Posts tagged genre
I've written a short story about a true historical incident which involves a very famous person in history. The incident is true as are the people involved in it. But the story is a fictional eyewi...
Is the "genre" a piece of fiction belongs to determined by the author, or by the editor and publishing house? Is there an established definition for each genre, or is it largely ad hoc? I ask bec...
(Warning, mention of sexual abuse!!) In the near future where humans have polluted and radiated the Earth so much that animals and plants have been going extinct at alarming rates and humans thems...
My intention is to write a novel that falls into the "contemporary fiction" genre. Also, maybe, the "family drama" subgenre, if such a thing exists. I have a plot point that puts one of my characte...
In many works of genre-fiction (I'm talking mainly about fantasy and sci-fi, but others genres can apply), and across many forms of media, the main characters ends up being special in some ways. M...
I want to write a fantasy novel with a female protagonist, and I want to familiarize myself with reader expectations. Is there still a tradition of (medieval-type) fantasy by and for women, and wha...
In his book How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy, Orson Scott Card mentions the differences between fantasy and sci-fi readers, and even says that an author should stick to only one genre, as t...
From this question: However, unless you're an established author, you don't have the luxury of declaring your work to be fantasy or science fiction like Fowler does; someone else has to do that...
For my own needs I write fantasy. But at this time I am not sure what genre it is. Base of that world is probably classic fantasy, because there are: unicorns dragons gods magic lycanthrops othe...
I'm asking this on Writing.SE because I'm doing a short presentation on "What is an anthology," and I'm not sure how to answer the question "Why is X an anthology and Y is not?" Merriam Webster de...
Edit: There have been a few very good answers and comments. The feedback I've got so far has made me question whether I'm even going into the right direction with my story. I felt like the themes ...
Are there significant differences between satire and parody? Can you provide examples of the difference? Do you know of a book which is considered satire; one which is considered parody?
The criteria that come to mind are not exclusive to horror novels, so I'm a little confused and annoyed (annoyed because I find horror novels scary, and yet just cannot define it logically when I t...
My current novel is of the satire/humour genre. Another novel that is currently in the works is still humorous, but is more of a fantasy novel. A third novel that I am currently working on - I li...
I'm writing a novel which centers around a serial killer and his victims. I'm having a lot of trouble deciding whether it belongs in the horror genre (it's a disturbing, horrific slasher, and a lot...
Everything about our culture has changed so dramatically over the course of the last hundred years that it’s very hard to believe that we’d be the same as we are now in five hundred years. This is...
I would like to ask for any guidelines that could help to determine when a story can be considered "erotic". Is it based on the words, the number of scenes or on how detailed they are? Shortly, if ...
When fiction is marketed, I often see them listed by genre, for e.g.: "fantasy", "science fiction", "mystery", "poetry", etc. Most bookstores and Web sites use essentially the same categories to cl...
I love to invent stories and come up with ideas, but I don't have the patience to fill out all the details that is usually a part of a novel. (For those of you familiar with Myers-Briggs or Jungian...
I live in India and here light reads and "chick lit" have made a great impression. The youth are picking up such books like petrol on fire. Even non-readers are giving reading these genres a try. T...
The movie "Sucker Punch" and the "Once Upon a time" series make it hard to distinguish what state of reality is the "real" one (not that it matters). In "Fixing the Shadow" we encountered a charac...
Recently I've stumbled across China Miéville's novels. Apparently, they fit in a genre called Weird Fiction, or to be even more specific New Weird, where the "new" is used to distinguish new writer...
Science fiction has been defined as a genre where the "incredible" elements are "recognizable as not-true, but also as not-unlike-true, not-flatly- (and in the current state of knowledge) impossibl...
This question popped into my mind after criticizing the strategic choices in a recent episode of a famous fantasy television show (coffs). A lot of genre fiction (mostly fantasy, even if we may ca...
Short-stories are a nice format to write. If you have been an aspiring writer for at least one year, it's quite probabile that you've got at least three short stories drafted out, sitting in some d...
Possibly related questions: Should I add racism in my book's world or have my world have no racism? Is accurate human nature required for good writing, even in fantasy scenarios, or with fictiona...
I'm a strong believer in genre being largely a thing that's used for marketing, an easy shorthand for book stores to know where to place your book and sell it better. It's also, unfortunately, a sh...
This question is about genre and reader expectations. I'm not trying to change my story to fit a mainstream genre. I have already taken steps to broaden it's appeal, but it's too late to create an ...
I'm increasingly having to write User Guides as part of my job and I need routes to make this into a more interesting exercise. Hence, I was actually looking for something completely different whe...
I've long been interested in writing a fantasy novel. Over the countless iterations I've gone through, one thing has remained clear: a quest for originality. I know some people like the fantasy c...
foreword: I'm writing for a game, however it's (mostly) irrelevant to my question. Just FYI. I have three main characters in my story. One is a weak but smart child and the other two are trained m...
This is about the hints that the readers should notice as the story progresses - and should definitely notice upon re-read. First off, I looked around for a bit and didn't see any questions on th...
Say I am writing a (mostly) realistic fiction book. The entirety of said work is mostly what a person would expect from realistic fiction with the world being almost entirely similar to our own, po...
I have seen two similar terms, historical fiction and creative non-fiction. I'm writing some stories that are set during a real time in history, that might mention real events, real people, but tha...
Premise: I believe that breaking genre expectations can alienate readers. If you go into a book expecting one thing and get another thing out of it - especially if that other thing is the complete ...
The line between science fiction and fantasy is often blurred. And that's okay. Genre is often more about marketing than anything else. As a general rule though: SciFi has science and technology...
I'm taking a writing course and the biggest challenge I'm facing is figuring out my audience — particularly for something I have written where I didn't have an audience in mind. Some topics or styl...
(This question is about reading but it pertains to writing as well). I write fantasy, and as a result, I've read a lot of fantasy books that are supposedly the "best," that are beloved by all fant...
Imagine I write a work of fiction, which is larger than 10.000 words (short story), but smaller than 80.000 words (novel). The external genre is thriller, the internal one -- disillusionment plot. ...
Here I came upon an argument about whether a particular grouping is a genre, or a marketing term. Which made me wonder - what is genre? How strict is this taxonomy, and what purpose does it serve? ...
The modern world has few true mysteries, among them the fate of the Roanoke colonists and the crew of the Mary Celeste but do such happenings have a place in futuristic settings? In settings with ...
I've heard this term thrown around sometimes in a derisive way (obviously), and usually not just to refer to Saw movies. I don't remember who it was, but I remember someone saying how the movie "Lo...
I plan to write an alternate history story that eventually leads to Texas taking up most of the area that otherwise would have been the USA. It starts with the European side of things, in particula...
I've done worldbuilding and extensive plotting for a Book 1 based around a "detective" (not a literal detective but someone who fills that role) who hunts and resolves (neutralizes) occult object...
Is a book labelled "romance" expected to a have a happy ending? I've heard advice that "romance" novels are meant to satisfy, well, a desire for romance, and so an ending without a "happily ever ...
How little "fantasy" can be in a story and it still be recognizably fantasy, and not mainstream fiction? The "recognizable fantasy" question is one I struggle with all the time. Fantasy exists on...
I keep hearing about literary fiction, and how it is so much better than genre fiction. What exactly is literary fiction?