“What’s your novel about?” Is one of the first questions we as writers have to answer. And yet it can be such a loaded question. Are they asking about the plot? The character arcs? The big themes? How do we answer that question and the other big ones that come up?
I recently sat into a kids writing workshop my daughter was attending and the author had them create High Concept Ideas…not to too much success, but the idea is good. Be able to explain your novel in a sentence or two.
After a book falls on her head in the local library, Saide discovers she can speak to dead authors. When she stumbles upon Edgar Allen Poe’s ghost, will she have the guts to write down his last novel?
When the local dragon hunter goes missing, his apprentice must hold down the fort, or die trying.
You get the idea. Somebody has a goal, there are stakes, etc. High concept ideas may be helpful to some folks—the presenting author claimed she generated them to help with writers block—but I tend to think of them as something that happens at the end of the process. Rarely do my original concepts last much longer than the first draft of a novel. Short stories maybe.
Still, after you have a solid draft of your story, picking out the high concept idea will certainly answer the first layer of “What is your novel about?” But what if they are asking about the themes? Most of my books boil down to explorations of community and an individual’s part in the whole. Belonging is a primitive human desire and I love exploring the dynamics between characters and the greater world. “Community.” Is my answer to the big question whenever I don’t feel like going deeper.
“What genre is it?” Is usually the second frequent question I get.
Genres can feel simple at first. Historical fiction, romance, western, mystery. But like any label, once you start putting things in boxes, more boxes appear. Some common tags you might need to add:
Speculative: Is there magic? Anachronisms (things that wouldn’t be historically accurate—think steampunk or cyber trains)? Alternate histories? Anything that tweaks the “real world” a bit falls under this category, but not enough to be Sci-fi or Fantasy. Twilight would be speculative fiction because aside from vampires the world systems remain the same. Harry Potter is fantasy because the entire world system is based on magic. The line is blurry.
Urban: Urban fiction, urban fantasy, urban horror…urban plops the setting down in a familiar city. London, Chicago, New York, etc. The city is almost a character in itself.
Contemporary: Modern day
Historical: Not modern-day
Dark: leaning toward horror, or thematically grittier topics or themes.
Cozy: The opposite of dark, lower stakes and less brutal themes. We don’t see anyone spurting blood at the crime scenes.
Psychological: These are usually character driven stories where the protagonist is at conflict with themselves or others internally.
Mysteries are usually classified by the location of the setting. Quilt shop mysteries take place in quilt shops (this is a stunningly large sub-genre), medical mysteries, Police mysteries, etc.
Romance gets the same sort of treatment but then sometimes it is paired with a second genre on equal footing. Without wasting too much of my life researching the line, I’m guessing it has to do with how much of the plot revolves around with element of the story. In a romantic thriller, I would expect the romance and the thrill to be equal, while in a thriller where the protagonist has a love interest I would expect more of a traditional A plot, B plot set up.
There are sub-sub genres as well. My current project is a portal novel, meaning that it has a portal between worlds. It is contemporary fantasy—as more than half the novel takes place in an alternate world—and may be a novel in stories if I can make it work, otherwise a braided narrative.
The last sentence there lays out the form of the novel. Most people don’t ask about the form of a story. Many people may not know that there are different forms of novels. Yet if you think about books you enjoy, they aren’t written in the exact same way.
Chronologically: Told in the order that the events happen. Maybe with flashbacks. Most books are this.
Hero Cycle: I wrote a couple of articles on this, but essentially a plucky protagonist passes from the known to the unknown and back in a fairly formulaic manner.
Louise Erdrich writes novels in stories—books with chapters from different perspectives that in the end tell a whole story. It may take place in different timelines, and the chapters can almost be picked up and moved around without losing the plot integrity.
Braided narratives are similar: possible different timelines, different perspectives, but there is a plot direction that requires the story to be read in order.
Stream of Consciousness: Don’t do it. Just spare us.
Post Modern: These books ramble. It was a thing in the sixties. Post structuralism or anti structuralism for the sake of snobbery.
Vignettes: short moments that together make a story.
Novel in Poems: Prose or rhyme, together they create the story.
Modular: Two sides or chunks that can be read in a variety of ways, but not quite a novel in stories.
Epistolary: Told in letters or diary entries.
There are more forms than this—and combinations, and variations— but these are the ones I run into the most. Hopefully, the next time someone ask you “what sort of novel is it?” You can reply, “ a speculative historical fiction braided novel about community.” Or whatever applies to your own.
Happy Writing this week folks! I’m still getting into the swing of things with kids in school, activities, and my own commitments but I’ll try to keep up the same twice a week schedule for my loyal readers (looking at you Mom and Pepper!)
Mamasquatch the Writer 
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