Choosing Your Genre From A Chinese Menu

The Chinese menu is arguably one of the best, if not one of the most confusing, ways to order food. The basic concept is that you have two or three columns of food, and you get to choose a number of items from each column based on the size meal you order. Interestingly, you can apply this concept to your stories in determining the genre of your story.

The Caveats

First, don’t make the mistake that a genre is all-encompassing. Too many beginners think that a genre has to touch on every aspect of the comic. It doesn’t. Just because your mecha comic has a running joke doesn’t make it a comedy; it’s only a comedy if the whole comic is supposed to make you laugh, not merely have points at which you laugh.

That is, while you may have pieces of all sorts of genres in your work, only go with the genres that actually define; usually, just go with the top three genres that work unless there’s a good reason for it.

Second, don’t feel that it’s limiting: Genres are wide open spaces, and you can always make up new genres. You can even go Chinese menu with it, where you combine genres that may have nothing to do with one another, such as fantasy/mecha/ninja. Have fun with it; there have been mecha westerns, medieval magical girl horrors, even futuristic magical soap operas. My personal combination has to be SF/Action/Adventuer/Detective/Cannibalism/Independent Film/Disco/Post Apocalyptic/Greasers/Hippie/Satire; “Radioactive Dreams” (Tagline: “Just your typical action-adventure-science-fiction-musical-fantasy in the post-nuclear world”) is a great movie!

Some Genres To Start You Off

Once you realize that genres are extremely general classifications, and that they are more for marketing than anything else, it’s easier to determine hich genres apply to your work. All it takes to be considered a “western” is horses, frontier, and a lot of desert. And even those are negotiable. So, without further ado, here are twenty-four genres for you to start with:

[I may have forgotten a couple; this is just meant to get you started!]

Column 1: The Entree

These are the main genres. They have a lot of tropes associated with them, and make a good place to start.

Comedy: The basic idea is to poke fun at conventions or just have fun. Not as easy as it sounds, and too many people try anyway…

Drama: Serious. Shakespeare/Greek Tragedy serious.

Fantasy: Involves magic and the issues created by magic. Usually b&w morality, but not mandatory.

Horror: Emphasizes on unnerving or scaring the reader. Generally allegorical, and can be Lovecraftian (psychological horror featuring other-dimensional beings), splatter (fear-factor depends on intense and messy physical violence), or thriller (straight psychological horror).

Magical Girl: A girl or group of girls with magical abilities that require some sort of transformation in order to become powerful.

Modern: The majority of the action happens in the modern era, or close to it.

Mystery: Drama with an emphasis on solving some sort of crime.

Romance: Most of the challenges and drama are based on two people finding each other and looking for a long-term relationship.

Sci-fi: Involves technology and the issues created by technology.

Western: Generally, looks like the American Southwest, with a B&W morality (or at least, evil actions have nasty consequences), and emphasis on storytelling rather than violence (although it can be highly violent, the emphasis is on story and symbolism). Technology is generally limited to transport and ranged weapons.

Column 2: The Side Dishes

These define the setting as well as the major additional tropes.

Action/Adventure: Generally B&W morality with an emphasis on action. There may be some philosophical musing, but the final showdown is on who survives, not who ascends.

Cooking: Most of the action happens at a restaurant or cooking contest. The food is almost its own character.

Hentai: Most of the challenges and drama are based on two people finding each other in weird positions and looking for a short-term relationship. Generally involves lots of graphic sex.

Historical: Could have happened; happens before the present day. Has no magic or tech that didn’t exist at that age.

Folklore/Mythology: The story is based on a folk tale or myth.

Medieval: It’s all about the knights and samurai, but idealized rather than how it really happened.

Prehistoric: The story happens in the far past.

Pulp: Generally, modern but exaggerated. It’s darker (no one is innocent and life is cheap), more violent, and heroes are more gray than white.

Steampunk: The setting is roughly based on an idealized Victorian era with some interestng technology.

School: The story is set at a school, be it high school, university, academy, or similar.

Shonen: “Boy-style.” B&W morality with an emphasis on overcoming challenges. Ironically, as it believes that there are no useless characters, if females are present they are in a command position or occasionally take center stage, making it less sexist than you would assume (but usually just barely).

Shoujo: “Girl-style.” B&W morality with an emphasis on, ironically, combat; it generally has romantic elements. Generally, has to be done well as it borders on parody.

Super-hero: Action/adventure featuring characters with pseudo-scientific abilities.

Column 3: Let’s Add Some Spice

These modify the story somewhat or force specific settings.

Game: Emphasizes video/computer games; in essence, the emphasis is paralleling various game universes and not really caring about the fourth wall.

Martial Arts: Action Adventure, but the emphasis is on martial arts.

Mecha: Specific sci-fi sub-genre that features human-controlled robotic vehicles, generally human-shaped.

Post-apocalyptic: Take world. Do a lot of damage to it. Technology comes in hi-tech/scary and low-tech/not as scary flavors. Add mutants to taste.

Racing: Action/adventure based on racing.

“Real Life”: Emphasizes on realistic reactions and either parodies real life or attempts to simulate it.

Sex Comedy: Most of the conflicts revolve around people trying to get laid and failing horribly until the final act.

Tournament: The characters are fighting it out to determine who is the best.

Looking at your story as a Chinese meal for a moment, take two or three from Column 1, add in a side or two from Column 2, and then a spice or two from Column 3. You can always add or subtract an entree, or maybe add a spice, but you don’t want to add too much to the story, so try to keep it to eight ingredients or less. While you can add more, it just gets more complicated.

This Chinese menu approach may help you or even inspire you. Use it as you see fit!