Crof over at Writing Fiction has a great post about Writing in a Genre. It also happens to be a review of John Robert Marlow’s Nano. I haven’t read the novel, but that didn’t stop me from appreciating what Crof had to say on the subject of genre conventions, particularly as they pertain to sci-fi:
“Anyone writing in such a genre must walk a fine line between plagiarism and parody… … The trick is to recognize why these particular conventions appeal to readers, and then to push the conventions to reveal something implicit in them that other writers haven’t understood.”
Indeed. Here here, I second that! Especially the part about differential reinterpretation of the genre. In marketing it’s called positioning. Find something and make it your own. Frame a new and fresh perspective.
I know I’ve posted/pasted this quote from Christopher Nolan before, but it’s rather cogent to your post:
“The term ‘genre’ eventually becomes pejorative because you’re referring to something that’s so codified and ritualised that it ceases to have the power and meaning it had when it first started. What I’m trying to do is to create modern equivalents that speak to me of those tropes that have more of the original power.”
Seeing how well he did with Batman Begins, I think he’s got a good handle on the issue :) The word genre implies that you’re essentially agreeing to a certain set of conventions and tropes. It gets interesting when as you say, you make it your own, find a novel iteration.