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Originally Posted by taosaur
making no sweeping statements about "genre" and referring to only one small corner of speculative fiction. Nor was I using "formulaic" pejoratively, but only proposing that those who read a great deal of highly formulaic work do so for different reasons than readers of, say, science fiction or absurdist metafiction.
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I don't see what you said about "formulaic genre fiction" wouldn't apply to non-genre fiction.
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You cite a distinction without a difference. One, police procedurals and crime fiction are genres. Two, plenty of fantasy plugs-n-plays Tolkien's elves, dwarves, wizards and warriors, often derived third-hand from D&D. The same can be said for Heinlein's Starship Troopers in sci-fi.
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I didn't say anything about police procedurals. Only that the standard fiction does not need to fill in these gaps - I find it less original because it leans on so many of the constructs of society. Like a police officer. Substitute "office professional" or "fireman"...or "Toyota" or "city hall" or "Pepsi" for concepts and creations that you don't have to create or describe.
All I'm saying is that standard fiction relies much more heavily on plug-in roles and constructs of society, more so than the sci-fi and fanstasy genres, and I find it less creative and more formulaic as a side effect.
I don't read a lot of mainstream fiction - but for movies, I'll tell you - formulaic is how I would describe a lot of action movies from Hollywood, for example. Having robots, elves, detectives, vampires, etc... doesn't have anything to do with how formulaic something is. I don't understand the correlation at all.