Having trouble classifying my story

paranormal and supernatural are part of fantasy, so it's a fantasy plot.

Welcome to the forums too.

What other elements are in your story? Is the main focus of your book the relationship between a vampire and somebody else? If so, it would be paranormal romance. Is it a straight-forward action book about hunting vampires? If so, it would probably be fantasy, or perhaps urban fantasy. Does the vampire do a lot of soul-searching, and is this largely a story about a character's change due to circumstances? If so, commercial or literary fiction. Is your main character a teen-ager, and the main focus of the story is your character trying to make sense of his/her life as he/she approaches adulthood? If so, YA (young adult) paranormal.

It all depends on what else is in your book besides vampires.

I would also consider it a thriller if it's full of a lot of violence, but isn't quite horror. Also I'm not sure I would consider a vampire novel fantasy. I think paranormal or supernatural is closer. Also if you use advanced techology you might even call it science fiction.

I would say YA.

I would be wary of reading a book with a protaganist is 19. There are exceptions like The Lovely Bones or Mark Haddon's books. When I first started writing my WIP my character was 19. I changed it to 24 because of the maturity issue.

If your book has elements of fantasy (vampires, werewolves, ghosts, phantoms, alternate universes, supermen, mind control, magic, etc.) please call it what it is, a fantasy. It could be Urban Fantasy, or YA Fantasy, or Paranormal Fantasy, etc.
Lots of people are disappointed when they begin a book, thinking it's a crime suspense, or mystery, or a thriller, and find out the MC has super powers, or the antagonist is a vampire. Truth in labeling would cure this problem.

Think about other books that include both fantasy elements and suspense elements: Jim Butcher's "Dresden Files" books, for example. They're classified as "fantasy" and subclassified as "paranormal mystery" or "urban fantasy mystery" or "fantasy noir" or "paranormal thriller" or what have you.

But fantasy elements trump everything else. A romance with vampires is a fantasy novel; a hard-boiled private detective novel with vampires is a fantasy novel; a comedy of manners with vampires (which actually sounds awesome now that I think of it) is a fantasy novel. They are fantasy novels because vampires aren't real. (Now, if your vampires are regular humans bioengineered with blood-sucking nanobots, your book might actually be science fiction, but that's another issue...)

You've written a fantasy novel. The next question is, what subgenre is it? Paranormal romance? Paranormal suspense? Look around and see how authors working in the same vein (OW!) are being classified.

Most of the vampire stories I read are classified horror, not fantasy, but it all depends on how the vampires are portrayed. Just because vamplires aren'treal does not make a vampire story fantasy. Darned few of the monsters in any horror novel are real.

A horror novel is a horror novel because it horrifies. A fantasy novel is a fantasy novel because it tells a fantastical story. Classification comes from how the story is told, and how the story is supposed to affect readers, not because something in it is or isn't real.

Not everything is fantasy, and certainly teh presence of unreal creatures does not automatically make a story fantasy. Publishing, and readers, just do not work that way.

James, would you classify the Twilight series horror? Seems to me all those teenage girls don't read the books or watch the movies to be horrified. More like titillated.

RJK said:

James, would you classify the Twilight series horror? Seems to me all those teenage girls don't read the books or watch the movies to be horrified. More like titillated.

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I'd classify the Twilight books more as fantasy, but as I said, it's how the story is told, and how the vampires are portrayed.

Classification has nothing to do with reality, though, but with whether the story horrifies readers.

Dracula is definitely not fantasy, and the most horrifying vampire short story I've ever read has to be Stephen King's "Night Flyer." It's not only horror, it's just downright scary. Read it, and you see instantly that it is not fantasy.