The Writers’ Workshop: Genre

Comprehension Questions

Complete the following questions to demonstrate your understanding of genre and narrative
techniques in writing.

1. What is ‘genre’?

2. Why is talking about genre useful?

3. How does understanding different genres help in studying texts?

4. What does Crime Fiction typically ask?

5. What does Adventure answer to?

6. Is Romance based on fact or fiction?

7. What do the hero and heroine typically meet in the Romance genre?

8. What genre is set in an unreal world?

9. What genre flows between the ordinary world and a third or spiritual dimension?

10. How does satire work?

11. What is meant by ‘a personal journey’?

12. What genre celebrates growing up? 15ENG05A© ClickView Pty Limited 2016. Reproducing these additional resources:
You may download and print one copy of these additional resources from ClickView for your
reference. Further copying or printing must be reported to CAL as per the Copyright Act 1968.

13. Explain how setting interacts with narrative to create a genre.

14. List some examples of novels or films in which setting has played a major role in
determining genre.

15. In the programme, crime writer Angela Savage mentions writing techniques that increase
pace in her crime fiction. What are they, and how do they work on the reader?

1
15ENG05B© ClickView Pty Limited 2016. Reproducing these additional resources:
You may download and print one copy of these additional resources from ClickView for your
reference. Further copying or printing must be reported to CAL as per the Copyright Act 1968.


The Writers’ Workshop: Genre

Comprehension Questions

16. Do genres stay the same over time? Why/why not?

17. Writing is rarely confined strictly to one genre or another. Explain why this is so.

18. List two of your favourite genres and, giving some examples, explain why they are so.

19. Fill in the blanks below, some answers have already been provided.

Genre Asks Plot driven by Your Example

Crime Fiction Investigation

Adventure

Thriller Action and

Investigation

Romance Who loves whom?

Coming of Self-discovery
Age/Young Adult
Magical realism How does the
spiritual intersect with
the solid world?

15ENG05A© ClickView Pty Limited 2016. Reproducing these additional resources:

Fantasy You may download and print one copy of these additional resources from ClickView for your
reference. Further copying or printing must be reported to CAL as per the Copyright Act 1968.

Comedy What makes us The funny

laugh?

Satire Sense of the ridiculous

2
15ENG05B© ClickView Pty Limited 2016. Reproducing these additional resources:
You may download and print one copy of these additional resources from ClickView for your
reference. Further copying or printing must be reported to CAL as per the Copyright Act 1968.