Assuming you do not know what a genre is, in layman’s terms it is pretty much the category that a song, TV show film etc falls into. When I tell people I can watch or listen to anything from any genre as long as it doesn’t bore me, they think I’m lying but I am as serious as a heart attack. I enjoy musicals from the 1950’s (Pal Joey, No Business like Show Business) just as much as I enjoy a good action movie (Transformers, 300). Since we are indeed talking about film and television I’ll give some examples related. One of my favourite TV shows currently is Castle (on abc Monday nights at 9EST. – I should get paid for this) and Castle happens to fall into two categories – crime drama and comedy. One would ask, how do you mix murder and humour? But somehow the creators and writers manage to make the two not seem like oil and water.
Knowing your genre thoroughly before you begin filming not only helps with underlining things such as character development and cinematography, but also helps you to better appeal to your target audience. Castle would not have been successful if people were not able to find humour in the most serious of situations.
So before you begin writing your script, consider these things:
- Who are you trying to appeal to with your story?
- What genre would your story fall under
- Is your story the appropriate genre for the crowd you are appealing to?
- How can you make your story stand out in its genre
Genre is only one aspect of writing and filming but it is not one to be overlooked.
Alice Valentine 
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