What determines genre?

You almost have to assign your book a genre in order to describe it to an agent or publisher; the publisher will likely make the final determination of what genre they assign internally, and this can differ from publisher to publisher.

As said before, genre is a marketing tool, it helps agents know which publishers to approach, and publishers know how to market a book. Neither of them will blindly accept what you tell them; they will read your book and make their own judgment.

Because genre is a marketing tool, it has to be very general. It is talking about a kind of story, not your specific story, so it is describing story elements that many readers love to read about. Magic in a Fantasy World, or Magic in the modern world, or various kinds of space-based adventures, etc.

Due to pinpoint marketing (by Facebook, Google, Amazon and others) genres are getting more specific as new target groups are found. Don't expect to be an expert in this. Stick to genre descriptions you can find online, and leave the marketing to people that spend all day, every day, figuring out how to sell books.

Agents/Publishers are likely to cut you a little slack on what you choose as genre; they don't expect you to be a book marketing expert. That's their job. They only expect you to be an expert storyteller and writer.

That said, you should still try to get close, because the genre you claim in your query may be used as grounds for summary rejection. If you claim "X" the agent, knowing the market, may think "X" is a hard sell in this market, I'll pass.

If you claim "Y" the agent may think "Y", excellent, let's see the sample -- Wait, this isn't "Y", this girl doesn't know what she's doing. I'll pass."

I don't think you need to read a bunch of books and say your book is like A, D, and G. At least I don't have time to read dozens of books looking for one like mine.

I think you should be careful and read the genre's themselves, what story elements each genre includes, and pick the one that is closest to your story. That way, the expectations of the agent/publisher won't be far off from the reality of your story, and any refinement they make will actually be just a refinement, not a wholesale reassignment.

Find the elements of genre on the Internet. Agents (for example on Manuscript Wish List (aka MSWL) or Wikipedia's List of Writing Genres). You can also find on MSWL agents interested in your particular genre; and by reading their profiles, you might find even more specifics about what they are looking for.

It's work. A day or two, if your genre is not obvious to you. But don't stray too far into the specifics of story details. Just because your story contains a romance doesn't make it a Romance. Just because it contains an explicit sex scene doesn't make it Erotica. Just because it has a homosexual character doesn't make it LGBTQ+ fiction. You might want an agent that doesn't mind representing erotica or LGBTQ+, but don't claim it as your genre if being homosexual is not central to the story.

Some things listed as genres actually are not completely about story elements; "Children's", "Young Adult" and "New Adult" are more about age groups and content. They need to be supplemented with a genre mostly concerned with story elements. So "New Adult Urban Fantasy" tells you the story appeals to 18-30 year olds, likely contains language and scenes not appropriate for minors (or the topics explored are not relatable or appealing to minors), and is magic in a modern city.

Good enough! You aren't trying to pinpoint your story by listing a bunch of genre labels. That is counter-productive, the more you list the more confusing the sales picture gets. Pick a lane and drive in it, give the experts a good general idea of how it would be sold and let the experts deal with the pinpoint definition of the audience after they decide your story is compelling and can be sold.

Also, a query letter is a very tight box within which to describe your story. The less space you take up trying to pinpoint your exact genre, the more space you will have to sell the story setup (first Act) itself. Even a few more words can be crucial. So give it your best shot within about half a line of text.

posted over 5 years ago

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Amadeus‭

3156 reputation 2 1399 613 37

People buy books they way they buy vacations. The are looking for a specific kind of experience. There are certain elements that must be part of the experience. There are certain elements that must not be part of the experience. A certain amount of surprises and novelty are welcome as long as they are the right kind of experience.

The precise kinds of experience that fall on the must and must not list vary from person to person, so genre specifications are not uniform. Some must have a particular setting; others don't care where it is set. Some must have a particular kind of hero or heroine; some welcome variety. Some must have a particular political bent; some don't want politics at all. Some must have horses, some must have dogs, some must have aliens, some must have sex, some must have werewolves, some must not have spiders or snakes or violence or religion.

A genre is, in other words, an arbitrary bundle of desires and aversions shared by a sufficiently large number of people that it is worth writing books just for them.

Either your book checks all must have boxes and must not have boxes for a particular genre, or it does not. Conceivably it could check all the must and must not have boxes for more than one genre. Vampire romance, anyone?

Deciding which genre to write to starts with the author. Either you decide to write your book to the specifications of a particular genre, or you decide to write it first and figure out the genre later, or you decide to ignore genre and hope to be the breakthrough genre-busting novel that defines a new genre around itself, -- Vampire romance, anyone? -- or you decide to go mainstream/literary and hope to appeal to readers that like more than one kind of book and are a little more catholic in the experiences they seek. All of that is on you.

Don't fall into the trap of assuming that any book you write must inevitably have a genre. The genres are particular and there are lots of book, and potential books, that simple don't meet the requirement of any genre. You might as well try to sell vacations to Gary, Indiana.

A publisher or agent will want to know what genre a book is. If it fits more than one, they will decide which of the available genres to sell it in. But genre is an expression of reader taste, and publishers and agents follow genre, they don't lead it or invent it, though some may discover it. A genre is just a sufficiently lucrative grouping of taste, and any agent or editor who discovers such a grouping of taste (usually by taking a flyer on a book they really like that does not fit a currently defined genre) can build a career on the discovery. But that is a risky move, much more likely to produce a flop than to found a new genre. Don't count on finding too many agents or editors ready to do that for your book.

posted almost 5 years ago

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5y ago

Mark Baker‭

4371 reputation 12 1104 744 58

Yes, there is an established definition for each genre. Here is a list:

https://resources.writersonlineworkshops.com/resources/definitions-of-fiction-categories-and-genres/

To your larger question of how writing within a genre works in practice, it's my observation that new writers are usually well-advised to fit their work into expectations as much as possible.

For example, you may have written a classic western, and the story is rolling along, saloons and ranchers and gun fights and whatnot, maybe a love story thrown in, and your readers are all on board. Then out of the blue the main cowgirl develops mind control powers. Or she transforms into a wyvern, or whatever.

You've departed from the Western genre. It's possible to pull off a Western/speculative crossover like this, but if you make this choice you're putting a hurdle between your manuscript and any agent who might represent Western. Your story simply won't be what they have in mind when they start reading your manuscript. (IOW, the chances they want a cowgirl who can shape shift into a mind-controlling wyvern are slim.)

So, you have a choice. As a new writer, probably best to try to conform to genre expectations. Look for the hallmarks of any particular genre and make sure your work is hitting each of those without ringing one of the bells classically reserved to other genres.

Last note. Some features, like romance, can comfortably be integrated into any genre. These features tend to be the ones that are relatable normal human experiences. Coming of age, loss and death, and so on.

posted almost 5 years ago

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5y ago

DPT‭

460 reputation 2 29 79 68

I read this really good definition by Chris Sunami:

Genre should be seen largely as a way of connecting a writer with the audience most likely to enjoy his or her book based on elements shared with other books.

I read it about 2 minutes ago here: What is the most important characteristic of New Weird as a genre?.

So if you're not sure what to call your book's genre:

1. Look at those publisher's catalogs and find the one that has 4-5 books the most like yours.
2. If they group those books into a genre, use that one.
3. If the books most like yours seem to be scattered among genres, just tell the publishers (or your agent) it's "in the vein of A____, B____, C_____, and D____". Let them decide what genre to tag it with.

posted over 5 years ago

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Shawn V. Wilson‭

30 reputation 3 2 4 0

quoting wikipedia:

Genre ... "kind" or "sort", from Latin: genus (stem gener-), Greek: genos, γένος) is the term for any category of literature, as well as various other forms of art or culture e.g. music, based on some loose set of stylistic criteria. Genres are formed by conventions that change over time as new genres are invented and the use of old ones are discontinued. Often, works fit into multiple genres by way of borrowing and recombining these conventions.

So genres evolve as they come and go, and based on current cultural state - we could say there is a current established definition.

posted about 14 years ago

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Axarydax‭

40 reputation 3 2 6 0

Another answer (in addition to my old answer): One approach is that your agent/publisher is going to want to know what other book yours is like, specifically "This book will appeal to readers of The Hunger Games", or something like that.

(That can be very difficult for me; I have very limited free time, and I devote most of it to writing fiction, not reading.)

But using plot-summaries, and sometimes movies based on books, I figure out once a year what my book is like, and those are already classified by genre. Like The Hunger Games is Dystopian, but is also Science Fantasy (fantasy without any magic).

The main point, of both genre and comparisons, is to give the Agent or Publisher some idea of the audience. The comparison should be a best-seller, or something made into a movie, something that puts $ signs in their eyes. It is NOT important to get the most accurate match for comparison. You want a reasonably fair comparison, but also an instantly recognizable money-maker.

posted almost 5 years ago

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Amadeus‭

3156 reputation 2 1399 613 37