Can you name your genre?

by Victoria Whithear
3rd April 2012

I know a lot of those who use this site are either fantasy or literary fiction, but I wondered if there were any of you struggling to pin your book(s) down to just one catagory. I know I have to before submission, but I find the catagories limiting. It's not just a romance or women's fiction and it certainly isn't chick lit. (I have nothing against chick lit and have written one of those too, but this one just isn't.) I think mainstream is the best way to describe it and offers it to the full audience it caters for, but that's not really a catagory. I noticed someone earlier call their book 'travel fiction'. I could tick that box too, but it's not best described that way. When I do describe it, I call it 'The story of a man with both physical and mental ilness who refused to go to the doctor.' The series of five books covers every area of his strange life. How do I pigeonhole that? - saga?

Replies

But I can see exactly where yours would sit in the bookshop. Although, thinking about it, when I went in Waterstones the other day they only had a few sectioned off genres and then simply had fiction A-Z. I really enjoyed just browsing the whole lot and wondered why it hadn't been done like that years ago. No one should have to know what they are looking for as they scan the shelves. Half the fun is finding it!

Thanks for the input. Vxx

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Victoria
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not sure if I actually helped....just read my comment back :/ :)

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