Genre Resource Guide
At Top in Fiction we accept all genres, however, we realize that there are several ways to define a story. And sometimes, as writers, we tend to want to be as unique as possible when niching down our genre so that it stands out among the rest. Our aim is to make all the stories featured here as easy to define as possible. So that potential readers aren’t spending too much time wondering what you mean when you list your story under “Southern Sword and Planet Zombie Apocalypse”?! 😵💫
Use this resource as a way to make choosing a genre for your story as easy as possible. Below you will find the “text book” definition for each genre, sub-genres that can be associated with a main genre (most commonly), as well as examples from literature as well as television shows/movies to help you along the way.
NOTE #1: For the purpose of the TiF Annual Recap, we will use the “Main Genres” when creating the PDF to narrow down the more uniquely classified genres.
NOTE #2: Speculative Fiction [Spec-Fic] can be used to encompass the main genres of Fantasy, Horror, and Sci-Fi interchangeably.
MAIN GENRES KEY:
Spec-Fic - Cli-Fi - Fantasy - Historical - Horror - Lit-Fic - Mystery
Poetry - Romance - Sci-Fi
All genre descriptions/definitions are obtained from Wikipedia.org
SPECULATIVE FICTION [SPEC-FIC]
Speculative fiction is an umbrella genre of fiction that encompasses all the subgenres that depart from realism, or strictly imitating everyday reality, instead presenting fantastical, supernatural, futuristic, or other imaginative realms.
SUB-GENRES:
science fiction, fantasy, horror, slipstream, magical realism, superhero fiction, alternate history, utopia and dystopia, fairy tales, steampunk, cyberpunk, weird fiction, and some apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction
AUTHOR EXAMPLES:
George R.R. Martin / J.K. Rowling / H. P. Lovecraft / Stephen King / Margaret Atwood / George Orwell / Ray Bradbury / Frank Herbert / Isaac Asimov / Orson Scott Card
CLIMATE FICTION [CLI-FI]
Climate fiction (sometimes shortened to cli-fi) is literature that deals with climate change. Generally speculative in nature but inspired by climate science, works of climate fiction may take place in the world as we know it, in the near future, or in fictional worlds experiencing climate change. The genre frequently includes science fiction and dystopian or utopian themes, imagining the potential futures based on how humanity responds to the impacts of climate change. Climate fiction typically involves anthropogenic climate change and other environmental issues as opposed to weather and disaster more generally. Technologies such as climate engineering or climate adaptation practices often feature prominently in works exploring their impacts on society.
AUTHOR EXAMPLES:
J. G. Ballard / Octavia E. Butler / Margaret Atwood / Kim Stanley Robinson / Richard Powers / Paolo Bacigalupi / Barbara Kingsolver
FANTASY
Fantasy literature is literature set in an imaginary universe, often but not always without any locations, events, or people from the real world. Magic, the supernatural and magical creatures are common in many of these imaginary worlds. Fantasy literature may be directed at both children and adults.
Fantasy is considered a genre of speculative fiction and is distinguished from the genres of science fiction and horror by the absence of scientific or macabre themes, respectively, though these may overlap.
SUB-GENRES:
AUTHOR EXAMPLES:
JRR Tolkien / Patrick Rothfuss / Brandon Sanderson / N. K. Jemisin / Jim Butcher / Joe Abercrombie / Sarah J. Maas / Ursula K. Le Guin
HISTORICAL FICTION
Historical fiction is a literary genre in which a fictional plot takes place in the setting of particular real historical events. Although the term is commonly used as a synonym for historical fiction literature, it can also be applied to other types of narrative, including theatre, opera, cinema, and television, as well as video games and graphic novels. It often makes many use of symbolism in allegory using figurative and metaphorical elements to picture a story.
An essential element of historical fiction is that it is set in the past and pays attention to the manners, social conditions and other details of the depicted period. Authors also frequently choose to explore notable historical figures in these settings, allowing readers to better understand how these individuals might have responded to their environments.
SUB-GENRES:
AUTHOR EXAMPLES:
Patrick O’Brian / Mary Renault / Gillian Bradshaw / Barbara Hambly / Hilary Mantel / Graham Greene / Madeleine L’Engle / Ken Follett / E. L. Doctorow / Toni Morrison /
HORROR
Horror is a genre of speculative fiction that is intended to disturb, frighten, or scare. Horror is often divided into the sub-genres of psychological horror and supernatural horror. Literary historian J. A. Cuddon, in 1984, defined the horror story as "a piece of fiction in prose of variable length ... which shocks, or even frightens the reader, or perhaps induces a feeling of repulsion or loathing". Horror intends to create an eerie and frightening atmosphere for the reader. Often the central menace of a work of horror fiction can be interpreted as a metaphor for larger fears of a society.
SUB-GENRES:
Crime / Dark Fantasy / Death Metal / Ghost Stories / Gothic / Monster Literature / Mystery / Speculative / Thriller / Weird / Analog / Space
AUTHOR EXAMPLES:
H. P. Lovecraft / Shirley Jackson / Edgar Allan Poe / Mary Shelley / Dean Koontz / Stephen King / Anne Rice / Tananarive Due / Paul Tremblay / Joe Hill / Robert Bloch / Stephen Graham Jones / M. R. James / Bram Stoker / Peter Straub
LITERARY FICTION [LIT-FIC]
Literary fiction, mainstream fiction, non-genre fiction, serious fiction, high literature, artistic literature, and sometimes just literature, are labels that, in the book trade, refer to market novels that do not fit neatly into an established genre or, otherwise, refer to novels that are character-driven rather than plot-driven, examine the human condition, use language in an experimental or poetic fashion, or are simply considered serious art.
Literary fiction is often used as a synonym for literature, in the exclusive sense of writings specifically considered to have considerable artistic merit. Literary fiction is commonly regarded as artistically superior to genre fiction, the latter being a form of commercial fiction written to provide entertainment to a mass audience.
AUTHOR EXAMPLES:
Harper Lee / F. Scott Fitzgerald / John Steinbeck / Charles Dickens / Jane Austen / Toni Morrison / Ralph Ellison / Chinua Achebe
MYSTERY
Mystery is a fiction genre where the nature of an event, usually a murder or other crime, remains mysterious until the end of the story. Often within a closed circle of suspects, each suspect is usually provided with a credible motive and a reasonable opportunity for committing the crime. The central character is often a detective (such as Sherlock Holmes), who eventually solves the mystery by logical deduction from facts presented to the reader. Some mystery books are non-fiction. Mystery fiction can be detective stories in which the emphasis is on the puzzle or suspense element and its logical solution such as a whodunit. Mystery fiction can be contrasted with hardboiled detective stories, which focus on action and gritty realism.
Mystery fiction can involve a supernatural mystery in which the solution does not have to be logical and even in which there is no crime involved.
SUB-GENRES:
Detective / True Crime / Cozy / Legal Thriller / Police Procedural / Howcatchem / Hardboiled / Historical Mystery / Locked-Room
AUTHOR EXAMPLES:
Agatha Christie / Sir Arthur Conan Doyle / Raymond Chandler / Dorothy Sayers / Dashiell Hammett / P.D. James / Dan Brown / Stephen King / Harlan Coben / James Patterson / John LeCarre / Patricia Highsmith / Jonathan Kellerman
POETRY
Poetry (from the Greek word poiesis, "making") is a form of literary art that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language to evoke meanings in addition to, or in place of, literal or surface-level meanings. Any particular instance of poetry is called a poem and is written by a poet.
Poets use a variety of techniques called poetic devices, such as assonance, alliteration, euphony and cacophony, onomatopoeia, rhythm (via metre), and sound symbolism, to produce musical or other artistic effects. They also frequently organize these effects into poetic structures, which may be strict or loose, conventional or invented by the poet. Poetic structures vary dramatically by language and cultural convention, but they often use rhythmic metre (patterns of syllable stress or syllable (mora) weight). They may also use repeating patterns of phonemes, phoneme groups, tones (phonemic pitch shifts found in tonal languages), words, or entire phrases. These include consonance (or just alliteration), assonance (as in the dróttkvætt), and rhyme schemes (patterns in rimes, a type of phoneme group). Poetic structures may even be semantic (e.g. the volta required in a Petrachan sonnet).
Most written poems are formatted in verse: a series or stack of lines on a page, which follow the poetic structure. For this reason, verse has also become a synonym (a metonym) for poetry.
SUB-GENRES:
Narrative / Lyric / Epic / Satirical / Elegy / Verse Fable / Dramatic / Speculative / Prose / Light / Slam / Performance / Language Happenings
AUTHOR EXAMPLES:
William Shakespeare / Edgar Allan Poe / Robert Frost / Maya Angelou / Walt Whitman / Elizabeth Barrett Browning / T.S. Eliot / Sylvia Plath / Henry Wadsworth Longfellow / Emily Dickinson
ROMANCE
A romance novel or romantic novel is a genre fiction novel that primarily focuses on the relationship and romantic love between two people, typically with an emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending.
SUB-GENRES:
Contemporary / Historical / Romantic Suspense / Paranormal / Sci-Fi / Fantasy [Romantasy] / Time-Travel / Inspirational / Young Adult / LGBTQIA+ / Black / Multicultural / Erotic / Chick Lit
AUTHOR EXAMPLES:
Nora Roberts / Talia Hibbert / Colleen Hoover / Barbara Cartland / Diana Gabaldon / Jane Austen / Nicholas Sparks
SCIENCE FICTION [SCI-FI]
Science fiction (sometimes shortened to sci-fi or abbreviated SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel universes, and extraterrestrial life. It can explore science and technology in different ways, such as human responses to theoretical new advancements, or the consequences thereof.
According to Isaac Asimov, "Science fiction can be defined as that branch of literature which deals with the reaction of human beings to changes in science and technology."
SUB-GENRES:
Afrofuturism / Anthropological science fiction / Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction / Biopunk / Black science fiction / Christian science fiction / Climate fiction / Comic science fiction / Cyberpunk / Dieselpunk / Dying Earth / Far future in fiction / Feminist science fiction / Gothic science fiction / Indigenous Futurism / Libertarian science fiction / Military science fiction / Mundane science fiction / Planetary romance / Social science fiction / Solarpunk / Space opera / Space Western / Steampunk
AUTHOR EXAMPLES:
Isaac Asimov / Ray Bradbury / Frank Herbert / Ursula K. Le Guin / Philip K. Dick / H. G. Wells / Octavia E. Butler / Anne McCaffrey / George Orwell / Jules Verne / Aldous Huxley / Orson Scott Card