How to Choose a Genre for Your Novel

When your book makes it into a bookstore or library, where will it get put?

Genre is a category that your novel fits into. It describes the style, focus and often the content of your book. Before you put pen to paper it’s important to pick a genre, as each one has its own set of rules based on reader expectations. Publishers also use genre when marketing your book.

Genres also have sub-genres. Which is like a sub-category. For example your novel's genre can be romance but your sub-genre may be paranormal romance.

One thing to remember when choosing your genre. Adult Fiction, New Adult Fiction & Young Adult Fiction aren’t genres, they are categories that assist a reader in deciding whether or not to read your novel. You will need to choose a category, but that is different to choosing a genre. I will touch on that later in another blog.

How to choose your genre:

1. Write what you love to read. If you only read thrillers then try your hand at writing one! If you are get bored writing it, your readers are going to be bored reading it. The characters and plot will all come to you much easier if you love what you are writing about.
2. Think about your audience, who are they and what will they expect from reading your novel. Research the expectations and rules regarding your chosen genre. For example, if your story doesn’t have a happy ending, then there is a good chance it won’t fall into the romance genre. It's so important to research your ideal reader and their expectations of your genre.
3. Don’t write with money in mind, if you become fixated on what has been trending and what is selling to publishers you may not enjoy writing and this whole process may become a little difficult. If you do what you love, you’ll never work a day in your life. Avoid looking through publisher websites, write what you get excited about not what they are looking for.
4. Find a similar book to your story idea and see what genre this book fits into. You can check the genre and sub-genre of a novel with a help of a quick Amazon search.

I have broken down a few of the more popular genres on the market. Remember there are so many more than these listed here.

Romance: Everyone loves a love story and this is the best selling genres, with the most amount of sub-genres. Romance readers are dedicated and they know what they want- tension and a happy ending. A romance novel focuses on the relationship between the protagonist and a love interest, this forms the core of the story. Romance is driven by character emotions and keep readers on the edge of their seat thinking about what else is going to happen. If love is a the forefront of your story then Romance might be where you'd find your book in the book shop. But don't forget the #1 rule of romance - there must be a happily ever after (or at least a happily for now).

Crime & Mystery: This is a broad genre with many sub-genres that stream from it. Crime and mystery novels can be tame, like a cosy detective novel but they can be violent hard-boiled crime fiction. This genre lends itself to authors who love planning and careful plotting, you can write many twists into a crime novel. Readers are drawn to crime stories because they want to experience the intrigue of solving the mystery.

Historical: Whether it be Medieval Europe or Ancient Rome, a lot of research goes into writing a historical novel. These tend to be long books that lend themselves well to series. There is an expectation in the readers that they should be able to fully immerse themselves in the era, everything from living conditions, to etiquette and speech. Everything should be accurate to your chosen period of time.

Fantasy: Is your idea for a novel based in another world? Think Game of Thrones or Lord of the Rings. If so, it’s more than likely you are writing a fantasy novel. However fantasy novels can still be based in the contemporary world and have fantastical overtones, this is called magical realism. An example of this would be, a young woman in university who discovers she is an angel, or a boy who goes from the muggle world to wizarding school.

I hope you have found this blog useful, click here for a worksheet that will assist you in finding your genre.