What makes a reader partial to a genre?

I've always preferred speculative stuff--SFF and horror mainly--but I have no idea why. Although I can tell you it definitely runs in my family. We're ALL into SFF and horror. Except for the stepparents and other people who married in and look at us funny when we get into debates over things like who wrote Nightfall--Robert Silverberg or Isaac Asimov.

(For the record: it's both. Asimov wrote the short story; Silverberg expanded it into a novel.)

jjdebenedictis said:

Hi, all! I was just musing about this and I'm really interested in hearing your thoughts.

Everyone's got their own tastes. We all know that a book might thrill one reader and leave another cold. We also know that many of us have a few genres that we strongly prefer.

What inner qualities do you think make a person partial to a particular genre? Or, conversely, what drives them away from another genre?

For example, I love dark fantasy but I avoid horror. There's a lot of overlap between those two flavours of speculative fiction, but for me, the crucial difference is I don't enjoy feeling frightened. The better the horror writer does his or her job, the less I like the book.

It's less clear to me, however, why I love fantasy and science fiction so much. I'm a science nerd and have always had a wild imagination, but are those the only traits required to make me so happily susceptible to the charms of these genres? It seems like the resonance I feel when I read those genres has more to do with my inner yearnings and personality than with my interests or imagination.

What do you think it is, about you, that makes you love a particular genre? What do you think the common denominators are for people who are into romance, horror, historicals, science fiction, thrillers, etc? And, if you're an omnivorous reader, what is it about you that makes your tastes so flexible?

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My reply to this question is to advise you to read the other replies.
You'll find that everyone has a personal reason for reading what they read. That's the thing about people; cite all the statistics and trends you like but the fact remains you must reach each one individually.

I'm another one who blames my parents for what I read now, although at the time, they probably had no clue how much they were influencing me. My mom used to drag me to all these roaming evangelists who preached "end times" and "fire and brimstone" sort of messages. My dad would take me camping away from the city to where we could sit around the fire and see more stars than I ever imagined could possibly exist. He used to tell me about Sputnik and the space race and the day man first walked on the moon.

So as a teenager I found myself gravitating to science fiction. I read it partly to thumb my nose at the so-called religious leaders who preached, "give me all your money because the world's going to end soon." And partly because of the sense of wonder my dad instilled in me at the possibilities out there in space.

I still love science fiction, but I'm not a fan of dystopian worlds - had enough of that growing up. I like mysteries for the puzzles, classics to understand where we've come from as a society, and fantasy because of the wonder and the dreams of things that might be.

jjdebenedictis said:

I did read all the replies, and I don't think anyone cited any statistics or trends. I'm a bit confused why you mentioned that.

What I'd like to ferret out here is some of the psychological reasons for why a certain person likes a certain genre. That could be useful information for writers; it would help them figure out what makes a story resonate with their target audience.

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Well, the original question was phrased such that the OP wanted to know why "a person" may be drawn to a particular genre. The replies poured in explaining why "I" like this or that.
Statistics may bear out trends and numbers of readers in a particular genre, it misses the point that each person who chose a thriller did so for individual reasons. Those reasons are as varied as the number of people who read. We all do it for our own reasons.
Any writer's audience is an audience of one. The author must find ways to resonate with readers on an individual level.
It is very valuable to know some of those reasons and thats why I pointed out that there is no reason for reading other than your own. I've seen writers fall into traps of trying to write for groups but groups don't read. Individuals read.

Interesting, but pretty much unanswerable other than on an individual level.

The question as phrased seems to me like trying to pin down a universal reason why some folk prefer their steak well done and others prefer it medium or rare, or prefer soft boiled eggs as opposed to hard boiled, or like brussel sprouts or don't like them.

I read in nearly every genre. My only sibling is 6 1/2 years younger than me, and I was homeschooled until I was in 7th grade, so I spent a lot of time reading everything I could find. Back then, it was Nancy Drew and historical books, like the Dear America and Little House series. My parents were pretty strict about making sure the books I read were "clean", but they also had to trust my judgment because there was no way they could keep up with my reading. (Trust me; they tried.)

As a teenager, I started reading fantasy almost exclusively. I had read Narnia when I was young, and loved it, but it didn't make me want to seek out other books in the genre. Then I read Ella Enchanted, and all of Gail Carson Levine's other books. I realized there were other authors who had rewritten fairy tales, and I looked all of the ones I could find up on the internet and checked them out at the library. For a few years there, I read various versions of Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast, Sleeping Beauty, and more. I read epic fantasy, and urban fantasy, and everything in between.

Now I still read fantasy, but I intersperse it with historical romance (never contemporary- too far from how I know relationships to work), the occasional contemporary YA (usually John Green or Maureen Johnson), and science fiction. It's all about escapism, and my current mood. I switch between books based on how I'm feeling. If I feel like I'm on the edge of depression, I can't read something full of war and intrigue and hatred. I've got Robin Hobb on standby, but I'm not emotionally ready to deal with that right now, so I'm reading the Percy Jackson books, and the Immortals by Tamora Pierce.

Elias Graves said:

Well, the original question was phrased such that the OP wanted to know why "a person" may be drawn to a particular genre. The replies poured in explaining why "I" like this or that.
Statistics may bear out trends and numbers of readers in a particular genre, it misses the point that each person who chose a thriller did so for individual reasons. Those reasons are as varied as the number of people who read. We all do it for our own reasons.
Any writer's audience is an audience of one. The author must find ways to resonate with readers on an individual level.
It is very valuable to know some of those reasons and thats why I pointed out that there is no reason for reading other than your own. I've seen writers fall into traps of trying to write for groups but groups don't read. Individuals read.

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The OP still made a very interesting talking point in the sub forum that usually has a lot of interesting discussion.

DeleyanLee said:

Without some promise of the Good guys winning, I won't allow myself to become emotionally invested in the story. If I have that (from whatever means), I'm more likely to read and enjoy it. Not everyone wants or needs that. *shrug*

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I know what you mean - having finally read all the released books from GRRM's A Song of Ice and Fire, I've gone through thousands of pages with unaccustomed emotional restraint, quashing any incipient feelings for the characters with practiced regularity. It's tiresome and dulls my enjoyment of the book just as well as it dulls the inevitable pain of something bad happening to the characters.

To address the original question: suppose we measured a person's partiality to a genre based on a set of characteristics which a person is said to have on a scale of, say, 1 to 5. Then these are the most relevant characteristics I can think of:

1. Ability to enjoy the unfamiliar
-people with this characteristic are more likely to enjoy speculative fiction
2. Enjoys the unknown, figuring things out
-mystery, good scifi, intellectual or philosophical lit
3. Enjoys exploring interpersonal relationships
-lots of literary fiction, romance
4. Can willingly suspend disbelief/has great imagination
-fantasy, scifi
5. Tendency toward or enjoyment of melancholy, pessimism
-tragedy, horror, political satire etc. Misery loves company.


Those are a few ideas.

I take 1 and 2 to be distinct (even if they're related)because I know many people have said they enjoy mystery but not fantasy/scifi.