Mixing Genre's

by Gordon Bailey
30th May 2013

Is it best to stick with a single genre when you decide the type of story you want to write or can mash them up. Example :- Romantic/western, or Comedy/horror, or Si-fi/historical/Crime.

Some seem that they could go together and some are just a non-starter. And if you have a mixed Genre which section do you list it as when you come to selling and promoting your book. Please let me know your thoughts. Thank you.

Replies

Damien said it all... and well said. ;-)

Profile picture for user david@fo_25910
David
Foster
270 points
Developing your craft
Short stories
Fiction
Autobiography, Biography and Memoir
Historical
Speculative Fiction
Adventure
David Foster
30/05/2013

Dor said it all... and well said.

Profile picture for user damienis_24893
damien
Isaak
330 points
Ready to publish
Film, Music, Theatre, TV and Radio
Short stories
Fiction
Crime, Mystery, Thriller
Adventure
Autobiography, Biography and Memoir
Middle Grade (Children's)
Picture Books (Children's)
Gothic and Horror
damien Isaak
30/05/2013

My thoughts are: write the book.

A genre classification is there to give us a broad idea of what kind of book it is. Some, like Romance, have very specific rules about what can happen in them (eg: a happy ending). If you wrote a Romance which didn't have a happy ending, you wouldn't classify it as Romance (unless you *wanted* a lot of 1 star reviews).

Genre is (largely) a marketing issue, so think about who your reader is and how best to sell your book to them. Ben Aaranovich's books are Urban Fantasy rather than Crime, for instance, because he's got more in common with Neil Gaiman than Val McDermid.

More generally, I think anything can go together. a Sci-Fi/Historical for instance would probably be classified as Steampunk.

Profile picture for user hmalings_9925
Dor
Armitage
270 points
Ready to publish
Short stories
Fiction
Dor Armitage
30/05/2013