People often read to enjoy a specific genre and will quickly abandon a story if it fails to evoke its essence. In genre fiction, tropes are ever-present and for many readers, a requirement for their reading enjoyment.
Writers who want to succeed professionally must write the stories the business wants to buy. Simply put, the storytelling game is won by mastering the structure of genres. (The Anatomy of Genres, John Truby)
The fourteen major genres are: Horror, Action, Myth, Memoir, Coming-of-Age, Science Fiction, Crime, Comedy, Western, Gangster, Fantasy, Thriller, Detective, and Love (The Anatomy of Genres, John Truby)
Sometimes, a narrative may take a while to indicate its genre via tropes. This poses an issue: will a reader keep reading if they doubt the story is of the genre they enjoy? Should a writer then cast away their original plot to follow a well-trodden yet predictable formula? Preferably not.
There is a way to overcome late-to-arrive tropes, and that is through the use of ‘genre signalling’. Take, as an example, a romance story that begins with a prolonged battle. Here, the risk is that a reader concludes the story is actually an action tale and not what the blurb, front cover or book categorisation first promised. To reassure the reader that they are not mistaken, and that they are indeed reading a romance, a writer can imply the genre by evoking the theme early on:
‘Near the two armies was a willow grove where it was said that if lovers should ever meet, they were destined to wed.’
This example is brief, yet clearly indicates the romance genre. In this way, the reader will be reassured that the story is to their liking. One can also see how a slight rewrite can easily evoke another genre, demonstrating how flexible genre-signalling is as a writing tool:
‘Near the two armies was a grove of dead oaks where it was said that if a child should venture inside, they would never be seen again.’