KetchWriting's picture
KetchWriting from Portland, OR is reading "A Dance With Dragons" by George R.R. Martin March 30, 2019 - 12:05pm

Dear LitReactor Community:

     I am currently in the process of submitting my first Query Letter to an agent, but there is one thing that I'm still unsure of. What genre does my story fall into? I have read Dark Fantasy, Historical Fiction, Historical Science Fiction, Historical Dark Fantasy, etc. Does anyone have any good resources for figuring out the answer to this question when your story is complex and can fall into multiple categories?

Thank you for your input!

helpfulsnowman's picture
Community Manager
helpfulsnowman from Colorado is reading But What If We're Wrong? by Chuck Klosterman April 1, 2019 - 10:19am

You might try coming at the problem backwards. Which books that currently exist are most like yours, and which genres do they claim? You could use something like this to help you find out. Or, you could search books like yours on Goodreads and use the common categorizations of readers to help. If you have access to Novelist via your public library (which you most likely do), you can also get into the advanced search, tick the boxes that match your book, and then see what comes up. You could then look at the primary categorization of books that come up, especially the most popular ones, and go that route. 

 

 

 

voodoo_em's picture
voodoo_em from England is reading All the books by Ira Levin April 2, 2019 - 1:15am

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_writing_genres

This may also help :) Could be that you cross genres with your writing, so reading the details of various genres and seeing which fit your work might be a good idea.

KetchWriting's picture
KetchWriting from Portland, OR is reading "A Dance With Dragons" by George R.R. Martin April 2, 2019 - 12:19pm

Great suggestions, thank you!

L.W. Flouisa's picture
L.W. Flouisa from Tennessee is reading More Murakami May 9, 2019 - 3:31pm

So wait an April fools post? It's not even April yet.

Yea it's long past April.