Master your genre…After you figure out what it is

Robert McKee, in his screenwriting book Story, challenges the writer to see where their work fits:

Each writer’s homework is first to identify his genre, then research its governing practices. And there’s no escaping these tasks. We’re all genre writers.

McKee’s suggests it’s the overarching genre that keeps us going, not the particular ideas:

So, in addition, ask: What’s my favorite genre? Then write in the genre you love. For although the passion for an idea or experience may wither, the love of the movies is forever. Genre should be a constant source of reinspiration. Every time you reread your script, it should excite you, for this is the kind of story, the kind of film you’d stand in the line in the rain to see. Do not write something because intellectual friends think it’s socially important. Do not write something you think will inspire critical praise in Film Quarterly. Be honest in your choice of genre, for of all the reasons for wanting to write, the only one that nurtures us through time is love of the work itself.

Chew on this nugget related to the Art Film:

The avant-garde notion of writing outside the genres is naive. No one writes in a vacuum. After thousands of years of storytelling no story is so different that it has no similarity to anything else ever written. The Art Film has become a traditional genre…a supra-genre that embraces other basic genres: Love Story, Political Drama, and the like.