by James Butler

Created on: April 30, 2008

Genres Gone Wild! New writers face a lot of daunting choices. Do I stop writing to eat more than once per day? Do I print on recycled paper to submit to an environmental magazine? The there is the genre question. One of the big changes I have seen over the last 30 years of writing is the explosion of Genre classifications. There are main genres, sub-genres, cross-over genres and multi-genre genres. There may now be more genres than books to put them in. Why? Faced with an increasingly difficult sales environment, the people in the marketing arm of the publishing industry are desperate to find anything to help attract readers to their books. Problem is, there are so many genres with so many weird names readers can not figure out what the genres are much less what books they might find in them. I will try to help the poor new writers out a little.

Here is a glossary of all the genres I could dig up with some intensive research. I made up my own definitions for these genres as I thought the standard ones were just a little too.boring. I did not make up any of the genre names. My imagination is not that good! I found them listed in at least two sources as accepted (by somebody) literary classifications.

Age categories

1. Children's fiction

Books for toddlers to pre-teen written by children trapped in adult bodies who really understand how to get to core emotions of the rug rats.

2. Juvenile fiction

Entire chapter books with no word over three syllables written so only pre-teen or slightly younger has a clue what they are about.

3. Middle Grade Fiction

For 6-8 graders and maybe a little older ready to deal with more mature subject matter in simplistic, idealistic ways that make the intended readers feel grown up and the grown up readers feel like pre-teens again much to the dismay of the real pre-teens.

4. Young-adult fiction

Not to be confused with adult' book stores. Simply means teenager. No relationship to adulthood what so ever. So why don't they just say teenage fiction? Well, you know how sensitive teenagers are about being treated like grown-ups. The marketing departments don't miss a thing do they?

5. Adult fiction

For people who feel too mature to read anything not seriously long, complex and beyond the comprehension of the mere young-adult. Aka teenager. You know. The adults who read adult fiction in public and the young adult books in the closet for fun when the teenagers are in school.

The Main Genres of Fiction

1. Action-adventure

Characters with the depth of a

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