What kind of story do you tell?
Genre simply means the type of story being told. Your story can fit into a typical genre or you can blur the lines between genres. You can create all kinds of fusion, too, by mixing elements from a couple of different genres and blending them… why not try post apocalyptic, fantasy, romance?
Genre Main Menu
- FANTASY, high magic, low magic, high tech, low tech,
- science fiction, sci fi
- post apocalyptic, post nuclear, zombie,
- HORROR, slasher, psychological horror, occult, gore,
- western, pioneer, frontier,
- romance, vampire, action romance,
- steampunk,
- anime, manga, comic book,
- superhero,
- war, combat, fighting action, historical,
- Vietnam, WWI, WWII,
- holocaust,
- historical,
- Canadiana, Americana,
- Gothic,
- modern, contemporary, current,
- tragedy, comedy, tragicomedy,
- satire, parody, spoof,
- spin-off, derivative, fan fiction,
- allegorical, metaphorical,
- grotesque, fantastic, surreal, absurdist, bizarre (bizarro), pop-surrealism,
- realistic, slice-of-life,
- realism, magical realism, romantic realism, Victorian realism, bourgeois realism,
- folklore, folk, legend, myth, mythology, mythopoeia (new mythology), tall tale, fable, campfire story, urban myth,
- anecdote,
- virtual reality, supernatural,
- humour, comedy, situation comedy (sit com),
- Saturday morning cartoon,
- religious, creationist, spiritual,
- romantic, romantic realism, romantic historical, rom-com (romantic comedy),
- serial, series lit, daily, weekly,
- pulp, pop, popular fiction,
- suspense, thriller, techno-thriller,
- adventure, voyage, lost world,
- feghoot,
- children, kid lit,
- young adult, teen lit, coming of age story, bildungsroman,
- crime, detective, whodunnit, P.I., film noire, mystery, forensic,
- legal drama, legal thriller,
- espionage, spy, Cold War,
- political thriller,
- cliffhanger,
- short fiction, pulp fiction,
- cartoon, comic book,
- Milesian,
- roman a clef,
- pirate, swashbuckler,
- travel,
- erotic, fetish,
- inspirational, motivational
- psychological, psychological thriller,
- mainstream, popular,
- musical, opera, dance, theatrical,
Genre Tweak Ideas
- fusion or hybrid – “fuse together” two different genres to create a cool new hybrid idea (ie. legal-romance, Gothic-superhero, comic-Canadiana, etc.)
- pseudo – add this before a word to mean “sort of” as in: pseudo-swashbuckler, pseudo-romance, pseudo-zombie
- romanticism – add this after a genre term to mean “glorified”; Canadian Romanticism, for example, would portray life on the prairies as idyllic
- schlock, junk, or cliche – this is taking all the cliches of a genre and overdoing them, which is considered “bad” writing, I suppose… unless you’re doing it on purpose. Have fun!