Genre Question

What is the setting and time period of the story?

Urban fantasy is a fantasy story in a contemporary setting, but grittier and more city-based. Paranormal is an attachment often used by romance writers for a genre-crossing story that has magic but more of another genre. Thriller has to do with plot-pacing and the rushed, edge-of-your-seat emotion you want to inspire in the reader.

None of them sound comedy-ish.

In movie terms, Urban fantasy would be like the movie Underworld. Paranormal thriller would be like The Sixth Sense. So which is your novel closest to?

I think it could be Urban Fantasy. There has been a trend in UF to go for gritty but I don't think that necessarily excludes other things. Charles De Lint is about as far away from Laurell K Hamilton as you can get, but I'd classify both as UF.

UF is specifically urban. It is usually gritty. Usually suspenseful. It often has paranormal or fantasy elements.

Paranormal thriller is a thriller with -- duh -- paranormal elements. It need not be urban or gritty.

Can I say this is not something to worry about till you're writing the query letter?

Just call it a paranormal. They will know what you are talking about when you query.

(Mine is light-hearted and I queried it as an urban fantasy and was told NO, it is not UF. Don't call it a thriller either, because that will give the wrong impression.)

Paranormal thriller a.k.a. supernatural thriller is a suspenseful story where a major character's health, sanity or relationships are somehow threatened by spookiness. It's a kind of horror. As with horror stories, look for build-up of spooky mood at the crisis points, and a return to normality when the tension dips. Look for the reader coming away unsettled by the end of the story.

Urban fantasy is just whimsy meets modernity. It might be spooky at times but not at every crisis. Crafting original new fantasy from a modern logos used to make UF a watchword for originality and imagination, but there's far more demand for UF than talent to write it. These days, third-rate authors jostle first-rate authors in a production line to repackage tired fantasy tropes in film noir wrappers and pump them out to readers whose libraries all post-date glasnost.

I would say that if you have a thriller with supernatural elements, but with human protags and a solution that has mostly real-world elements, you have a paranormal thriller. If you have MCs who are non-human, partly human, magic users or the like, and a solution that relies upon supernatural abilities, you have something closer to urban fantasy.

I agree with Job. Until it's written, no point worrying about the classification. strange things happen when you move from idea to first draft to final copy. lots of things can change. I've started a book that was supposed to be a medieval speculative fiction. it then changed to become a contemporary canadian literary novel (canadian novels have a very different voice which is why i felt the need to classify it as such) and now it's decided it's a modern thriller. things happen. wait until everything's happened before you box it up.