Questions of Genre

Every story ever published fits into at least major category in the writing world. Most could be wedged into two, some are very broad based and don’t appear to have a specific category.

These categories are referred to as ‘genre’. The genre describes the type of story and what readers can expect from any book in that category.

For example, readers of the mystery genre can expect a crime to be committed. They can expect to find at least one character devoted to unraveling the secret of the crime and they can expect a lot of suspects, all of whom appear to have a legitimate reason for committing the crime and not much of an alibi that eliminates them from consideration.

Readers of the romance genre can expect a male character and a female character who meet, fall in love, are separated for some reason, overcome personal issues, get back together and live happily ever after.

Four major categories are contemporary, historical, romance and mystery.

Each one of those has sub-genres that further define books.

In the romance genre, you will find western romances, historical romances, gothic romances and so on.

In the mystery genre, readers can choose from mysteries and suspense. The category is further divided into romantic suspense, romantic mystery, historical romance and cozy mysteries (think Miss Marple). Somewhere in there, you’ll also find police procedurals of all types.

Of course there are other genres, as well. Science fiction and fantasy is quite popular these days. Biblical fiction, westerns, adventure and horror are also a few other genres.

Genre is important to the writer as well as the reader. Each genre has accepted norms and standards expected by both publishers and readers. While publishers and readers also like to see new and surprising things, a writer who regularly writes mysteries that read more like romances is going to have a difficult time reaching the desired target audience.

Genre also makes marketing a book easier. When I select a genre for a story, I’ve also narrowed the market of all readers to the readers most likely to read that type of book. Marketing efforts can be targeted to those readers, saving time, effort and the expense of marketing to readers unlikely to be interested in the book being marketed.

I have heard some writers wish for the day when there are no genres and when books are not pigeon-holed. That’s like an artist wishing all the paints were the same, instead of being ‘pigeon-holed’ into such labels as acrylic, watercolor and oil.

Those colors are not arbitrary labels. They describe what’s in the tube.They describe the type of paint. Imagine the confusion if all paint was labeled the same.

Likewise with books. Books weren’t created to fill genres; genres were created to describe books. The subject of the book, the style, the message all contribute to categorizing the book.

Where we really have difficulty is getting our beloved work of literary art to fit into a genre when we just know the poor dear deserves to be unchained by label or category! That’s when we struggle.

I know that to be true personally, with at least one story that falls just about evenly between three different genres. This beloved literary child will need to be disciplined into one of those categories before it can go out on its own to be published. The struggle is to determine which genre, then to sit down and do the necessary work.

And that does make a world without genre look pretty good!