A Guide to the Fiction Genres

Ask any two publishers what the Fiction Genres are and you are unlikely to receive the same reply. They might agree on the principal genres of fiction but not on the countless sub-genres within each category - which, incidentally, change year on year as more new novels are published and readers' tastes change.

In this article, I will talk about the most important fiction genres (and sub-genres). Use the information to get a taste of what is available out there, then go to the bookshop (preferably a large one) to do some more in-depth research of your own.

Please note that I am by no means an expert in all of the genres (nobody possibly could be). The aim of Novel Writing Help is to teach you how to write novels in general, meaning that the information on this website applies to all novels, of whatever category.

Romantic fiction, for example, might place more emphasis on plot and less on deep characterization than literary fiction, but that doesn't mean that the rules on Creating Characters don't apply to romantic novels, nor that the rules on How to Plot a Novel don't apply to literary fiction.

How do you discover the specific rules and conventions of your chosen genre of fiction? By reading as many novels from that genre as you can. (For more on this, read Book Genres and Conventions.)

But there are a couple of other ways in which you can find out this information:

1. By contacting the publishers of the novels you've been reading for research to ask if they have any "writers' guidelines" or "tip-sheets" for your particular category. The stricter the conventions of the genre, the more likely it is that publishers will have them (romance publishers certainly do).

2. By reading "how to" books dedicated to your chosen category and written by experts in the field. (See The Genres of Fiction: a Reading List.)

The Main Fiction Genres

These are the genres I will look at:

• Mystery and Crime Fiction
• Thrillers and Suspense Novels
• Horror Fiction
• Romantic Fiction
• Women's Fiction
• Science Fiction and Fantasy
• Historical Fiction
• Action/Adventure Novels
• Westerns
• Children's and Young Adult Fiction

Mystery and Crime Fiction

Mystery Fiction and Crime Fiction are both terms used to describe novels which feature criminal activity at their core. Technically, however, they mean different things:

• Mystery Fiction, as its name implies, centres around the solving of a mystery, usually a murder, by some form of investigator or investigators.

• Crime Fiction, strictly speaking, is told from the point of view of the criminals themselves.

I will treat them separately here, but just be aware that they are often grouped together and called either "Mysteries" or "Crime Novels" (or something similar) by bookshops and publishers.

However these types of novel are collectively labelled, they represent one of the most popular fiction genres and have a huge established readership.

Mystery Fiction

Mystery novels revolve around the investigation of a crime, almost always murder, by some form of detective. The body tends to be discovered very close to the beginning of the novel, and the bulk of the action then concerns the detective's attempts to discover the identity of the murderer. There will be several twists and turns along the way, usually in the form of more murders, but the detective will solve the mystery eventually and bring the guilty to justice.

The key point to remember is that mystery novels are precisely that: a mystery (or a puzzle, if you like) and fans of this genre of fiction delight in trying to solve the puzzle before the detective does.

It is the writer's responsibility, therefore, to play fair with his or her audience, and this means providing clues (cleverly hidden ones) for the reader to discover along the way. Red herrings are a part of the puzzle, too.

I said above that the crime is usually murder, though mystery novels in the broadest sense can actually involve any type of puzzle: a missing person, theft, anything you like.

I also said that the crime is investigated by some form of detective - meaning they don't have to be a detective in the traditional sense. A child's disappearance, for example, could be investigated by the parents (with the police operating ineptly in the background).

As a matter of fact, it is the variety of detective used which often differentiates one sub-genre of mystery fiction from the next. Here are six of the many possibilities...