[Writing]
[writing] Jay Lake’s Handy Guide to Genre Distinctions
I have found genre distinctions in fiction publishing to be sometimes confusing.
To aid others in their curiosity, and planning their reading lists, I present the following handy guide.
| Genre | Distinguishing Characteristics |
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| General fiction | Nothing to explain |
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| Literary fiction | If I have to explain, you wouldn’t understand it anyway |
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| Mystery | Explain what happened |
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| Thriller/Technothriller | Explain how it happened |
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| Romance | Explain who it happened to |
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| Western | Explain what lily-livered varmint gone and done it |
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| Horror | Explain what’s about to happen |
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| Science Fiction | Explain everything in technical detail |
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| Fantasy | Explain everything in nonsensical detail |
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| Magical Realism | Explain nothing |
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| Surrealism | Go fishing for ice cream |
Permission is granted for redistribution or reproduction under a noncommercial Creative Commons license. © 2003, 2010 Joseph E. Lake, Jr., writing as “Jay Lake”.
“Jay Lake’s Handy Guide to Genre Distinctions” by Joseph E. Lake, Jr. writing as “Jay Lake” is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at jlake@jlake.com.
Posted: 3:28 pm Mon February 15 2010 |
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Ashavan Doyon
February 15th, 2010 at 3:55 pmThis is really funny… and oddly absolutely spot on.
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Patrick
February 15th, 2010 at 8:24 pmI grinned at the go fishing for ice cream line.
Mike Brotherton
February 16th, 2010 at 11:07 amYou didn’t write that the Romance is badly written!
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