genre-conventions

A genre contract is the emotional promise a story makes to its readers. When a draft fails to meet this promise, diagnosing genre issues involves mapping the narrative to the 11 elemental genres and generating a prioritized list of missing elements to restore coherence.

The 11 elemental genres from Writing Excuses provide a framework to evaluate a draft's emotional throughline. Diagnosing a story against these elements identifies missing or misaligned narrative components and establishes a clear hierarchy between primary and secondary genres.

Resolving conflicts between primary and secondary genres requires establishing a clear genre hierarchy. By diagnosing the draft's elemental alignment, you generate a prioritized set of genre-specific elements and practical steps to maintain an authentic emotional throughline.

Yes, providing a starting draft or summary is sufficient to evaluate genre cohesion. The diagnosis evaluates the text against the intended emotional genre promise and returns guidance on element requirements, genre hierarchy, and practical steps to restore the contract.

A story breaks its genre promise when its emotional throughline lacks coherence or contains misaligned elements. Diagnosing the draft against the 11 elemental genres identifies where the narrative fails to meet the intended emotional contract and provides steps to fix it.