What genre is my story? I’ve heard this question a lot from writers, so here’s some info that may help.
Imagine fiction as being contained inside this huge hotel.
On the first floor, you’ve got romance, mystery, and thriller. On the second, horror, epic fantasy, and coming of age, and the list goes on.
Readers walk in knowing exactly which room they’re headed to. Writers, however, may struggle a little bit. Some of us, for example, get stuck in the lobby because we’re so worried about choosing the right genre that we barely write anything at all.
After writing and publishing books for over 12 years and struggling with genre a lot myself, I understand, a) how confusing it can be to know which genre your story belongs in and b), what changes in your story once you do figure out the genre.
So the questions are: Do you need to know the genre before you start writing? And what happens if you pick the wrong one?
What Genre Is My Story? Start With the Question Your Story Must Answer
Let me give you the quick fix first. If you’re not sure what genre you’re writing, stop looking at everything that’s happening in the story for a minute.
Instead, ask yourself this question: What is the main question this story has to answer before it can end?
If it’s a romance, for example, the question is whether these two people are going to overcome what’s keeping them apart and end up together.
If it’s a mystery, it’s probably some version of: What happened, who did it, and can the truth be uncovered?
If it’s a thriller, the question is: Can this person stop the threat, escape it, or survive it before it’s too late?
And if it’s a coming-of-age story, then the bigger question is: Who is this person becoming? And what are they finally ready to choose for themselves?
If you’re three chapters into your book and you have absolutely no idea what the answer is yet, don’t let that stop you. Sometimes writers can get so hung up on genre that they let it block them. Don’t do that. Keep writing.
Sometimes, I’d even say a lot of times, you need to write enough of the story before you can see what it actually is.
Genre Tells You Which Story Matters Most
Once the story starts taking shape, that central question becomes really useful because genre above all tells you this: which story matters the most.
Your book can have romance in it, for example, and not be in the romance genre. It can have danger, mystery, magic, family, conflict, grief, humor, personal growth, all kinds of things. That doesn’t mean all of those things are the genre.
The genre helps tell you which part of the story everything else is ultimately serving.
That’s why getting the genre wrong can create confusion. You may be trying to strengthen the romance when the story is really asking for a stronger character transformation. Or you may be adding more clues when what the story really needs is more danger and pressure.
This is where genre gets really interesting because once you realize that you’re writing a different genre than you thought, you don’t just change the label on the hotel door. You may actually have to change a little bit about the story.
So I want to show you five things genre can change in your story and that can help you decide really quickly what genre your story fits best in.
Look at What Your Protagonist Is Really Trying to Achieve
The first thing genre does for both you and the reader is set up what your protagonist is really trying to achieve.
Let’s take the movie Legally Blonde.
At the beginning, Elle has a very clear goal. She wants Warner, her boyfriend, back. He broke up with her because he thinks she isn’t serious enough for the future that he wants. So when he heads off to Harvard Law, Elle decides to get into Harvard Law, too, convinced that if she can prove she belongs in his world, she can win him back.
Because of that, you could easily think that you’re watching a romance. She follows him to Harvard. She wants to prove she’s good enough for him. And for quite a while, Warner is driving a lot of what she does.
But that’s not where the story ends up.
As Elle starts succeeding at Harvard, the question gradually becomes less about whether she can win Warner back and more about whether she can stop measuring herself by what he thinks of her.
You can see that shift occurring when you watch the movie.
What Genre Is My Story? Watch What the Story Becomes More Interested In
By the time we get to the climax in the courtroom, Warner isn’t the point anymore. Elle is the most important question.
The climax is not: Will Elle finally win Warner back?
The more important question is: Can Elle trust herself and prove, mostly to herself by this point, that she can be a capable lawyer?
So Legally Blonde isn’t a romance. It’s a coming-of-age story because the central question in the story is who Elle becomes as she goes through these experiences.
And notice what happened there. The surface goal at the beginning didn’t necessarily tell us what genre the story was. We had to look at what the story kept becoming more interested in.
You want to think about that for your story, too.
What is the real central question here?
Let’s look at another example. Let’s take The Shawshank Redemption.
In the movie, Andy is sentenced to life in Shawshank prison for murdering his wife and her lover, even though he insists he’s innocent. There, he becomes close friends with another prisoner named Red, played by Morgan Freeman, who’s already been inside for years.
Andy wants freedom, obviously, which might make us think that we’re watching some kind of escape thriller.
But the movie isn’t built like an escape thriller.
If it were, we’d probably spend a whole lot more time watching Andy plan how he’s going to get out. We’d be worried about the tunnel and the tools and the guards and where he’s hiding everything and whether somebody’s going to catch him.
And that’s really interesting because Andy actually does escape.
But the movie hides most of his plan from us until the very end.
Why?
Because his escape is not what the movie cares about the most.
There’s another story going on through Red. Andy, for most of the movie, holds on to this belief that even though Shawshank can imprison his body, it doesn’t have to imprison his soul. He keeps finding these little ways to feel free. And he keeps talking about hope.
Red rejects all of that. He’s been in prison so long that he believes the walls eventually become part of you.
So Andy doesn’t really have the biggest internal transformation in this story. Red does.
Andy keeps showing Red another possibility.
Eventually, after Andy escapes and Red himself is finally paroled, Red has to decide whether he’s going to live according to what Shawshank taught him or take the risk of believing what Andy has been telling him all along.
Find the Deeper Story
That’s why I think you could make a very good argument that while Andy drives much of the external story, Red is the emotional protagonist of The Shawshank Redemption.
And that tells us something important about genre.
If this were primarily an escape thriller, Andy’s escape would be the climax and the story would end after he gets out.
But it doesn’t.
We still need to know what happens to Red.
Because the deeper story isn’t just: Can Andy escape from prison?
The deeper story is about what prison can do to a human being, whether you can remain free inside yourself even after years of confinement, and whether someone who’s lost that freedom can find it again.
That’s why The Shawshank Redemption is really a prison drama rather than an escape thriller. The escape is part of the story, but it isn’t the story’s main concern.
What Genre Is My Story? See Which Conflict Keeps Escalating
The second thing that genre determines is which conflict needs to keep escalating because most stories have more than one conflict going on.
In Legally Blonde, for example, Elle has problems with Warner, she has problems fitting in at Harvard, she has people who don’t take her seriously, she struggles academically at first, and later she has to prove herself in the courtroom.
Lots of issues.
But if this were really a romance, the conflict between her and Warner would have to be the one that gets more and more important as the story goes along. Something would need to keep pulling them apart and then maybe they get back together.
Whatever it is, that relationship conflict would need to keep building because that’s the question we’d be waiting for the story to answer.
But that’s not what happens.
Warner actually becomes less important as the story goes.
Follow the Pressure Toward the Ending
The conflict that keeps growing is between Elle and this idea that she doesn’t belong at Harvard. So the story keeps putting more pressure on that.
Can she succeed in this world without changing who she is? Can she stop needing Warner’s approval? Can she trust that she actually belongs there?
That’s the conflict that carries us toward the courtroom at the end because that’s the story we’re really watching.
You can see the same thing in The Shawshank Redemption.
If it were simply an escape thriller, the conflict we’d expect to keep escalating would be Andy versus the prison system as he tries to get out.
But that’s not the conflict the movie keeps pushing.
Instead, the pressure comes from what years of imprisonment do to a person. So by the end, the question isn’t simply whether somebody can get through the prison walls. It’s whether Red can get past what those walls have done to him.
And this is something you can look at in your story, too.
Which conflict keeps getting more important as you move toward the end?
Because if you think you’re writing one genre, but the conflict that keeps growing belongs to a completely different type of genre, that may be a sign that you’ve been strengthening the wrong thread.
What Genre Is My Story? Look at the Scenes Your Reader Is Expecting
The third thing genre determines is which scenes your reader is expecting.
When readers choose a certain genre of story, they come in expecting certain things to happen.
If you’re writing romance, for example, readers expect the relationship to keep developing. They expect these two people to spend time together, get to know each other, run into problems, pull apart, come back together, and eventually have to decide what this relationship really means to them.
If you leave most of that out, it’s going to be pretty hard for the reader to experience the book as a romance.
And you can see this really clearly with Legally Blonde.
If this were actually a romance, we’d need a lot more scenes between Elle and Warner.
But that’s not what Legally Blonde gives us.
Instead, we get scenes of Elle trying to survive Harvard. We see her struggle in class. We see her finally start taking the work seriously. We see her discover that she’s actually good at this. We see her earn more responsibility and eventually get a chance to help with a real case.
Those are the scenes the story needs because those are the experiences that move Elle toward becoming the person she’s going to be at the end, the coming-of-age journey.
Pay Attention to the Scenes You Keep Choosing
Now look at The Shawshank Redemption.
If this were just an escape thriller, we’d expect a very different set of scenes. We’d probably see Andy working on the tunnel much earlier in the movie. We’d see him trying to hide what he’s doing, watching the guards, figuring out when the prison is vulnerable, and dealing with one close call after the other.
The escape plan itself would take up a lot more space because that’s what we’d be there to watch.
But the movie doesn’t do that.
Instead, we get scenes like Andy playing music over the prison loudspeakers just so the other prisoners can feel free for a few minutes or feel more human. We get the men building the library, and we see Red going before the parole board again and again.
Those scenes have nothing to do with Andy escaping, but they’re absolutely helping the movie tell us the story that it cares about.
So when you’re looking at your own story, think about the scenes you’ve chosen to spend your time on.
What are you repeatedly showing the reader?
Because sometimes one of the easiest ways to spot a genre problem is to look at the scenes you keep wanting to write. They may be telling you what story you’re really interested in, even if the label you’ve put on the book says something else.
What Genre Is My Story? Ask What Your Climax Actually Settles
The fourth thing that genre determines is what the climax has to settle.
By the time you reach the climax, the story has to answer the central question you’ve been asking all along. And this is one of the easiest ways to figure out what genre you’re really writing.
So go back to Legally Blonde.
If this were a romance, the climax would somehow have to settle the relationship between Elle and Warner. Maybe Warner would finally realize that he loved her and try to get her back. Or maybe Elle decides whether she still wants him.
Whatever happens, their relationship would need to be central because that’s the question the story would be building toward if it were a romance.
But that’s not the climax we get.
The climax is in the courtroom. Elle has to step forward, trust what she knows, and prove that she can handle the case.
Whether Warner wants her back has become almost completely irrelevant by that time.
The story is answering a different question.
That’s why the coming-of-age story owns the climax.
Your Climax Shows the Story’s Hand
Now look at The Shawshank Redemption.
If this were an escape thriller, Andy getting out of Shawshank would almost certainly be the climax. We’d spend the final stretch of the movie wondering whether the tunnel is going to work, whether the guards will catch him, whether he’ll make it through the sewer pipe, and whether he’ll actually reach freedom.
And once he got out, the main question would be answered and the movie would be over.
We do get to see all that, but the movie doesn’t end after that, does it?
Andy escapes, but we still have story left. We still need Red.
So we get to see Red go before the parole board again, and he has to decide what he’s going to tell them, whether he’s going to give them the same old blah blah blah that he always does, or if he’s going to be a little more honest.
He decides to be honest. And amazingly enough, the parole board approves his release.
Then the question becomes: Can he live outside the prison walls?
For a while, it looks like he may not want to.
But then he finally makes a different choice.
Find What the Climax Really Resolves
Red follows Andy’s instructions, finds the money and the letter Andy left for him, and heads toward Mexico. And the last scene in the movie shows him joining Andy on the beach.
See, the emotional climax in the movie isn’t Andy getting out of prison. It’s Red deciding that hope is worth the risk.
So this gives you a really useful question to ask about your own book:
What does your climax actually resolve?
Because the genre that owns the climax is usually the genre you’re really writing.
If you think you’re writing a romance, but the climax doesn’t really care if the lovers come together or not, you probably have a different genre going on.
If you think you’re writing a mystery, but the mystery was solved halfway through the book and the climax is really about stopping the killer before they strike again, you may have moved into thriller territory.
Your climax is where the story finally shows its hand.
What Genre Is My Story? Check What Your Ending Needs to Feel Complete
The last thing genre changes is what kind of ending is going to feel complete for your reader.
We just talked about the climax and how it answers the story’s central question. But the ending, what happens after the climax, is where we also get to feel what that answer means.
And different genres leave us needing different things before we’re ready to close the book or leave the theater.
Go back to Legally Blonde.
Once Elle wins the case, the coming-of-age story has basically proven what it needed to prove. She belongs there. She’s capable. She no longer needs Warner to tell her that she’s good enough.
But the movie still gives us a little more.
We find out that Elle graduates from Harvard. Warner graduates without honors and without a girlfriend, and Elle has built a life that has absolutely nothing to do with winning him back.
That’s important because the story began with Elle believing that getting Warner back was the thing she most needed.
The ending shows us just how far she’s moved beyond that.
What Genre Is My Story? Give the Reader the Completion the Story Promised
The Shawshank Redemption gives us an even clearer example.
At the end, Andy has already escaped, and then Red gets paroled. He has to make the choice to leave behind the life Shawshank taught him to accept or to choose hope.
The movie would feel incomplete if Red got on the bus and we never found out whether he reached Andy or not, right?
We need that final moment on the beach. We need to see Red actually reach the life he finally allows himself to hope for.
That’s what completes the story.
And this is another place where genre can help you when you’re figuring out your own ending.
Once the climax is over, what does the reader still need to see, know, or feel before this story is truly finished?
In a romance, they probably need reassurance about the relationship and how it affected the two characters. In a mystery, we need to understand the truth and its consequences. In a thriller, we need to know that the threat is really over and what surviving it has caused the protagonist. In a coming-of-age story, we need some indication of who this person has become and how they’re going to move forward differently.
Resolving the plot isn’t enough.
The ending has to give the reader the kind of emotional completion that this particular story has been promising them all along.
And if your ending technically wraps everything up but still feels kind of unsatisfying, your genre may help you figure out what’s missing.
Try This With Your Own Book
Take a look at your own story and ask yourself just one question: What is the central question my story has to answer before it can end?
Then look at the genre you think you’re writing and see if those two things match.
And if you’re still early in your story and you really don’t know yet, that’s okay. Don’t stop writing while you’re trying to force an answer about what genre this is.
Just start paying attention to the question that’s emerging.
* * *
Maybe you love discovering your story as you write. I do too. But discovery gets less fun when you hit the middle of the book and suddenly realize you have no idea where the story is going.
That’s one of the reasons I created Map to Storyland. It gives you enough structure to see the path of your story while still leaving you room to surprise yourself along the way.
You’ll use four visual story maps to figure out what launches your main character into the story, how the pressure builds, what brings everything to a breaking point, and how all of it pays off in the ending. There’s even a game board so you can move through the story visually and bring a little play back into your process.
If you’d like something that gives you enough structure to keep your story moving while still having the fun of discovering it as you write, come check out Map to Storyland.
And if you’d rather work on your writing alongside other writers, check out Writer’s Brain Studio. That’s my writing community where we meet regularly to work through story problems, talk about craft, and help you keep moving when you get stuck.
Featured image by Magnific.