Writing Genre Deconstruction

[Venusaur26]

Utena, Evangelion, Monogatari…
What really is genre deconstruction and how to do it right?

 

[LostLibrarian]

Also, how to deconstruct the Isekai genre?

You can't really deconstruct the Isekai genre because "Isekai" is a setting and not a content genre. Isekai is just the transport to another world. Deconstructing it might (at most) work though the usual "was a dream"-copout. Or something like "he was crazy and did bad stuff in the real world while dreaming of a fantasy world".

If you look towards the usual "OP MC harem anime" that make the majority of Isekai, you can just look at those content genre and use their deconstruction...

 

[RockiesRetriever]

Utena, Evangelion, Monogatari…
What really is genre deconstruction and how to do it right?

Also, how to deconstruct the Isekai genre?

"Deconstruction" is a very nebulous term that will mean many different things to different people. Broadly I'd say most would agree the definition is "doing something different than is usually done in a genre" - others might describe it as taking the genre's elements apart and examine them - like doing a Lord of the Ring's esque story about Gandalf instead of Frodo.

But most commonly in the current public consciousness, deconstruction tends to be almost a synonym with "destruction." It is an exercise in subverting the expectations of the audience. You would for example, write Lord of the Rings except the hobbits all hate Frodo, Gandalf is trying to steal the ring, and then the Ringwraiths aren't creepy and are in fact more kind than everyone else.

Deconstructions in some spaces are welcomed, as they freshly plow what could be dry parched soil, bringing much needed life into a stale genre. You might follow what happened to the Hollywood western, where early on it was championing the cowboy as an amazing hero. Later on, you had the anti-westerns come in and deconstruct the old tropes. Perhaps these stories we glorified weren't moral after all? It brought an interesting element to the genre.


I think though that deconstruction is something to be very cautious with. I am not aware with the current state of genres on scribblehub, but in the wider world, to some deconstruction is a dirty word. It means to many "you are not allowed to have a story that just has simple good guys and bad guys, we must make it morally gray, must look at "what if that character you like was actually a washed up loser"....

Again, in some cases, it can be very interesting, but to others, it can be extremely tiring, when people just want to sit back and enjoy something simple and fun. There is nothing wrong with having a predictable story if it is written well, has a fun world and characters, etc.

I think what symbolizes this all is how I watched a cooking show once where they were tasked with baking a cake. One of the bakers dropped her cake onto the floor, and had to scrape the remains onto her dish. She presented it to the judges as a "deconstructed birthday cake."

To some this might be interested. It may allow them to taste the middle of the cake better than they would have otherwise. Others though will just be disappointed they didn't get a normal birthday cake.

 

[Cipiteca396]

Google Def

1. a method of critical analysis of philosophical and literary language which emphasizes the internal workings of language and conceptual systems, the relational quality of meaning, and the assumptions implicit in forms of expression.

Deconstruction - TV Tropes

"Deconstruction" literally means "to take something apart". When applied to tropes or other aspects of fiction, deconstruction means to take apart a trope in a way that exposes its inherent contradictions, often by exploring the difference …

tvtropes.org

Utena, Evangelion, Monogatari…
What really is genre deconstruction and how to do it right?

There's no real 'right'. You just take a trope and apply some critical thinking. You edited it out, but another quote mentions deconstructing Isekai, so I'll use that as my example.

For starters, how is it that everyone speaks the same language? To deconstruct that, just don't make them speak the same language, and the arduous process of learning one or more local languages just to begin the story.

Why are all the kingdoms racially segregated? Why do they hate eachother? Instead of writing 'humans summon heroes to defeat demons, you can write 'demons+ summon heroes to save them from humans' or 'racially mixed kingdoms with political motives instead of racial ones'.

Why did they summon heroes in the first place? Can't they solve their own problems? Instead of writing a hero summoning, maybe the 'hero' arrives and finds out he's completely unneeded- summoned by accident, as a prank, or by a malicious entity who can't fight its own battles.

Why is everyone always fighting? Why do things always go wrong when the protagonist is around to fix it? Instead, you could write a normal daily life, where things only go wrong once in a blue moon. Or, you could write the protagonist literally being cursed to cause trouble(ill news is an ill guest, after all).

As you can see, a lot of Isekai's deconstructions have already been explored. It's a popular genre after all.

Generally speaking, if you want to deconstruct something, there's just a few things to keep in mind:
This doesn't mean making it less fantastic; no reason to remove the magic or anything.
This doesn't mean making it darker and edgier; that is a perspective that comes from the writer, not from 'the nature of reality'.
This doesn't mean personally attacking the original tropes, the writers, or the people who like those tropes; that reflects more on you than them.

Oh there's this as well.

Not a Deconstruction / Administrivia - TV Tropes

The loose usage of the term "deconstruction". This usage typically because of fans plastering it on to their favourite work to make it seem deeper than it actually is. Darker and Edgier vs. Deconstruction Deconstructions are often Darker and …

tvtropes.org

 

[SakeVision]

First, you need to know what you're deconstructing, and why.

If you don't know, you will never succeed. If you do know, it comes naturally.

 

[K5Rakitan]

how to do it right?

Carefully

 

[Jemini]

"Deconstruction" is a very nebulous term that will mean many different things to different people. Broadly I'd say most would agree the definition is "doing something different than is usually done in a genre" - others might describe it as taking the genre's elements apart and examine them - like doing a Lord of the Ring's esque story about Gandalf instead of Frodo.

This point really strikes to the heart of the matter. It also brings up another interesting concern about this concept of a "genre deconstruction." It's something that can only really be done when the tropes start to really get tired in a given genre and people are not really considering them with serious thought, or experimenting with them as much as they should.

Having this in mind, I think it is becoming increasingly difficult, if not already impossible, to write any form of genre deconstruction in this age of webnovels. The webnovel age has allowed for so much experimentation and exploring and feeling out so many themes as people are striving to all do something different from the norm. As such, "tired tropes" have become a thing of the low-class writers who are destined to struggle to ever make it to the top of the list or have their stories succeed.

These days, it is almost a requirement that you have fresh new ideas and exciting perspectives in order to make it in the webnovel world.

What's more, the standard has gotten ABSURDLY HIGH lately. Every 10 or so years represents a quantum leap in the quality of the writing that we see. I have been reading Ascendance of a Bookworm lately, quite likely the single best Isekai ever made. And, if you look at the start and completion dates, it's also the newest of the bunch in terms of top-ranking Isekai in the Lite-Novel world. As such, I'm quite convinced the only reason it's so absurdly good is because it's had the history of all these previous developments on the genre to reference, and the only reason it's currently the best in history is because whatever's going to be made in the future using Bookworm as a reference hasn't been written yet.

In a way, Ascendance of a Bookworm can sort of be considered a deconstruction in itself, because it starts it's main character out as someone who is truly weak in every possible sense of the word. The one and only thing she has to her benefit is her past life memories. Literally everything else about her situation from her social status as a peasant to her own sickly and weak physical body that can't even stand to walk down the street without passing out and being bedridden for 3 days is all working against her, and the charm of the series comes from her overcoming challenges such as walking to the forest. No, not encountering monsters in the forest. There are no monsters. Her challenge is merely being able to walk from her home to the forest without falling unconscious due to her sickness, and it somehow manages to be one of the most compelling struggles you've ever seen.

That said, you also can't really call it a deconstruction, because if you did then you'd literally have to call every single piece of literature in the webnovel world that's actually any good at all these days a deconstruction. And, at that point, it looses all meaning. It's one of those situations where if everything's a deconstruction, then nothing is. And, I mean that quite seriously. By the very definition of the term "genre deconstruction," it's impossible for everything to be a deconstruction. So, because almost everything that is any good these days would fit the definition of a deconstruction if we compared it to the standards of 10 years ago, I think it's plenty safe to say it's impossible to write a genre deconstruction in this current age.