Blog #4

While reading Chapter 1 of the Bedford Book of Genres my eyes were opened to aspects of writing that I was previously unaware of. I never fully grasped that a piece of writing could fit into more than one genre. I believed that when an author wrote a piece that what genre it would be was set in stone. I thought that there was a definitive list somewhere that explained what a text needs to have/say in order to be classified a certain way. This chapter really showed me that genres are definitely not as structured as I thought they were.

Another aspect writing that I never thought about, is the fact that who your audience is might heavily influence or even change what you’re writing. I always thought that authors mainly wrote for themselves, to relieve some kind of inner need or calling or to make a difference in the world or someone’s life. In high school, I was always taught to write for the person grading it and to strictly follow some kind of rubric, but I thought that those who moved on to become professionals did what they want and told authorities to shove it. It never occurred to me that it was basically the same thing but on a larger scale.