According to the online edition of Merriam-Webster Dictionary, genre is defined as:
a category of artistic, musical, or literary composition characterized by a particular style, form, or content.
I think a difficult thing for writers when they start out is to determine what genre they are writing. It seems like an easy question, but I can tell from my own experience that one needs to put thought into it.
When I decided that all those characters that continued to show up in my head needed to go someplace else, I started writing their stories. I knew I wasn't writing romance because there wasn't any hot romantic scenes. I was confused if I was writing women's fiction or literary fiction geared toward women since my stories were character-driven rather than story driven. In the end, I figured out I was writing women's fiction and queried agents who represented that genre.
But a funny thing happened after securing representation - my agent told me to write something new in a different genre. It wasn't very hard for me to decide on middle grade (it helps have two young sons), although I did try my hand at YA for one manuscript (I quickly learned I didn't know how a YA character spoke or acted). I feel like I've found my voice - although some of those women's fiction characters tend to show up now and then and I have to tell them "later".
Have you ever switched genres or do you write in multiple genres?
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I often feel genre is particularly difficult to determine for character-driven writing. I write contemporary fantasy, but there are definitely elements of women's fiction and possibly literary fiction in there.
ReplyDeleteIt's a lot easier to say what genres I don't write in than to say what genre I do.
ReplyDeleteLucy
K.C.~ I agree with you completely.
ReplyDeleteLucky ~ I totally get that. I do not write horror, sci-fi, erotica, etc.
I've been trying out the various subgenres of speculative fiction. For now. I read a lot of literature. Maybe I'll end up there one day.
ReplyDeleteKris, I write romance, but I have written things in several subgenres within that genre. Partly it's because the story dictates what kind of subgenre it will be, but I also wanted to see what it would be like trying something else. It comes in handy when the market for one ebbs in popularity and the other goes up. :)
ReplyDeleteI write YA but in multiple sub-genres I guess you could say -- Ya Contemporary and YA Speculative Fiction.
ReplyDeleteM Pax, Donna,Trisha~ It's interesting that you all mentioned subgenres of your genre. Isn't that how it all works out these days? I write middle-grade, but it's boy-based. Guess that's a subgenre too!
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