History FormulaBreakingEpisode / Literature

* Amongst [[Creator/AgathaChristie Agatha Christie's]] extensive collection of works is a single book that is not set during the time-period in which she lived: ''Death Comes as the End'', a murder-mystery set in Ancient Eygpt. And then there is also a small handful of non-mystery books [[PenName written as Mary Westmacott]].

** ''How I Learned to Fly'': While most of the other books dealt with kids squaring off against monsters, vampires, ghosts, goblins, ghouls, and other freaky creatures, ''How I Learned to Fly'' doesn't have much in the way of supernatural elements (except for the book that teaches humans how to fly) and the real scares come from the downside of fame (Jack and Wilson become famous for their ability to fly and it cuts into their normal lives) and how greedy people exploit the talented (Jack's father is a talent agent who puts his son in local car dealership commercials).
** ''Fright Camp'', ''Are You Terrified Yet?'' and ''Scream School'' all end up having no supernatural events. ''Are You Terrified Yet'' in particular plays out more like like a slice of life comedy.
** ''The Mummy Walks'' plays out like an espionage thriller about a kid who discovers he is the prince of a fictional Middle Eastern country and is forced to locate a treasure he has no memory of.
** ''Slappy's Nightmare'' is a VillainEpisode for Slappy the Dummy, as he is forced to do three good deeds, or he will be put to sleep forever.

* [[Creator/RudyardKipling Rudyard Kipling's]] ''Literature/TheJungleBook'' and ''The Second Jungle Book'' are a collection of stories set in India, though each one has a short story that has nothing to do with jungles or India: "The White Seal", set in the northern oceans, and "Quiquern", which is about huskies and Inuits.
* [[invoked]] Out of Creator/{{Terry Pratchett}}'s widely acclaimed ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' series, ''Literature/GoingPostal'' is especially beloved for just how ''different'' it is from any of the preceding novels. For one, it introduced a never-before-seen and quickly beloved protagonist in the form of [[TheAtoner Moist von Lipwig]] (a former ConMan tasked with fixing [[CityOfAdventure Anhk-Morpork's]] Postal Service), which significantly aided in revitalizing the series and keeping it relevant. ''Going Postal'' is also rather notable in that, unlike previous ''Discworld'' novels, it's all built around making a [=dead-serious=] point about the dangers of privatization—While prior ''Discworld'' novels certainly had serious points to make, it can be reasonably argued that out of the previous 33 books, only ''Literature/EqualRites'' (a FeministFantasy about BreakingTheGlassCeiling), ''Literature/SmallGods'' (a critique of religious fundamentalism), ''Literature/{{Jingo}}'' (a military satire taking jabs at [=neo-colonialism=]), and ''[[Literature/NightWatchDiscworld Night Watch]]'' (a DarkerAndEdgier analysis of {{Full Circle Revolution}}s, how people view the police, and the concept of justice) had made the humor take a back seat to the well-delivered Aesops in the same way that ''Going Postal'' did. And finally, ''Going Postal'' is also the first ''Discworld'' novel since ''Literature/TheLightFantastic'' to include chapters (which Pratchett did in part as a TakeThat towards a literary critic who complained about the lack of chapters in his work).

* ''Literature/PumpSixAndOtherStories'' is a collection of futuristic, sci-fi stories that tend to be either BioPunk or set AfterTheEnd (some of them both). And then there is ''Softer'', which is a story of Jonathan Tilly, a regular, mild-mannered guy in contemporary world, who in a random fit kills his wife. He spends rest of the story dealing with the fact and his ever-growing realization that [[TheSociopath this is not the end of the world]] as the pop-culture have taught him.
* ''Literature/TheHorseAndHisBoy'' is the only book in ''Literature/TheChroniclesOfNarnia'' that is set entirely within Narnia and its surrounding countries, with protagonists who are born there instead of visitors from ''our'' world.
* ''A More Perfect Heaven'' is a fairly typical biography of Copernicus (the astronomer). Two-thirds of the way through, right before the chapter where On the Revolutions was published, there is a sudden genre shift in the form of a three-act screenplay starting where the previous chapter's biography left off. This isn't a short thing either. The performance in audiobook covers a full hour and a half. At the conclusion of the screenplay, the next chapter picks up the biography right where the chapter before the screenplay left off.

* You'd be shocked to learn that the first novel Creator/VCAndrews (Yes, ''[[Literature/FlowersInTheAttic that]]'' V.C. Andrews) ever wrote was ''Gods Of Green Mountain'', a sci-fi novel taking place on another planet. It should be noted that it wasn't published until almost twenty years after Andrews' death, probably because it was so different from her work.
* ''Literature/BrownsPineRidgeStories'': Each of the tales in this Short story collection is about the autobiographical SliceOfLife recollections of the author growing up in 1950s-1960s Georgia. The last especially when delves into TimeTravel, angels, [[FlatWhat and]]... well that's quite an OutOfGenreExperience. Though its worth noting that story, "My Trip to the Rome of the Ancient Past", was a contribution from another author altogether.

* The first ''Literature/{{Dinotopia}}'' book was presented as a [[LiteraryAgentHypothesis diary written by the protagonist]]. The next two books told the story from a third-person perspective.