Genre and freedom in writing and people

When my professor first mentioned genre analysis, I found it a rather revolting idea. It seemed like it was trying to turn writing into something that could be studied scientifically and described with rules. I expected that any deviations from the customs of the genre would be a sign that we needed to come up with a better-fitting scientific model of the genre or something, instead of being a good thing, an expression of creativity.

But as it turned out, that's not what genre analysis says! It seems like most of the people who work in the field think of it more as learning the rules in order to creatively exploit or break them in order to make an effective piece of writing (Bhatia, to be proper). Looking at literary genres in particular, Hepburn (cited in Swales) says knowing about genre can actually be important to understanding a text; even if the text is rebelling against established genres, the reader has to know about genres to be able to appreciate that. It's part of context.

And I like this quote by Fowler (also cited in Swales): "Genre also offers a challenge by provoking a free spirit to transcend the limitations of previous examples." He says genre gives a writer something to work within, forms to match with their ideas, without writing the piece for them. That rather reminds me of Making Shapely Fiction by Jerome Stern, a text one of my undergrad fiction writing courses used, which describes the different narrative structures and encourages writers to 'fill' them with their own stories. Those structures aren't quite genres, but the idea's similar enough. It's a satisfying idea, everyone adding their own content to an existing shape.

But then, genre isn't just a good model for texts, but for people as well, right? I think of times I've tried to judge where I fit in some category of behavior or action: into personality types, which interested me a lot as a teenager; and into field of study, which concerns me now as I wonder quite what academic department, if any, I'll want to end up in. I think fitting myself into those things feels nice for some of the same reasons writers benefit from awareness of genre: it helps to have a basic idea of myself and a knowledge of how other people will see me based on their past experience with those categories, while leaving room to "transcend the limitations of previous examples."

It's also the traditional social sciences concept of structure and agency—or what society makes you do, and your own choices and uniqueness—with even kind of literal 'structure' if you imagine filling up a shape like in Making Shapely Fiction.

Then, why do scholars apply genre to texts but not people? It would be so nice should the social sciences celebrate the potential for rule-breaking creativity too. In genre analysis, linguistics is scientifically making rules and describing the world— towards the goal of showing people how to make more interesting and unique decisions. But it seems like the social sciences only make rules and describe the world in an attempt to explain and apprehend people, and to lament the shortcomings of the discipline if people don't behave as expected. Ugh.