I’ll be honest – when I first started writing novel-length stories, genre was the furthest thing from my mind. I just knew I had stories I wanted to tell. So I just wrestled them onto the page.
But then I started querying and publishing. And suddenly, I had to put my stories into tidy little boxes. ＞﹏＜
The first, All Falling Things, was an easy one – Women’s Fiction. As was Goode vs Melville with its low fantasy/sci-fi storyline (that was the third manuscript – and, for the first time, I knew it going in).
But Wherever Would I Be proved tricky. It’s listed as YA, though New Adult would be a better fit (if that ever gets off the ground). But beyond that, I wasn’t sure where to put it. Fantasy felt too strong of a word – even with the added ‘low’ qualifier. While I’ve read a lot of SciFi/Fantasy in my life, I never realized just how many subgenres existed under that particular umbrella. It was a deep dive, folks.
I think part of the issue is that I read so widely and write almost as widely. When folks ask me what I like to read, I generally say everything but horror. (No offense to horror writers or readers – I just have too active an imagination that likes to come alive at night. >_< ) I gravitate to the story more so than the genre, so I rarely worry about the ‘label’.
Eventually, I landed on magic realism (which was my introduction to the fact that this was a genre, and that I had read quite a few such books in my time).
And then Shepherd reached out about my creating a top five list that share a theme with me own book.
Little by little, I’ve learned that in the chaos of my reading list, there are specific stories that I do tend to gravitate to. In grad school, I learned that I prefer character-driven over plot-driven (though I will read both – I just like seeing a story develop because of how a character evolves, especially in my own writing). A few years ago, I learned that ‘quiet’ stories are a thing – and that is definitely my jam (again, especially in my own writing). But beyond that, I couldn’t figure out what sort of theme would fit my book with others that I enjoy. Until it FINALLY clicked – finding family (which I define broadly – I don’t mean literally finding people they’re related to – it can be creating a family when your bio one is absent).
Sometimes, one’s interests are more narrow than they may seem initially. 🙂
If you are struggling to put your story into a tidy little box, don’t worry – you’re not the only one. Here’s a great list to scroll through: 162 Different Writing Genres & Subgenres for Fiction
Ami Maxine 