• The narration has a reflective style

• Tragic hero: Hamlet

• Internal and external conflicts

• Themes: revenge, betrayal and death

Quote

“I couldn’t forgive him or like him, but I saw that what he had done was, to him, entirely justified. It was all very careless and confused.”

“I always order the banned books from a black market dealer in California, figuring if the State of Mississippi banned them, they must be good.”

“Doubt thou the stars are fire;
Doubt that the sun doth move;
Doubt truth to be a liar;
But never doubt I love.”

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone
(Rowling, 1997)

What makes it fantasy?

Quote

“Well, you can go on looking forward," said Gandalf. "There may be many unexpected feasts ahead of you.”

“You seem a decent fellow," Inigo said. "I hate to kill you."
You seem a decent fellow," answered the man in black. "I hate to die.”
 

“I can teach you how to bewitch the mind and ensnare the senses. I can tell you how to bottle fame, brew glory, and even put a stopper in death.”

The Beauty and the Beast
(collected by Lang, 1889)

What makes it fairy tale?

Quote

“At first she was overjoyed that he would be with her, but then she recalled that human people could not live under the water, and he could only visit her father's palace as a dead man.”

"You're nothing but skin and bones!" said the witch, locking Hansel into a cage. I shall fatten you up and eat you!"

“Monsters are more effective than princes when it comes to keeping what you care about safe.”

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
(Boyne, 2006)

What makes it historical fiction?

Quote

“When things are simple, fewer mistakes are made. The most expensive part of a building is the mistakes.”

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.”

“What exactly was the difference? He wondered to himself. And who decided which people wore the striped pajamas and which people wore the uniforms?”

At the Mountains of Madness
(Lovecraft, 1936)

What makes it horror?

Quote

“...I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs.”

“In this cold, teeth can shatter after two or three hours—actually explode—sending shrapnel of bone and enamel flying inside the cavern of one’s clenched jaws.”

“What we did see—for the mists were indeed all too malignly thinned—was something altogether different, and immeasurably more hideous and detestable. It was the utter, objective embodiment of the fantastic novelist’s “thing that should not be”;”

The Hound of the Baskervilles
(Conan Doyle, 1902)

What makes it mystery?

Quotes

“But I know human nature, my friend, and I tell you that, suddenly confronted with the possibility of being tried for murder, the most innocent person will lose his head and do the most absurd things.”

“It’s an island, boss. They’ll always find us.” Teddy met Chuck’s eyes and nodded. For the first time since they’d met, he could see fear in Chuck’s eyes, his jaw trying to tighten against it.

“The more outré and grotesque an incident is the more carefully it deserves to be examined.”

The Notebook
(Sparks, 1996)

What makes it romance?

Quote

“For where all love is, the speaking is unnecessary. It is all. It is undying. And it is enough”

“Hush," he said. "I am asking you to marry me. Would you be convinced if I knelt down?”

“The romantics would call this a love story, the cynics would call it a tragedy.”

Foundation
(Asimov, 1951)

What makes it science fiction?

Quote

“Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.”

“Science is made up of so many things that appear obvious after they are explained.”

“Through hyper-space, that unimaginable region that was neither space nor time, matter nor energy, something nor nothing, one could traverse the length of the Galaxy in the interval between two neighboring instants of time.”