Which comes first, the story or the genre?

Which came first -the chicken or the egg?

All depends if one knows what genre one wants to write in or not.

I'm a horror writer firstly because I love horror but also because I'm not too bad at it. Also because I want readers to see my name on a book and pick it up because they they like horror and know that's what they'll get with me.

That's a long way of saying my story ideas fit my genre becasuse I want them to fit it.

bellabar said:

I read a lot of threads that ask the question "What genre is my novel?"

I'm a bit confused by this. Stories and characters pop into my head with the genre already defined. For example my story about the apocryphal city in the Central American jungle is destined to be a thriller, but the story about the fake photos of a rare wombat insists on being written as chick lit purely because the protag must be a pet photographer. As a novice I have a million ideas, and a very clear idea of how they should be executed ( even if my skill level ensures this fails miserably) I can't imagine writing a whole ms without knowing what genre it will fit.

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It's not always as cut and dried as it sounds. I've always had problems figuring out the genre, because I don't quite fit. When I started writing my first novel, I went to the bookstore and looked at the genres (no internet then). Mystery seemed to be it, and yet, when I read craft books on mystery, I knew it wasn't even close. It took me years to figure out that I was writing thrillers, because there's a lack of information for that genre. While I was submitting, one agent said thriller was a subgenre of mystery, while another one said that he took mystery but not thriller. Even the agents are not consistent in how they define things!

When I switched genres, I ran into the same problem -- this time with all the genre crossovers. I was writing in fantasy and thought it was urban fantasy. I had magic, but no paranormal. The story has a male main character and is told in omni, while UF tends to be a first person female character. Someone finally told me it was more likely a contemporary fantasy. I'm still not entirely sure what the difference is, but it means something from the marketing side.

bellabar said:

Is this the difference between plotting and pantsing, is this because I have the goal of one day publishing rather than simply writing for myself, or is this because most of what I write is derivative and therefore the genre has been pre determined by its original author?

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I'm a pantser, but I don't believe it has anything to do with not being able to easily identify the genre. I think the real problem lies in lack of information. Thriller is a big genre and has its own writing organization, but there's no definition of the genre. Yet, in the reader experience, it's very different from mystery. The same thing for my contemporary fantasy. I can get craft books on writing fantasy, and I can't relate to them. They address the more traditional fantasy, but don't pay any attention to urban fantasy or contemporary fantasy.

And none of this is helped by publishers moving books from category to category. A lot of mystery writers have ended up with their books being labeled as thriller because thriller sells better -- yet, they're still mysteries. I remember one writer noting that he was still writing the same books, but the publisher shifted it to an entirely new category!

bellabar said:

What do you think? Do you write with a genre in mind or do you write the story and then see where it fits?

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A little of both, but I generally am a little too outside the standard.

For me, story is always first. Let the publisher's marketing department worry about what genre it is and let me write my story the best I can.

bellabar said:

I read a lot of threads that ask the question "What genre is my novel?"

I'm a bit confused by this. Stories and characters pop into my head with the genre already defined. For example my story about the apocryphal city in the Central American jungle is destined to be a thriller, but the story about the fake photos of a rare wombat insists on being written as chick lit purely because the protag must be a pet photographer. As a novice I have a million ideas, and a very clear idea of how they should be executed ( even if my skill level ensures this fails miserably) I can't imagine writing a whole ms without knowing what genre it will fit.

Is this the difference between plotting and pantsing, is this because I have the goal of one day publishing rather than simply writing for myself, or is this because most of what I write is derivative and therefore the genre has been pre determined by its original author?

What do you think? Do you write with a genre in mind or do you write the story and then see where it fits?

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Sometimes, it seems that those who ask usually are crossing genres or have some elements from different genres so they aren't sure which specific one they fit into. Today, it seems, that stories are being written where there's a lot of bleed between genres which I think is very exciting!

Personally, I pretty much know when I sit down with a story idea where it's going to fit most comfortably, even if there's elements from different genres. There's still one overarching genre that it fits the best.

So, I'd say that plotting vs. not-plotting doesn't really enter that much into it. Even a plotter could find themselves heading down a path they hadn't anticipated taking them into a different genre as they plot along and get their outline (in whatever form it takes or doesn't take) into shape.

All my published stories are mystery. I knew that's what they were, no problem. Yet one of them shows up on fantasy lists. Go figure, didn't know I was writing fantasy with that one.

Since then I've written a number of shorts that are offbeat or quirky. Depending on your pov they could be sci-fi, horror, fantasy or some combo. (Sort of like many of the Twilight Zone or Outer Limits stories of yesteryear.)

I feel it's best if you can determine your genre - makes it easier to sell the story (or novel) - but sometimes the story doesn't seem to fit into any convenient category.

the story comes first the genre can follow or you create your own genre.

CaroGirl said:

For me, story is always first. Let the publisher's marketing department worry about what genre it is and let me write my story the best I can.

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This.

Story determines genre.

bellabar said:

What do you think? Do you write with a genre in mind or do you write the story and then see where it fits?

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I always write with genre in mind. Not knowing the genre going in too often means writing a novel that doesn't fit anywhere, and that can be death.

I love studying genre history and looking at what components define a genre, but I dearly admire the writers who muddy up the categories.

I'm a fan of guys like Robert E Howard, HP Lovecraft, Dashiell Hammett, Neal Barrett Jr, Joe Lansdale, Michael Moorcock, and Howard Waldrop who all fuse elements from various genres, subvert generic expectations, and generally re-defined or invented whole new genres.

I generally write stuff that I think of as in a genre, and I have little plotting formulas I play around with. There's the Lost Race genre, and the Hero's Journey, and the Revenge Drama, and the Slotkin/Cooper-Regeneration Through Violence/Frontier Story. I feel like my best stuff is when I warp those in some way, mixing up work from an outline with made-it-up-on-the-spot-work and transposing elements from genres.

While playing a genre story straight can be a lot of fun, I think genre categories are just labels. They are mental associations, meant to allow a reader or writer to make connections. In that sense they are playthings for the imagination, not rules to be adhered to. Once a genre boundary can be discerned, someone is likely to cross it. New sub-genres get invented, old ones get fresh blood, the world keeps turning.

I usually have an idea about what genre I'm writing going into it these days, but the problem is they're not exactly genres or combinations of genres anyone's looking for.

What agents ask for erotic dark comedy?

I'm working on a magical realism bildungsroman right now, which is a bit more straightforward as far as genre goes, but still doesn't sound great in a query letter.

So I just cheat and say "literary".

I'm just not a straight-up genre fiction kind of guy.

I just start writing or plotting whatever comes to me. I don't decide to write a horror story or a YA fantasy/sci-fi, I say, "I think it would be a good idea to write a story where people can't stop moving," or, "What if I wrote about a couple who...so, so." Then I grab my pen.

There are many stories that, once I'm done, I'm not sure how to define them. Several of my concepts have fantasy/science-fiction elements, but then several do not. Some are just kind of surreal, and some entirely ordinary (a few months ago a wrote a story about two kids pulling a cat out of a car).

I'm still young though, so I suppose I might fall into some sort of genre eventually. The variety is fun, though. Last night I wrote a short story with a ghost in it, but it was certainly not horror; the focus was the passing of older generations, the rise of new...it was not scary or even creepy. I don't know how you'd classify it, and I really don't care. I'm happy with it how it is.

I didn't give genre a single thought until it was time to write my query. I just wrote the story. Doing it that way made it harder to nail down the specific genre, and I'm still not convinced it's spot-on. But, I don't really care. This is the story I wanted to tell, no matter what it ends up being labeled as.

When I write historical fiction or science fiction, the story always comes first.

When I write literary or mainstream fiction, the title comes first, followed by the character, then the story. So since the character comes in early in the literary fiction process, and literary fiction is all about character, then I suppose the genre comes first in these cases. For me.

kuwisdelu said:

I'm working on a magical realism bildungsroman right now, which is a bit more straightforward as far as genre goes, but still doesn't sound great in a query letter.

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...but "gritty contemporary YA fantasy" sounds very salable!

You're welcome.

With many stories, the genre is what you call it. A mystery could be labeled as mystery, thriller, suspense, literary, or erotica, depending partly on the story and (in no small amount) what the publisher wants to call it, for marketing or other reasons.

bellabar said:

I read a lot of threads that ask the question "What genre is my novel?"

I'm a bit confused by this. Stories and characters pop into my head with the genre already defined. For example my story about the apocryphal city in the Central American jungle is destined to be a thriller, but the story about the fake photos of a rare wombat insists on being written as chick lit purely because the protag must be a pet photographer. As a novice I have a million ideas, and a very clear idea of how they should be executed ( even if my skill level ensures this fails miserably) I can't imagine writing a whole ms without knowing what genre it will fit.

Is this the difference between plotting and pantsing, is this because I have the goal of one day publishing rather than simply writing for myself, or is this because most of what I write is derivative and therefore the genre has been pre determined by its original author?

What do you think? Do you write with a genre in mind or do you write the story and then see where it fits?

Click to expand...

For me: my story about the apocryphal city in the Central American jungle is destined to be a thriller magical realism horror, but the story about the fake photos of a rare wombat insists on being written as chick lit horror purely because the protag must be a pet photographer.

Ah, who am I kidding? The second one could come out magical realism, too Or literary. Rare wombats feel very literary to me.

I really don't know how the genre is going to play out as I write. My stories sound like me (not on here!), but they don't always fit a genre very well.

Libbie said:

...but "gritty contemporary YA fantasy" sounds very salable!

You're welcome.

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Except it's neither YA nor fantasy. And not very gritty, either, though it is dark.

The difficult thing is I could call it that, and describe it in a way that makes it sound like that, but anyone actually reading it with those expectations would go "WTF is this?"

Ultimately genre isn't so much about content as much reader expectations.

I write stories, I dont write genre. If you take Star Wars and set it in the Wild West it fits great, so I say the story is the thing, If you take your story and put into another genre and it works well it is a good story.

Hey to those of you who feel it's easy to figure out what genre a story is, I challenge you with this dilemma:
A memoir (all material factual) half of which details a near-out-of-body experience that reads exactly like a fantasy thriller. Now what genre is that?

I do sometimes think, okay, what kind of idea is it? Am I going to write it Science Fictiony, or is it going to be allowed to stray into the Fantasy realm? Because, for me, there is a distinction in how the story progresses. Fantasy stories are allowed to get all magical, whereas in SF I have to pretend to justify the science somehow, mostly. But it's more a frame for me to work inside than it is for the reader/publisher/whoever.

Leanna said:

Hey to those of you who feel it's easy to figure out what genre a story is, I challenge you with this dilemma:
A memoir (all material factual) half of which details a near-out-of-body experience that reads exactly like a fantasy thriller. Now what genre is that?

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If it reads exactly like a fantasy thriller, change the names and call it a fantasy thriller. Plenty of famous novels are roman à clefs.