What Are the Different Book Genres?

Writers often struggle with how exactly to describe their stories to other people. They may get asked, “What genre is your book?” and they get stumped trying to give a pithy answer to encompass an entire universe and cast of characters they had built up in their imaginations! Stories come in many different flavors, and some of those flavors are called genres.

The publishing industry finds categorizing books by genre particularly useful. Publishers typically assign a genre to a book: a book may be literary fiction, a mystery, space opera, or something else entirely. When you go into a bookstore, a library, or buy books online, books are often organized by genre. And you may also find it useful to figure out how to label your story this way. But first, let’s talk about what genre actually means.

How to define genre

When it comes to writing, the two common understandings of genre are often conflated. One definition of genre is that it is a writing format: fiction, non-fiction, poetry, play, graphic novel/comics, or screenplay. Genre by this definition doesn’t take into account the actual content of the story, just how a piece of writing is structured. The other definition of genre goes beyond its composition. Merriam-Webster in part defines genre as “characterized by a particular style, form, or content.” Genre is a set of expectations of what the story may be about. Narrative elements that help define a genre include:

• Setting: Is the story in today’s world? In futuristic space? In 1930s France?
• Characters: Are the characters “realistic” in the sense that they are people, animals, or things that could exist in our world? Are any of them magical? Are any of them supernatural?
• Tropes: Tropes are defined as common ideas, character types, or plot elements that occur in a given genre. For example, if your story has space ships, robots, or time travel, it just might be science fiction!
• Writing Style: This is where “genre as format” and “genre as content” overlap. The writer’s voice and the style of writing may also influence the book’s genre. Think about the difference between the detective mysteries of Raymond Chandler (who wrote “The Big Sleep”) and the literary fiction of Joyce Carol Oates (who wrote “We Were the Mulvaneys”), for instance. Both writers have a very distinguished writing style, but Chandler’s gritty and...

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