McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft
Genre question
the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh:
--- Quote from: Quantus on October 30, 2012, 08:57:53 PM ---Well, in general Id agree with Neuro that anything that has paranormal elements is usually considered Fantasy (Urban or otherwise). But there are times that is not always the case. The Dexter novels for example get increasingly paranormal (demonic possession) while still being generally maintained as straight horror.
--- End quote ---
Paranormal elements show up in the third one of those and then never reappear in any subsequent one, sfaicr.
Galvatron:
I have found a few books, David Wellignton comes to mind, that use parnanormal elements such as zombie/werewolves/vampires but the books are classifed as horror.
Not sure if that matters but I wanted to add it
the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh:
--- Quote from: Galvatron on November 16, 2012, 10:23:19 PM ---I have found a few books, David Wellignton comes to mind, that use parnanormal elements such as zombie/werewolves/vampires but the books are classifed as horror.
--- End quote ---
I'm inclined to think horror's an odd-one-out where genre boundaries are concerned, and probably worth thinking of as being at right angles to everything else; most genres are defined by setting and furniture, horror is defined by emotional tone. Though I suppose you could make the same argument for romance.
OZ:
I think that you or your agent could decide after the fact which genre would be the best market for the books. The only thing that I would caution is the genre swapping does not lose your audience. I loved Dan Wells "I am not a Serial Killer" books but if you read the Amazon reviews there is a significant number of poor reviews that refer to "the plot twist" as ruining the books for them. To minimize spoilers let me just say that the plot twist was just a bit supernatural and many readers were offended. On the other hand if readers are buying your books for the supernatural bits they may not like it if they are missing. If it's a light touch it probably won't make much difference but if one book is Harry Dresden and the next is Harry Bosch you may lose readers. Of course if you can write like Michael Connolly or Jim Butcher you probably don't have much to worry about. I like John Connolly's horror/mystery novels that do quite a good job of balancing between natural and supernatural. For the most part you are never quite sure whether something supernatural is going on or if the main character is just crazy and seeing things that aren't really there.
Quantus:
--- Quote from: the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh on November 17, 2012, 05:05:14 PM ---I'm inclined to think horror's an odd-one-out where genre boundaries are concerned, and probably worth thinking of as being at right angles to everything else; most genres are defined by setting and furniture, horror is defined by emotional tone. Though I suppose you could make the same argument for romance.
--- End quote ---
Good point. You dont really see that old Ghost flick in the Sci Fi section, for example.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[*] Previous page
Go to full version