3 Genre

3.1 Categories of fiction

A genre is a particular type or category of fiction. It can apply to both the long and short form (novel and short story/novella, respectively). It’s impossible to give an exhaustive list, but it includes:

• crime
• psychological thriller
• action thriller
• realism
• magic realism
• dirty realism
• romance
• historical
• legal thriller
• gothic
• science fiction
• humour
• fairy tale
• gay fiction
• family saga
• political
• maximalist

Note how readily these genres might overlap. They are not mutually exclusive. Most pieces of fiction contain glancing aspects of many different genres. Genres also overlap, and within any one genre there are often a number of sub-genres. For example, ‘crime’ is a genre, ‘East End gangster crime’ is a sub-genre; ‘romantic fiction’ is a genre, ‘historical romance’ is a sub-genre.