Poll: Which genre has become the most derivative?

[polymath]

Simple enough question, which genre of writing (across all media) has become the most derivative?

The reason I ask this is because it seems just about everytime someone talks about a story they're writing here, or just the sort of fiction they aspire to write it is almost always a poor man's Tolkien rip-off. Seeing as the fantasy genre would seem to me to be open to a lot of creativity (the hint is in the name), why is it that people who wish to write don't want to be a bit more creative?

If you disagree with me that's fine, I'd encourage you to argue your case, ranging from defence of the fantasy genre, to putting forward a genre you feel is a bigger culprit of this kind of laziness.

PS. I'm going to ignore things like Rom-Coms and other Hollywood moneymaker sub-genres because I refer to genre story-telling intended to have more substance than light entertainment.

 

[wooty]

In terms of writing for books, fantasy.
In terms of writing for tv, there are faaaaar too many detective shows.

 

[Littlelongy]

Try to find an entire genre that isn't derivative? I'm not nearly man enough for that fruitless search.

I think you would have to find an entirely new genre, because any genre that gets one or more incredible writers/works of literature immediately contains a few thousand others. Tolkien copies, Arthur C. Clarke copies, Agatha Christie copies (in reference to the detective shows mentioned above), the list goes on.

Maybe comedy writing though, although that is probably a rash assumption on my part. Purely for the same reason tat telling the same joke twice makes it less funny.

My personal worst example is war films. The lead characters will at some point: a) consider their home and aspects of it they miss, b) have a friend killed beside them and become very upset/angry, c) be led on a mission that they have no right to survive, and in many cases d) become a hero of some description at the end. Call me naive but I don't think that's how war goes.

 

[Renco van der Tang]

As much as I love fantasy, I have to agree with the notion that it's derivative.
I, personally, aspire to be a fantasy writer, but I do really think there's so much that could be done with the genre that's being ignored in favour of more elves and dwarves stomping through dragon dens. There are some real gems too, though, Robin Hobb and George RR Martin are two writers that come to mind, but there are others too if you're willing to accept that something can still be fantasy without being set in a medieval Europe with magic type setting.

 

[MagicBullet]

You are right that many genres have become derivative but look at it from a different point of view. The very things that make these genres derivative - the tropes, cliches, formulas (and in the case of fantasy specifically) cliched races - can be used as a platform to launch a truly unique and original story.

I have several examples, of which Margaret Weiss and Tracy Hickman are probably the best. These two authors, (often writing in collaboration) have written many books in the High Fantasy genre. Many of these (I'm specifically thinking the Drangonlance series and all it's spinoffs) are so steeped in the whole fantasy genre cliche that it almost becomes a cariacture. BUT, and this is a big but, from that mire of cliche they also created Death's Gate, a series based on all the fantasy cliches of dwarves and elves, wizards and theives, that manages to be one of the most original examples of high fantasy I've read since I first picked up a novel.

Another example is David Weber, though I will admit it is not such a great example since he occupies his own small sub-genre niche in Science Fiction/Fantasy. Weber's foray into High Fantasy, The War God series, applies the same basis that many other fantasy writers have used and still endes up being fresh and original.

If you write high fantasy with dwarves and elves, it is going to be compared to Tolkien's work. If you write high fantasy with dwarves and elves BUT WITH A TWIST, it's going to be 'like Tolkien but with a twist'. And that is not necessarily a bad thing.

I write a bit, though I'm not trained in the discipline, and my current project is creating a living breathing world for my DnD campaign. It applies many (hell, ALL) of the tropes of High Fantasy, and draws on the works of many fantasy authors as inspiration. At the end of the day though, it's my world, one that I created and breathed life into. I couldn't do it if I didn't have access to some of the things that make High Fantasy derivative, that would be too much damned work (I mean, really. The Bestiary has like 200+ entries. I'd end up with cardboard cut-out monsters A-G and run out of imagination-juice that I could use to make things like dynamic national politics and nefarious trans-dimensional demon-fueled schemes.)