What genre are your books?

Written By Louise Daerr

Sometimes this is easy to answer, sometimes it’s a bit more complicated.

My stories have romance, magic, murder, political intrigue, zombies, and a thousand other elements. Trying to put them into one neat category for marketing can feel impossible.

One resource I come back to again and again is an episode of the Fiction Writing Made Easy Podcast about the five dimensions of genre. I love this framework because it breaks genre down into different questions instead of treating it like a single label.

Here’s a summary, but you can find all the details on Savannah Gilbo’s website here

1. Commercial Appeal: Literary, Upmarket, or Commercial Fiction?

The first question is about the style and expectations of the book.

Literary fiction often focuses on language, themes, character exploration, and deeper questions about the human experience.

Commercial fiction is usually more focused on a strong plot, reader expectations, and delivering a particular experience.

Upmarket fiction sits somewhere between the two. It often has the accessible storytelling of commercial fiction but with deeper themes or more literary elements.

This doesn't mean one is better than another. It’s about understanding what kind of reading experience you're creating.

2. Time Period: When Does Your Story Take Place?

Is it:

Historical — set in the past
Contemporary — set in the modern world
Future — set in a future version of our world

This sounds obvious, but it immediately narrows the expectations of your readers.

A historical romance and a futuristic romance might both be romances, but readers will approach them very differently.

3. Target Reader Age: Who Are You Writing For?

The main categories are:

Middle Grade — generally aimed at younger readers
Young Adult (YA) — focused on teenage protagonists and experiences
New Adult (NA) — explores early adulthood
Adult — written for adult readers

Age category affects everything from the themes you explore to the type of conflicts your characters face.

4. Story Reality/Setting: What Kind of World Are You Building?

This dimension is often what people think of first when they say "genre." But really “fantasy” only tells you what world we’re in and absolutely nothing about what’s going to happen in the story. Romantic fantasy is big at the moment, but really any story could take place in a fantasy setting.

Realistic — our world as we know it
Speculative — exploring "what if?" scenarios
Fantasy, Science Fiction and Dystopian are all types of speculative fiction

5. Content Genre: What Emotional Experience Are You Delivering?

  • Action - like Star Wars, The Hunger Games, or Jurassic Park

  • Horror - like The Shining, Alien, or Halloween

  • Crime - like Murder on the Orient Express, The Godfather, or Sexy Beast

  • Western - like Lonesome Dove, True Grit, or Tombstone

  • War - like The Hurt Locker, Platoon, or Black Hawk Down

  • Thriller - like Silence of the Lambs, Gone Girl, or Misery

  • Society - like Animal Farm, Thelma and Louise, or Anna Karenina

  • Love - like Pride and Prejudice, Twilight, or Bridget Jones Diary

  • Performance - like Rocky, The Karate Kid, or Cool Runnings

  • Worldview - like The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Juno, or The 40-Year-Old Virgin

  • Status - like Oliver Twist, Milk, or Gladiator

  • Morality - like Wallstreet, Manchester by the Sea, or One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

The content genre determines what readers are hoping to get from your book.

So what genre are my books?

Well, The Hawthorn Oath is

  • Commercial

  • Historical

  • Adult

  • Fantasy

  • Worldview

What Falls to Us is:

  • Commercial

  • Contemporary

  • Adult

  • Speculative

  • War

I think I will always write books for adults, and they’ll probably always be speculative, most likely fantasy. But beyond that, I don’t know.

Louise Daerr
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