List of Fiction Top-level Genres

[M. Robert Gibson]

After reading this article on using Categories and Tags on wordpress.com

Categories vs. Tags

Categories are used for broad grouping of post topics while tags are generally used to describe your post in more detail.

wordpress.com

I decided I needed to change the categories on my site, so I thought I'd use fiction genres for better discovery. About 10 should do.

So, I embarked on the usual quest to find other people's thoughts, and after reading around I came up with this tentative list

• Action Adventure
• Crime
• Fantasy
• Historical
• Horror
• Humour
• Romance
• Science Fiction
• Speculative Fiction - to cover everything not SF/F
• Thriller
• Western

A couple of questions arose from the research
Is Crime a sub-genre of Thriller?

A lot of the lists I found have Young Adult as a genre. Now, to me, that is not a genre, it's a target market. What does anyone else think?

Have I missed anything obvious?

Cheers

MRG

 

[Ray Zdybrow]

I think YA is a genre, it has its typical tropes and often overlaps with the "Bildungsroman"? Then again, you get YA SF, YA fantasy, YA supernatural romance etc (ad tedium imo)

 

[Dave]

I don't think Thrillers are the same as Crime. They can be spy stories, or escapes from prisoner of war camps, or a wronged man on the run from the law, without involving any murder or heist or embezzlement.

I've worked in lending libraries (a long time ago) but these were the kind of categories that fiction was divided into back then. I'd say it was a good list.

Young Adult to me, means that the protagonists are young adults. That does limit the audience to to other young adults, because it means that they aren't fully mature, are less worldly-wise, even to the point of naivety, and have new uncertain relationships, which isn't what you normally find in a hero.

 

[Wayne Mack]

I'm not sure how much you want to subdivide, but you might also consider Military, Spy, and Political. These would seem to attract different types of reader, but I also could see them rolled up under either Thriller or Action/Adventure.

 

[Droflet]

Mystery perhaps???

 

[Don]

I don't think Thrillers are the same as Crime.

Me neither. Robin Cook's medical thrillers typically end with a cautiously optimistic denouement. While James Ellroy's crime fiction remains stuck in non-redemptive gritty dirty grime until the bitter end.

 

[Swank]

I would create a list of distinct (sounding) genres and eliminate any that seem to be more than one category. If that list is less than 10; okay.

 

[Wayne Mack]

The two challenges with creating categories are that they are infinitely subdivisible and items will fall into multiple categories. It is a subjective balancing act as too many categories overwhelm understanding and too few allow a wide range of internal variation, which limits their value.

 

[M. Robert Gibson]

Further research turned up a couple of long lists with sub-genres and a brief description of the genre. Mind you, I think one might be derived from t'other

144 Genres and Subgenres for Fiction Writing

From fantasy to western—and everything in between—we cover the major genres and subgenres available to readers today. We also included a few links to books within that subgenre if you find one that catches your interest in particular. Happy reading! Fantasy Horror Mystery Romance Science Fiction...

www.servicescape.com

https://fictionphile.com/fiction-genres/

I think now I'll add Mystery as a top-level genre

I'm also thinking I might need to add some sub-genres e.g. put Crime under Thriller

Thanks for the feedback, y'all