Genre-bending
So earlier this week I post the movie trailer for Take Shelter and that spawned an interesting discussion.
Later we considered the possibility that there is an interest in exploring mental illness in stories tied to the zeitgeist.
Today let’s look at another topic that arose in the conversation about Take Shelter. About the movie Darren McLeod said: “Kind of like a thriller take on Field of Dreams, perhaps?”
To which I replied: “Yeah. It’s Field of Dreams meets Psycho!”
To which Teddy Pasternak responded: “If you build it, they will die!”
Okay, that’s clever, but it’s more than that because it raises the subject of genre-bending, where a writer takes a story concept and switches its genre. If Field of Dreams is a fantasy-drama, bend the genre to psychological thriller and you get Take Shelter.
Bend the comedy What About Bob (a patient injects himself into life of his therapist) into a thriller and you get the set-up to The Sixth Sense.
Bend the drama The Verdict (an underdog lawyer takes on a case in which he’s over his head) into a comedy and you get something like My Cousin Vinny.
Bend the comedy Real Genius (teenage geniuses deal with their abilities) into a drama and you’re in The Social Network territory.
Here are the eight primary genres the Hollywood movies studios traffic in:
Action
Comedy
Drama
Family
Fantasy
Horror
Science Fiction
Thriller
As a brainstorming experiment, take one of your own story concepts, and genre-bend it into each one of the above genres.
In fact, it might be a fun exercise to play around with genre-bending here. For example here is the IMDB plot summary for this summer’s hit comedy Bridesmaids:
Picked as her best friend’s maid of honor, lovelorn and broke Annie looks to bluff her way through the expensive and bizarre rituals with an oddball group of bridesmaids.
How could we make that a thriller? How about action? A drama. Or maybe fantasy.
See you in comments for some genre-bending!