Genre is a much discussed, often little understood, idea.

What genre essentially means to you, the writer, is a set of conventions and tropes (an artistic figure of speech or symbol) that define a particular kind of story and storytelling format.

For screenwriters, genre can either be a blessing or a tortuous curse. I continually advise new writers to steer clear of genre pieces for their early works, because the conventions of genre can completely bog them down in a mire of external expectations that can distort their creative vision to the point of utter narrative paralysis. The trick to really making genre work for you, rather than against you, is to learn to use its conventions in the service of your own ideas, and as a springboard for new twists on old themes. If you let the dictates of genre rule your script, the result will be an unintentional self-parody of clichés and predictable situations that will fall flat on its face.

Because many of the cinematic standards of genre were defined long ago, a writer must rely upon a few tricks in order to take the form into a new direction.

The Standard Ingredients

A great example of a genre-defining standard is the film noir classic, "Double Indemnity." What marks this as noir are a combination of visual stylizations (such as stark lighting to enhance a mood of paranoia and impending tragedy), and narrative tropes. In this film, a few of these tropes are:

• The doomed protagonist.
• The femme fatale.
• The hard-boiled first-person voiceover narration.
• The snappy, tough-talking dialogue.
• The double-cross.

If you write a story that were to include all of these elements, you might have something that looked like noir, sounded like noir, and may even have a lot in common with noir, but might also be quite unintentionally laughable.

Not only have all of these elements been done to death, but "Double Indemnity" was written by two of the greatest masters of the form, Raymond Chandler and Billy Wilder. How can you compete with those factors hanging over your head? You can't. And you shouldn't try.

Instead, you need to utilize these old forms as springboards for new ideas. This can best be accomplished in two ways; undermining expectation, and synergetic fusion.

Undermining Expectation

The expectations created by genre are so ingrained into audiences, that many films have parodied genre tropes. Think of the way the "Naked Gun" series both deconstructs and exaggerates the conventions of the crime and suspense genres for our amusement. You, too, can utilize this kind of departure from convention -- not necessarily just for comedic effect, but for surprising, strong dramatic effect.

A great example is the use of many of the same tropes used in "Double Indemnity" were used in "Blade Runner," yet were metamorphosed into something new.

• The doomed protagonist:
  Deckard is a cop, yet once we understand that the replicants are fighting for their lives, it seems that Deckard's job may not be as noble as we thought. As Deckard comes to understand the replicants' point of view, partially via his love for Rachael, he finally achieves redemption instead of facing the kind of untimely end he might have met in standard noir.
• The femme fatale:
  Rachael seems cool and aloof at first, yet when she learns that she is a replicant, she becomes scared and vulnerable. Yet her role is really that of love interest temporarily clothed as femme fatale. A better candidate might be Pris, the pleasure-model replicant, who does actually use her powers of seduction to convince J. F. Sebastian to let her stay with him. Yet she does not spin a web of allure and deceit around the main character as would a real femme fatale.
  The narrative essentially splits the role between the three women in the film; Rachael, Pris, and Zhora -- this last one possibly the most archetypal combination of seductiveness and deadliness, or as Captain Bryant says of her, "Talk about beauty and the beast -- she's both."
  The narrative has an unusual position on women, in that all of the females in the story are replicants. Only Rachael, who has been in a sense "domesticated" by her memory implants (including one of a loving mother), is the one whom with it is safe for Deckard to associate.
• The hard-boiled first-person voiceover narration:
  This trope was not significantly undermined, but its presence shows that not every element needs to be changed. Significantly, the narration was added to the film after the fact, and is not part of the original screenplay or the superior director's cut.
• The snappy, tough-talking dialogue:
  The difference in "Blade Runner"'s dialogue is that it is loaded with the technical language and unusual expectations of a science fiction universe, thus it undermines expectation as the product of the fusion of two genres (see below for more detail).
• The double-cross:
  Deckard goes against his official orders when he goes away with Rachael instead of killing her. This is unusual in that is is a double-cross for love, rather than greed, lust, or self-preservation as seen in typical noir.

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