Genre Locked

During my teens the first book I ever read that was more than 50 pages was War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells which is about 200 pages.  It was also mostly likely the book that got me hooked on Sci-Fi but I digress, this particular novel took me several months to read not due to the length but it was down to the way it was written.  Basically it was hard to read, as I read more of Well’s books I discovered he had different styles of writing,  The Time Machine for instance was much easier to read than War of the Worlds.  Similarly C.S Lewis’s Sci-Fi novels which were only 200 pages each are heavy on philosophies and little on the action where as his Narnia Chronicles (written for kids) were a doddle to read admittedly a more extreme example of style of writing.

The problem I have had with books like these and I have read quite a few over the years is that they are locked into their specific genres there is no link to real life I suppose you might say ‘Duh!’ its fiction why should it do so.  To be clear I have read number of horror books by Clive Barker and James Herbert none these contained any humour which happens in real life all the time even in the most dire circumstances it is integral to way humans are wired although James Herbert’s Domain did contain some black humour.

Moving on from books to movies, until perhaps in the Die Hard films action movies contained very little humour similarly horrors contained zero humour whatsoever.  The more recent Marvel movies do contain limited amounts of humour whereas DC movies are quite dark and detached.

Apparently if the genre is of a serious nature there seems to be unwritten rule that no humour is allowed.

Should war films for instance been limited to only serious scenes to avoid detracting from the horrors of war.  I think it dehumanizes the fiction and makes it easier for people to watch that being said a film like Saving Private Ryan brought back some very bad memories for veterans of WWII.

Heroes are not allowed to laugh otherwise they would seem like everyone else in the minds of the readers/viewers.

Is this a purposeful detachment for fiction from reality?  Perhaps fiction should never be too real, I am aware totally aware this opening big can worms.

I have always found book/movies that contain humour far easy to read/watch, some of the more recent TV series have added humour into single episodes to offset this possible of loss viewers, to name a couple X-Files and Supernatural and curiously enough The Simpsons managed to do a wonderful Halloween special using Edge Allen Poe’s poem The Raven which reversed the humour beautifully.

These unwritten rules are slowly being broken however creators of fiction love to go retro, Crimson Peak for instance was a return to the Gothic Romance which had almost died out in the movies but still exists in books.

My own stories always contain an element of humour in order to anchor it and keep my readers awake or interested.

Perhaps people just cannot cope with multiple genres, ironic considering what is in the News everyday.