Appendix A - Genres & Styles
This seems an overview of prose genres, but try to look at it as an inspiration for poems, and imagine an entirely new set of possibilities.
Readers want two things: information and emotions. Good writers give their readers what they want. Apart from the 
description, we summarise the 
emotion examination and the 
information indication that readers of each genre expect.
Notice that most novels of fiction are sold as one genre, but usually, they combine elements from several genres: «The Hunger Games» is Science Fiction, but also Young Adult, Action and Adventure, Thriller and even Romance plays a part.
Styles and genres walk hand-in-hand in Lectureland. Some genres (Humour, Literary) are not genres but styles. Most genres benefit from certain styles of writing. Pulp Fiction requires an easy-to-read style, while writers of Autobiography or Non-Fiction prefer a High School Teacher style (we're not certain if that's an up-level teacher, or if the teacher's school is a high building, or if it's a schoolteacher who smoked a joint). An 
example makes our story complete.
Action and Adventure
- Popular with people who like to see how others take risks and work their asses off, solving problems, while they themselves do nothing but sit on their bum with a book.
- Admiration and courage. Action heroes are smart, good-looking, inventive, strong, and they always get what they want (plus «the girl» as a bonus). Readers want to identify with someone who's much too active to read a story or a poem.
- Every problem has a solution, but the action hero needs information before she starts kicking asses and throwing bombs. Adventure stories take place in every setting you can imagine, which requires lots of research and background information. Even Discovery Channel tells their documentaries like they are Action and Adventure stories.
- Little description. Nothing about the character's psychological doubts and needs. Short lines. To-the-point dialogue. Wham, bam, thank you, Ma'am.
- «Raiders of the Lost Ark» (film with Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones, 1981). 7.4 - «The War of the Words and the Worth».
Action man with a gun
Thought he might have some fun,
Shooting everybody in sight,
Till the cops kill him dead,
With two shots in the head.
So much fun on the news every night.
Biography and Autobiography
- What makes a writer think that the rest of the world is intrigued by hor personality and hor thoughts? Why would I be interested in a selfie of an arrogant twit who thinks horself so important? Success. We want to read about successful people (try to find an agent or publisher for the biography «The World's Biggest Loser»). Biographies have a positive side: there's always something readers can learn, and it also inspires to read how The Best had to work on hor talent and had hor doubts before she became The Best.
- Pride is a capital sin, but it sells almost as good as sex. Not money or power, but attention is the currency with the highest exchange rate on the planet. The quote «Look at me, I'm FABULOUS!» is the headline of every social media page.
- Biographies are Help Yourself books on «How to become rich, famous, successful». Remember that for every winner, there are seven billion losers. Those losers don't write about their failure. Those losers worked as hard as the winner, but they were unlucky, or too ugly, or couldn't find an agent: no story.
- The Main Character defines the style. You write athletically about a sports star, in a business class about a Captain of Industry and in a royal style about a King or Queen.
- «Long Walk to Freedom» (book by Nelson Mandela, 1994). 6.1 - «Classic's Class».
Drama
- Stories in the Drama genre are about victims of situations, about their suffering and how everything they tried made it worse. Apparently, there are readers for Drama stories.
- Sadness, Grief, Despair… We refuse to list every negative emotion here, as there's always something we forget. Readers love to look in the mirror and think: «Look how happy I am, compared to the character in my story.»
- While the Drama genre is often about all the horrible things that can happen to a person (and the emotions, caused by all this bad luck), the information is at least as important. Locked up in a burka in Afghanistan, abandoned by junkie parents in Amsterdam, neglected by healthcare insurance companies in Atlanta or bullied by a bigger classmate in Algiers; the more details we know about the disaster, the more empathy we feel for the victim in our story.
- Don't confuse Drama with Dramatic. The words «And the winner is…» will (dramatically) always be followed by a (dramatic) pause, to give the right amount of interest to the importance of the moment. For the losers, it might be a drama to hear another name, but this is all about the winner, so no Drama at all. Dramatic writing is Timing, an element of style that finds its place in every good work. Drama requires a serious, often pessimistic, tear-jerking style, with no humour at all.
- «The Kite Runner» (book by Khaled Hosseini, 2003). 4.5 «Eight 9-inch Nails and a Hammer».
Erotic / Porn
- When a man writes it, it's Porn (having sex), and when it's a product of a woman's fantasy, we call it Erotic (making love). Most Erotic works are sold (cheap) as Romance.
- Lust. Tina Turner's poem «What's Love Got To Do With It» is the most honest confession we know. You can love your parents, your children, your friends, your work, your hobby, even your car, with no lust at all, but somehow the animal inside us…
- There's hardly any info about erotic techniques, except in the morally unacceptable Hard Porn. In the Erotic-disguised-as-Romance-genre, information is hard to find. When the clothes drop, the curtain falls too, and the writer leaves the rest to the reader's imagination. Only the entire foreplay (first meeting, attraction, date until we mate) is abundantly present. There's a Help Yourself book with the title «All I Know About Love, I've Learnt From Romance Novels», which explains everything.
- Sex Sells. Erotic novels (like «Fifty Shades of Grey», by E.L. James, and «Fifty Shades of Snow White», by Ronaldo Siète) are among the most popular, but nobody wants to be caught reading them or buying them. That's why sex is often, very often, an element of style to sell a further boring story of another genre. Characters fall in love and in bed in no time, just to make sure the reader will read on with red ears, hoping for more (and more explicit) scenes like this.
- Erotic and Porn are always Commercial Style and therefore no example in this Artistic collection. Bad tongues whisper that 1.6 - «Imagination» is erotic, as Zeus had several bastard children, God had a son with another man's fiancée, Santa Claus with all those innocent children on his lap is a suspect paedophile, and the President denies everything, which tells us enough. Also, our imagination is the organ that best enjoys sex.
Essay
- An Essay is a short-story format of the Non-Fiction genre. It's similar to Mystery, as the first page shows us a problem (a murdered darling) and the final page gives us a solution (the killer). Where a Mystery follows the detective from Red Herring to clue, the Essay doesn't waste time and takes us from interesting point of view to necessary facts and studies. The conclusion helps us to make better choices, work more efficiently or get better insight into complicated matters.
- Curiosity, in combination with impatience. In three pages, we want a topic to be explained and solved.
- Information (like in Non-Fiction) is the reason readers pick up an essay, but all the other aspects of writing are equally important, which makes the essay an excellent exercise to improve our writing skills.
- Essays require a business-like style, to the point, with references to sources and facts. Of all the genres, listed here, the Essay is the least creative and most predictable. That makes it perfect for school, as teachers don't want to judge fantasy and creativity, just check if all the rules have been followed.
- 6.5 - «From PROBLEM To POEM in 7 Steps» is an Essay. Well… Technically, it's an essay about writing the essay-poem under 7: FINAL VERSION.
The answer is magic, dear Elf.
It's the problem to solve it yourself.
When you've worked it all out,
Just give me a shout,
Then I'll file it up there, on the shelf.
Fairy Tales
- Fairy Tales are «Juvenile + Young Adult» from over a century ago. Modern parents educate their children with brave, smart and caring Disney Princesses, but the Grimm brothers preferred terror to warn their children about the dangers of their times. Snow White was poisoned by her stepmother, and a kiss of a prince turned her into a zombie. After their parents abandoned Hansel and Gretel in the woods (there are no woods anymore, modern parents lock their children up in nurseries), they face kidnapping and cannibalism, and get away with the murdering of an old lady (in those Grimm days, there were no pensions or homes to lock up mad elderly people), while the story doesn't include a warning against eating too many sweets. Nowadays, fairy tales are still extremely popular; many politicians tell them before election day.
- Insensitivity. Children have to learn how to handle extreme violence (a wolf or a giant can eat you), poverty (marry a prince!), curses (sleep on it, for 100 years or so) and being locked up in a tower without a mobile phone or someone to do your hair. After hearing so much silliness, modern children roll their eyes and say: "Snow White had to cook, clean and wash for seven dirty miners, without social security, pension plan, healthcare, or even without a minimum wage? DUH!"
- Fairy tales contain hardly any information. If you find anything: don't trust it.
- Simple words, short sentences, lots of emphasis on the terror, and a believable happy end. The Princess dies from a poisoned apple and a wolf devoured the red-hooded heroine, but they get well without any medical assistance.
- Jacob (1785-1863) and Wilhelm (1786-1859) Grimm wrote around 200 fairy tales. 5.4 - «The Wizard and the Workout».
Fantasy
- Vampires, werewolves or medieval societies with wizards, elves, dwarfs and a terrible evil. Serious readers lift their noses for Fantasy, but the fans enjoy it to the max. If reality is boring, pointless and depressing, you open a book and enter a world where literally everything is possible.
- Fear and Awe. Like in Horror stories, fear (and dominating fear) is a major emotion here, but it's fear of something awesome that we get to know first. Frankenstein is ugly and scares us, but we love to find out the monster has a heart (almost human) and we admire the writer for hor imagination.
- Worldbuilding. Middle Earth, Zombieland and Transylvania are awesome because the writer put lots of effort into the details of the setting and society. Remember: we're not just afraid of the werewolf; we want to know how it lives, how it feels, what it's afraid of, and why it acts as it does.
- Fantasy readers love bombastic language, glorious descriptions, epic battles, high stakes and evil beyond imagination.
- «Frankenstein» (book by Mary Shelley, 1818). «Twilight» (book by Stephany Meyer, 2006). «Harry Potter» (series of seven books by J.K. Rowling). 3.6 - «End of an Epic Era».
History
- In History and SF, «Setting» is a major element. The plot might handle a sub-genre (romance, adventure, horror, etc.) with its specific elements, but readers of History look for certain thrills and info they can't find in other stories.
- Freedom. Readers are free to travel in time and meet their classic heroes in real fiction. Writers who successfully take their readers to the fascinating Stone Age or the roaring 1920s easily score extra points.
- The accurate historical facts are an important reason to read History. Every detail needs to fit. Research. Adventures like «Asterix» are packed with images of clothes, buildings, tools and instruments, transport and social issues from Julius Caesar's time.
- History readers prefer a style that fits the time. A story, set in Napoleon's France, benefits from elegance and formal language. A medieval minstrel sounds playful, not modern or literary or bombastic.
- «The Clan of the Cave Bear» (book by Jean M. Auel, 1980). 1.3 «The Painter's Secret Inspiration».
Horror
- It's disgusting, and that's also the major attraction. Horror in film is the easiest job in Hollywood, but writing good horror is the most terrible nightmare of Literaryland. Timing (showing just enough at the right moment) is the Horror writer's major skill. Often, there's no happy end.
- Fear. In Fantasy, we fight fear (and we win), but in Horror, it's fear for the unknown, and Evil often wins. In Horror, we endure fear and learn to live with it.
- Info seems completely unimportant. It's pitch dark, we can't see anything, we hear creepy sounds we don't understand, we smell blood and rot, and we try to touch nothing because who knows what will happen… The story is a chain of «don't!» situations: don't go out at night, don't enter that old castle, don't help that poor devil escape from that dungeon, don't read that newspaper about that awful situation in that country far-far-away…
- You can't write Horror in a humorous style (Dean R. Koontz proves you can). Timing and sentence length are crucial, word choice is highly important, and don't forget to focus on the emotions of the victims.
- «Invasion of the Body Snatchers» (film by Don Siegel, 1956). 2.6 «Hell's Bells».
A zombie was hungry for an egg,
But he wanted to buy it, not beg.
When he asked for the price,
He thought: «Well, that is nice.»
It just cost him an arm and a leg.
Juvenile and Young Adult
- Although this looks like «audience», it's indeed a genre, similar to «Non-fiction» or «Help Yourself» for adults, but with a distinct style and covering other topics.
- Almost every emotion (and how to deal with it). Afraid? Sad? Disappointed? Things you hate? You'll learn to recognise and handle the emotion.
- Moral, the difference between Good and Evil. Harry Potter doesn't just fight Voldemort; after his victory, he refuses to use his new power. He has learnt an important lesson: killing good people is bad and killing bad people is good. Confusing, but every child understands it.
- Style is crucial: if we want kids to read, we'll have to write stories they like, in a style that appeals to them. Our children must easily understand the story, but we also want them to learn new words and concepts. That requires a delicate balance between two extremes: plain but not simple, explicit but not complicated, optimistic and playful without making everything ridiculous, interesting without boring lessons from adults or moral lectures from teachers. In dialogue, children prefer more tags («Harry said») than adults, to make clear who says what. For action and description, they love writers who feed their imagination with colourful images, beautiful sounds, sweet smells, and surprising tastes. For a writer, children's books are the most difficult genre, but at the same time: every child can tell juvenile stories exactly as they should be.
- «Child's Play» (film by Tom Holland, 1988). 1.4 «The Beauty and the Beast».
Literary
- Literary isn't a genre but a style, praised by critics, used by teachers, and not bought by anyone. Readers of Literary books don't just entertain themselves; they dedicate their time to Highly Educational Linguistic Levels, which makes reading Literature a HELL of a job.
- Superiority. «I don't read just anything, you know; I read a literary porn thriller…» Readers of literary works want to feel great, superior, fabulous, just like the writers of those works. They don't care about all those words nobody understands; they just tell others how great, fabulous it was and feel even more fabulous when those silly others admit they didn't understand one word.
- There should be lots of information in Literary works, but we've studied hundreds of literary novels, thrillers, poems, and not one contained more info than «Precious Poetry».
- A literary style is, literally, the only difference between a Regular Thriller and a Literary Thriller.
- «To Kill A Mockingbird» (book by Harper Lee, 1960). «All The Light We Cannot See» (book by Anthony Doerr, 2014). 6.3 «Recipe for Best Poetry».
Mystery & Detective
- A whodunnit is one of the very few forms of literature that rarely merit a second read. It's also one of the most popular genres. Murder fascinates us. Animals fight each other for territory, food and mating, but there's only one animal savage enough to murder their own kind. The real world is a different story, but in fiction, we're guaranteed they will catch the killer.
- Curiosity is the driving emotion here. The writer challenges the reader: are you smarter than my detective?
- In Mystery, characters are static; we expect Sherlock Holmes to solve the case, and nobody cares if he grows as a person because of his experiences. The setting completely serves the plot. Emotional identification with the victim(s), the killer(s) or even the detective(s) seems forbidden in this genre. It's all about information: who did what, where, when, why, how… The writer hides that info behind clues.
- There's no fun in a game of hide 'n' seek if you don't find gold coins (or breadcrumbs) on your path regularly. A good mystery is like a striptease: keep the pace, build up the tension, show more flesh in each chapter, but don't reveal what we're all waiting for, until the last page, where the exotic dancer drops her mask: she's a toothless grandfather with an exceptional body painter.
- «Clue» (film by Jonathan Lynn, 1985). 4.6 «Getting Away With Murder».
A book all about who is who
Is a mystery without a clue.
But if there's three in the mix,
It is easy to fix:
If it's not me or him, then it's you.
Non-Fiction (Help Yourself)
- Most texts we read are Non-Fiction. This includes the fantastic lies companies make up for commercial use, in advertisement and marketing (a.k.a. Help Your Shelf), and the highly exaggerated facts in some specialised newspapers. There seems to be no artistic value in Non-Fiction, but the professionals in The Industry consider «selling» as the only true art, and marketing texts are the best-paid forms of writing, so… Most people buy Non-Fiction books to read only the backside of the cover.
- Doubt and security. You have a problem but no idea how to solve it. What do you do? You ask your network, but that's free advice so it can't be good. But you have a Plan B: buy a book about the topic, pay for it and put it on a high shelf or in a box in your basement. Problem solved. I don't speak Wookiee, but I have the book «How to Speak Wookiee in Seven Simple Lessons», by Lucas George, so… THIS IS STUPID ADVICE! Everyone knows there's a much better way. Go to the Internet, google Wookieepedia and save yourself a trip to a galaxy far, far away!
- Information is the principal element of non-fiction. «We didn't invent this, you know. It's all about facts.» The strange thing about those facts is… they change with the writer's Point of View. Read what Marx, Lenin, Mao, Fidel Castro and Hitler write about communism. Read the facts about the same G.O.D., penned down by the writer of the Torah, Mohammed, John, Marc, Luke and Matthew.
- Non-fiction requires a business-like, determined style. You can't get away with: "Most scientists believe the Earth revolves around the Sun, but others believe their own belly button is the centre of the universe, which implies that the Sun revolves around the Earth." Facts scream for resources, for footnotes that show the immense amount of research this writer did. Remarkable is the high percentage of works in the Second Person All-knowing Point of View: "You look in the mirror and you think: «I'm fat.» What are you going to do about it? You're going to read this book, you're going to drag your fat bum off that couch and you're going to follow my orders!"
- «Sister Act» (film with Whoopi Goldberg, 1992) is Nun-Fiction. «Precious Poetry» (eBook about how to write poetry, by Ai Ni Phu and Ronaldo Siète, 2021). 2.2 «Poetry Recipe».
Poetry