If "movies and TV shows" counts as a genre, then I would change the acting, cinematography, soundtrack, and overall storytelling of many of them to be more like The Wire and No Country for Old Men. Strip down the cinematics to focus more on the art of people enacting a story. Turn the Gravitys of the world into 2001: A Space Odysseys. Turn the Michael Bays of the world into the Coen brothers. But the Steven Spielbergs and Peter Jacksons can keep their cinematics because they know how to use it. Then again, Spielberg himself reached his peak with Schindler's List, the most cinematically restrained and human-oriented movie he ever made.
@minstrel @jannert @Catrin Lewis What happened to science fiction is actually a chilling example of a genre improvement taken too far. Darker and edgier is always at risk of sliding too far down the sliding scale of idealism versus cynicism into darkness induced audience apathy.
I can't disagree with a single word of that. Of course if it reflects the author's true view of things, fair enough. But that's one of the main reasons I don't read much new Sci-Fi. It doesn't offer anything much in the way of inspiration. I taste it via the anthologies every year, but it's been a long time since any new author made me want to read more of their stuff.
This is an old one! Interesting question though. First, I'd fix Crime and Mystery genre. Everything's focused on body count and serial killers, the more gory and depraved the murders are the better, victims are usually attractive young women, the list of lazy tropes continues. The psychology of it usually makes little sense, the genre has now become little more than gore porn. There's an episode of 'South Park' that deals with 'true crimes' documentaries, but the nauseating point applies to current Crime fiction just as well. The plotlines are ridiculous, violence over the top, and most of the time, that's all there is to it. Second one I'd refresh is science fiction. There's hardly any 'science' left in it, and it's all become about angsty teenagers in some sort of unimaginative dystopian setting. Also, most of it is written by people who obviously never suffered serious hardships in life, because the stories revel in extreme cruelty and violence, with little to no emotional context. I feel both these genres stopped exploring the human condition and started abusing cliches and focusing on special effects.
I'd have to say fantasy, urban fantasy, and sci-fi. To add something that I think hasn't been mentioned yet: I'd make them more realistic. I know, e.g. magic isn't anymore realistic than FTL travel, at this point anyway, but that's not what I'm talking about. I mean that the novel should establish its universe's rules and follow them. My biggest pet peeve are fight scenes that involve swords, firearms, or hand-to-hand fighting. Almost all depictions I've seen have been pretty unrealistic. Even Joe Abercrombie, who's otherwise into gritty realism, fails at this. Sure, some scenes are decent, but many of the pivotal ones are pretty ridiculous. It's not that difficult to get your facts checked by someone with the required level of knowhow. Usually the worst are authors who think they know what they're doing, but end up repeating rumors and other such crap (Richard Kadrey is an example of this, at least in his Sandman Slim novels) because in reality they know jackshit. Another thing that many authors get wrong are tactics. I'm not good at that either, but I'd sure as hell consult a professional before offering my work to a publisher or agent if my MS involved, say, small group combat or anything larger in scale than that. Way too often the MCs get away or win or whatever because the bad guy(s) just suck and make amateurish mistakes, blunders no person smart enough to, say, lead an army or an organized criminal group would make. Same thing with supposedly professional soldiers who, if they're on the villain's side, are easier to kill than a wingless fly. That is, as long as it's the MC doing the killing. Another example of this "stupid villain phenomenon" are the traditional Bond "executions," i.e. the villain captures the hero, but chooses such an elaborate and ridiculous method of execution over just slitting his throat or blowing his brains out, the MC has the opportunity and time to escape or be rescued. Oh, and it'd be nice to see more realistic characters too. E.g. how come Abercrombie's female characters are pretty much always tall and skinny, like catwalk models, but can still somehow go toe-to-toe with huge, muscular guys without losing in strength? How come the supposedly badass guys turn into fumbling idiots as long as it's the female MC kicking his ass instead of another guy or even a group of guys much bigger and stronger than her? That's an example of the laws of physics flying out the window when it's convenient: it's just a fact of human physiology that a bigger muscle is stronger than a small one. Likewise, those who've fought for real enough and trained full-contact martial arts or combat sports long enough, know that while strength isn't everything, if you tussle with someone much bigger and stronger than you and who's about as skilled, you're gonna end up in a world of hurt if you don't get incredibly lucky or have a weapon. If you pit your smaller e.g. female MC against a huge, experienced fighter, give her some other way to survive than by overpowering a much stronger opponent with... strength. There are plenty of very capable and dangerous women out there in the real world, but the reason behind their successes has more to do with tactics and cunning than being stronger than people twice their size. There's a reason why all combat sports have weight classes, after all... I got more, but I lost my train of thought.
I'd like to see fewer bland-cosy murder mysteries. I have no objection to feel-good mysteries; I'm not demanding that they all go dark. But if they don't have darkness, I want humor, or style, or...something. There are too many mysteries out there with really nice bland characters having minor life issues as they wonder vaguely about a murder. I'm particularly irritated when those characters are engaging in some hobby or activity that you can imagine was added as query-letter-statistic fodder. ("My story, Duct Fire, will appeal to the 1.6 zillion mystery readers who weave potholders from dryer lint.")
Someone also please steal the 'set' of Ye Old Timey welsh vale as a fantasy milieu. Katherine Kerr, used her knowledge of cymric/cymru to good effect, one of the few Tokien followers to pull it off. Everyone else is just putting in a heap of consonants and removing vowels for the hell of it. I've been in enough duns and keeps to make my eye's bleed. Please get me a fashion designer also, kicking around in kirtles and jerkins is like turning up to a gay bar dressed as the Village people.
Erotica BDSM, just read one wiki article. Please, for the love of God read and research before writing! If I have to read one more book that claims to be "kinky" when they really mean 'dubious consent masquerading as ~kinky' I'm going to set some books on fire. Consent and trust. That and I'd like fantasy novels with multidimensional characters rather than "kick ass protagonist" meets "love interest" they probably don't get a long. Trouble ensure with "plot"
Horror movies and horror books are not the same thing. We all know movies can get away with things no self respecting writer would ever try, (tired plots, flat stereotypical characters, etc.) This is especially true in horror movies. Once, horror was about suspense, the unknown and true fear. Today, that's been reclassified as 'sci-fi,' 'thriller,' and 'paranormal,' while the movie genre relies on solely gore. However, the way I see it, the others are still horror, it's just been cleverly disused to sell in a world that thinks it hates it. The world doesn't really hate horror. It just thinks it does because of those movies. For example, Dexter is classified as 'crime' but since it takes you inside the mind of a serial killer, I would consider that horror. Same with Silence of the Lambs. Read Naoki Urasawa's Monster. It's Manga, but Johan Liebert is the best villain ever. He's smart, charming, ruthless, and you never know what he's up to. A true monster, but a human one. (The series they made about it wasn't bad either.)
Perfect characters in Thrillers. Brad Thor should be shot for the travesty that is Scot Harvath. I understand that he's Secret Service, former Navy Seal (not sure how he had time for all this), former all-pro quarterback, prom king, and Pope in his spare time, but for the love of God give me something good on him. A weakness for cocaine and cheap hookers would've made him much more bearable, instead of the typical "oh uh...he's a hot head". And John Sanford's Lucas Davenport falls under the same tirade, though he's crime fiction.
The genre I would fix if I could fix it would be Erotica. for some reason a great majority of Erotica writers give the male character or characters large or monster size genitals. but NOT all men are built that way. some men have small genitals some have medium size genitals and some lucky few are blessed with large genitals but they are few and far between. So Erotica writers please be realistic about the size of the male character or characters genitals. don't be so eager to describe them as large or monster size because real life men are not always built that way.
What if, because of the steaminess, they just feel like large, monster genitals? What if, instead of it being erotica, it's a commentary of the standards of the porn industry? <insert emoticon>
