Action An
action story is similar to
adventure, and the
protagonist usually takes a risky turn, which leads to desperate situations (including explosions, fight scenes, daring escapes, etc.). Action and adventure are usually categorized together (sometimes even as "action-adventure") because they have much in common, and many stories fall under both genres simultaneously (for instance, the
James Bond series can be classified as both). •
Military fiction: A story about a war or battle that can either be historical or fictional. It usually follows the events a certain warrior goes through during the battle's events. •
Spy fiction: A story about a secret agent (spy) or military personnel member who is sent on an
espionage mission. Usually, they are equipped with special gadgets that prove useful during the mission, and they have special training in things such as unarmed combat or
computer hacking. They may or may not work for a specific government.
Adventure An
adventure story is about a protagonist who journeys to epic or distant places to accomplish something. It can have many other genre elements included within it, because it is a very open genre. The protagonist has a mission and faces obstacles to get to their destination. Also, adventure stories usually include unknown settings and characters with prized properties or features. •
Superhero fiction: a story that examines the adventures of costumed crime fighters known as superheroes, who often possess superhuman powers and battle similarly powered criminals, known as
supervillains. •
Swashbuckler •
Ruritanian romance: a genre of swashbuckling adventure novels, set in a fictional country, usually in
Central Europe or
Eastern Europe •
Picaresque: a genre featuring a roguish protagonist in a series of loosely connected adventures using his wits to get by in a corrupt society.
Comedy Comedy is a story intended to amuse the audience. It is a very open genre, and thus crosses over with many other genres on a frequent basis. •
Comedy of manners: A work that satirizes the manners and affectations of a social class, often represented by
stock characters. The plot of the comedy is often concerned with an illicit love affair or some other scandal, but is generally less important than its witty dialogue. This form of comedy has a long ancestry, dating back at least as far as
Shakespeare's
Much Ado about Nothing. •
Comic fantasy: A subgenre of fantasy that is primarily humorous in intent and tone. Usually set in imaginary worlds, comic fantasy often includes puns on and parodies of other works of fantasy. It is sometimes known as low fantasy in contrast to high fantasy, which is primarily serious in intent and tone. The term "low fantasy" is also used to represent other types of fantasy, so while comic fantasies may also correctly be classified as low fantasy, many examples of low fantasy are not comic in nature. •
Dark comedy: A comedic story that is based on normally tragic or taboo subjects, including death, murder, suicide, illicit drugs, and war. •
Science fiction comedy: A comedy that uses science fiction elements or settings, often as a lighthearted (or occasionally vicious) parody of the latter genre. •
Satire: Often strictly defined as a literary genre or form, though in practice it is also found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, human or individual vices, follies, abuses, or shortcomings are held up to censure by means of ridicule, derision, burlesque, irony, or other methods, ideally with the intent to bring about improvement. Satire is usually meant to be funny, but its purpose is not primarily humor as an attack on something the author disapproves of, using wit. A common, almost defining feature of satire is its strong vein of irony or sarcasm, but parody, burlesque, exaggeration, juxtaposition, comparison, analogy, and double entendre all frequently appear in satirical speech and writing. The essential point, is that "in satire, irony is militant;" this "militant irony" (i.e.,
sarcasm) often professes to approve (or at least accept as natural) the very things the satirist actually wishes to attack. •
Absurdist and
surrealist: closely related/overlapping genres that challenge casual and rudimentary reasoning and even the most basic purposefulness found within life. There is often, though not always, a connection to comedy. • The absurdist genre focuses on the experiences of characters in situations where they cannot find any inherent
purpose in life, most often represented by ultimately meaningless actions and events that call into question the certainty of existential concepts such as truth or value. Elements common to this genre include satire,
dark humor, incongruity, the abasement of
reason, and controversy regarding the philosophical condition of being "nothing". • The surreal genre is predicated on deliberate violations of
causality, producing events and behaviours that are obviously illogical. Constructions of surreal humour tend to involve bizarre juxtapositions,
non-sequiturs, irrational, or absurd situations and expressions of
nonsense.
Crime and mystery A
crime story is often about a crime that is being committed or was committed, but can also be an account of a criminal's life. A
mystery story follows an investigator as they attempt to solve a puzzle (often a crime). The details and clues are presented as the story continues and the protagonist discovers them and by the end of the story the mystery is solved. For example, in the case of a crime mystery, the perpetrator and motive behind the crime are revealed and the perpetrator is brought to justice. But in some circumstances, the person who has committed the crime or committed a crime before will not always be brought to justice it may end unsolved. Mystery novels are often written in series, which facilitates a more in-depth development of the primary investigator. •
Cozy mysteries •
Detective story: A story about a detective or person, either professional or amateur, who has to solve a crime that was committed. They must figure out who committed the crime and why. Sometimes, the detective must figure out 'how' the criminal committed the crime if it seems impossible. •
Whodunit: This is a complex, plot-driven variety of the detective story in which the audience is given the opportunity to engage in the same process of deduction as the protagonist throughout the investigation of a crime. The reader or viewer is provided with the clues from which the identity of the perpetrator may be deduced before the story provides the revelation itself at its climax. The investigation is usually conducted by an eccentric amateur or semi-professional detective. •
Gentleman thief: Centers around particularly well-behaving and apparently well-bred thieves. They rarely bother with anonymity or force, preferring to rely on their charisma, physical attractiveness, and clever misdirection to steal the most unobtainable objectssometimes for their own support, but mostly for the thrill of the act itself. •
Gong'an fiction: A subgenre of historical crime fiction that involves government
magistrates who solve criminal cases. •
Legal thriller: This subgenre of thriller and crime fiction presents stories in which the major characters are lawyers, judges, and/or their employees. Examples include
Primal Fear (1993) and
Blood Defense (2016). •
Locked-room mysteries •
Murder mystery: A mystery story that focuses on homicides. Usually, the detective must figure out who killed one or several victims. They may or may not find themselves or loved ones in danger because of this investigation. The genre often includes elements of the
suspense story genre, or of the
action and
adventure genres. •
Noir fiction •
Hardboiled: This is a literary genre sharing the setting with crime fiction (especially detective stories). Though deriving from the romantic tradition—which emphasized the emotions of apprehension, horror and terror, and awe—hardboiled fiction deviates from the tradition in the detective's cynical attitude towards those emotions. The attitude is conveyed through the detective's
self-talk describing to the reader what he is doing and feeling.
Fantasy '') A
fantasy story is about
magic or
supernatural forces, as opposed to technology as seen in
science fiction. Depending on the extent of these other elements, the story may or may not be considered to be a "hybrid genre" series; for instance, even though the
Harry Potter series
canon includes the requirement of a particular
gene to be a
wizard, it is referred to only as a fantasy series. •
Accidental travel, a genre in which protagonists accidentally find themselves outside of their normal place or time, often for no apparent reason, a particular type of the “
fish-out-of-water” plot; an umbrella term for accidental
time travel,
portal fantasy,
isekai,
alien abduction fantasy, and the likes. •
Bangsian: A fantasy subgenre that concerns the use of famous literary or historical individuals and their interactions in the afterlife. It is named for
John Kendrick Bangs, who often wrote in this genre. •
Contemporary fantasy (aka modern fantasy or indigenous fantasy): A subgenre of fantasy, set in the present day. These are used to describe stories set in the putative real world (often referred to as consensus reality) in contemporary times, in which magic and magical creatures exist, either living in the interstices of our world or leaking over from alternate worlds. •
Urban fantasy: A subgenre of fantasy defined by place; the fantastic narrative has an urban setting. Many urban fantasies are set in contemporary times and contain supernatural elements. However, the stories can take place in historical, modern, or futuristic periods, as well as fictional settings. The prerequisite is that they must be primarily set in a city. •
Dark fantasy: A subgenre of fantasy that can refer to literary, artistic, and filmic works that combine fantasy with elements of horror. The term can be used broadly to refer to fantastical works that have a dark, gloomy atmosphere or a sense of horror and dread and a dark, often brooding, tone. •
Fables: A type of narration demonstrating a useful truth.
Animals speak as
humans,
legendary, supernatural tale. •
Fairy tales: A folk genre about various magical creatures, environments, et cetera. Many fairy tales are generally targeted for children. •
Hard fantasy: Fantasy where the world and its magical elements are constructed in a logical and rational manner. •
Epic/High fantasy: Mythical stories with highly developed characters and story lines. Examples include
Malazan Book of the Fallen and
The Lord of the Rings. •
Heroic fantasy: Subgenre of fantasy that chronicles the tales of heroes in imaginary lands. Frequently, the protagonist is reluctant to be a champion, is of low or humble origin, and has royal ancestors or parents but does not know it. Though events are usually beyond their control, they are thrust into positions of great responsibility where their mettle is tested in a number of spiritual and physical challenges. •
Historical fantasy: A category of fantasy and genre of historical fiction that incorporates fantastic elements (such as magic) into the historical narrative. •
Legends: Stories, oftentimes of a national hero or other
folk figure, which have a basis in fact, but also contain imaginative material. •
Literary fairy tale, a literary counterpart of fairy tales •
LitRPG: A world that resembles a
table-top or
computer RPG, usually with ranks or levels in universe. •
Magical girl: Popular in Japan, this subgenre is of girls who use magic in either their training, idol stardom, or even to fight evil. •
Magic realism (aka magical realism): literary works where magical events form part of ordinary life. The reader is forced to accept that abnormal events such as levitation, telekinesis and talking with the dead take place in the real world. The writer does not invent a new world or describe in great detail new creatures, as is usual in Fantasy; on the contrary, the author abstains from explaining the fantastic events to avoid making them feel extraordinary. It is often regarded as a genre exclusive to
Latin American literature, but some of its chief exponents include English authors.
One Hundred Years of Solitude, by
Gabriel García Márquez, who received the 1982
Nobel Prize in Literature, is considered the genre's seminal work of style. •
Mythic fiction: Literature that is rooted in, inspired by, or that in some way draws from the tropes, themes and symbolism of myth, folklore, and fairy tales. The term is widely credited to
Charles de Lint and
Terri Windling. Mythic fiction overlaps with urban fantasy and the terms are sometimes used interchangeably, but mythic fiction also includes contemporary works in non-urban settings. Mythic fiction refers to works of contemporary literature that often cross the divide between literary and fantasy fiction. •
Portal fantasy: In portal fantasy, a character travels to the fantastical world from another, usually less-fantastical one. •
Isekai: A Japanese form of portal fantasy which can typically—though not always—also follow many of the conventions of the LitRPG (such as a character entering into the world of a game). •
Progression fantasy: A genre focused on characters training to become more powerful in martial ability or other skills. •
Science fantasy: A story with mystical elements that are scientifically explainable, or that combine science fiction elements with fantasy elements. (
Science fiction was once referred to by this name, but that it no longer denotes that genre, and has somewhat fallen out of favor as a genre descriptor.) •
Sword and planet: A subgenre of science fantasy that features rousing adventure stories set on other planets, and usually featuring Earthmen as protagonists. There is a fair amount of overlap between "sword and planet" and the "
planetary romance" subgenre of sci-fi, though some works are considered to belong to one and not the other. In general, the latter is considered to be more of a "
space opera" subgenre, influenced by the likes of
A Princess of Mars yet more modern and technologically savvy, while "sword and planet" more directly imitates the conventions established by Burroughs in the
Barsoom series. •
Dying Earth: A subgenre of science fantasy that takes place either at the
end of life on Earth or the
end of time, when the laws of the universe themselves fail. More generally, the Dying Earth subgenre encompasses science fiction works set in the far distant future in a milieu of stasis or decline. Themes that tend to predominate this genre include those of world-weariness,
innocence (wounded or otherwise),
idealism,
entropy, (permanent) exhaustion/depletion of many or all resources (such as soil nutrients), and the hope of renewal. •
Gaslamp fantasy: Fantasy's counterpart to
steampunk, in which the settings are often
Victorian or
Edwardian socially or technologically, but with non-scientific elements or characters included. •
Shenmo: A genre of fantasy that revolves around the gods and monsters of
Chinese mythology. •
Sword and sorcery: A blend of heroic fantasy, adventure, and frequent elements of the horrific in which a mighty barbaric warrior hero is pitted against both human and supernatural adversaries.
Robert E. Howard, creator of
Conan the Cimmerian,
Kull of Atlantis, the Pictish king
Bran Mak Morn, et cetera, is generally acknowledged as the founder of the genre, chiefly through his writings for
Weird Tales and other 1920s/30s
pulp magazines.
Historical A story about a real person or event. There are also some
fiction works that purport to be the "memoirs" of fictional characters as well, done in a similar style, however, these are in a separate genre. Often, they are written in a
text book format, which may or may not focus on solely that. •
Biography: The details of the life story of a real person, told by someone else. •
Autobiography: Essentially the same as a
biography, with the exception that the story is written by the person who is the subject of the story. •
Memoir: Similar to
autobiography, with the exception that it is told more "from memory", i.e. it is how the person personally remembers and feels about their life or a stage in their life, more than the exact, recorded details of that period. Though memoirs are often more
subjective than
autobiography works, memoirs are generally still considered to be
nonfiction works.
Historical fiction The
historical fiction genre includes stories that are about the past. It takes place in the real world, with real world people, but with several fictionalized or dramatized elements. To distinguish historical fiction from any fiction that is written about an era in the past, the criterion is that the book must have been written about a time that occurred in a historical context in relation to the author of the book. The criterion that the story be set before the middle of the previous century is sometimes added. etc. Some would include stories of Revenants such as "
The Monkey's Paw" by
W. W. Jacobs. •
Gothic fiction: An atmospheric supernatural tale centered on a fear of the taboo and unknown. Lurid secrets and personal tragedies are common in stories in which the past returns to haunt the present, thematically reflected in the genre's crumbling, decayed architecture.
The Castle of Otranto (1764) by
Horace Walpole exemplifies the heightened emotion and foreboding tone of the genre. •
Monster: A story about a monster, creature, or mutant that terrorizes people.
Mary Shelley's novel
Frankenstein is an example of a story with a monstrous "creature" (
Frankenstein is often also considered the first
science fiction story, in that it depicts biological science reanimating the dead). Other clear Monster stories are of the creatures of folklore and fable: the
Ghoul, the
Werewolf, and the
Zombie. •
Vampire literature: A story about
vampires, reanimated bodies that feed on the blood of the living, based on European folklore.
Bram Stoker's
Dracula (1897) created many of the genre's conventions. •
Jiangshi fiction: Stories about
jiangshi, the hopping corpses under the control of Taoist priests derived from
Chinese literature and folklore. • Occult stories: Stories that touch upon the adversaries of Good, especially the "Enemies" of the forces of righteousness as expressed in any given religious philosophy. Hence, stories of devils, demons, demonic possession, dark witchcraft, evil sorcerers or warlocks, and figures like the
Antichrist would qualify. The nature of such stories presupposes the existence of the side of Good and the existence of a deity to be opposed to the forces of Evil. •
Survival horror: A horror story about a protagonist in a risky and life-threatening situation that they must endure, often as a result of things such as
zombies or other monsters, and the rest of the plot is how the main characters overcome this.
Romance The term
romance has
multiple meanings; for example,
historical romances like those of
Walter Scott would use the term to mean "a fictitious narrative in prose or verse; the interest of which turns upon marvellous and uncommon incidents". Most often, however, a romance is understood to be "love stories", emotion-driven stories that are primarily focused on the relationship between the main characters of the story. Beyond the focus on the relationship, the biggest defining characteristic of the romance genre is that a
happy ending is always guaranteed, perhaps marriage and living "happily ever after", or simply that the reader sees hope for the future of the romantic relationship. A work of suppositional fiction might be science fiction, alternate history, mystery, horror, or even suppositional fantasy, depending on the intent and focus of the author.
Thriller A
thriller is a story that is usually a mix of fear and excitement. It has traits from the
suspense genre and often from the
action,
adventure or
mystery genres, but the level of terror makes it borderline
horror fiction at times as well. It generally has a dark or serious theme, which also makes it similar to
drama. • Disaster-thriller: A story about mass peril, where the protagonist's job is to both survive, and to save many other people from a grim fate, often a
natural disaster such as a storm or volcanic eruption, but may also be a
terrorist attack or
epidemic of some sort. •
Psychological thriller: emphasizes the psychological condition of the hero that presents obstacles to his objective, rather than the action. Some psychological thrillers are also about complicated stories that try to deliberately confuse the audience, often by showing them only the same confusing or seemingly nonsensical information that the hero gains. •
Crime thriller: A story that revolves around the life of detectives, mobs, or other groups associated with criminal events in the story. •
Techno-thriller: A story whose theme is usually technology, or the danger behind the technology people use, including the threat of
cyber terrorism such as
State of Fear.
Isekai is a Japanese
genre of
speculative fiction—both
portal fantasy and
science fiction are included. It includes novels,
light novels,
films,
manga,
anime and
video games that revolve around people who are transported to and have to survive in another world, such as a
fantasy world,
virtual world, or
parallel universe. Isekai is one of the most popular genres of anime, and Isekai stories share many common tropes – for example, a powerful protagonist who is able to beat most people in the other world by fighting. This
plot device typically allows the audience to learn about the new world at the same pace as the protagonist over the course of their
quest or lifetime.
Other •
Western: Stories in the
Western genre are set in the
American West, between the time of the Civil war and the early 20th century. The setting of a wilderness or uncivilized area is especially important to the genre, and the setting is often described richly and in-depth. They focus on the adventure of the main character(s) and the contrast between civilization or society and the untamed wilderness, often featuring the characters working to bring civilization to the wilderness. This genre periodically overlaps with
historical fiction, and while a more traditional definition of westerns is that of stories about lone men facing the
frontier, more modern definitions and writings are often expanded to include any person or persons in this time period that feature a strong tone of the contrast between civilization and wilderness and emphasize the independence of the main character(s). •
Paranoid fiction: works of
literature that explore the
subjective nature of reality and how it can be manipulated by forces in power. These forces can be external, such as a
totalitarian government, or they can be internal, such as a character's
mental illness or refusal to accept the harshness of the world they live in. •
Philosophical fiction: stories in which a significant proportion of the work is devoted to a discussion of the sort of questions normally addressed in discursive philosophy. These might include the function and role of society, the purpose of life, ethics or morals, the role of art in human lives, and the role of experience or reason in the development of knowledge. Philosophical fiction works would include the so-called novel of ideas, including a significant proportion of science fiction, utopian and dystopian fiction, and Bildungsroman. The modus operandi seems to be to use a normal story to simply explain difficult and dark parts of human life. •
Bildungsroman: A
coming-of-age novel presenting the psychological, moral and social shaping of the personality of a character, usually the
protagonist. The genre arose during the
German Enlightenment. •
Political fiction is a subgenre of fiction that deals with
political affairs. Political fiction has often used narrative to provide commentary on political events, systems and theories. Works of political fiction often "directly criticize an existing society or... present an alternative, sometimes fantastic, reality". Prominent pieces of political fiction have included the totalitarian dystopias of the early 20th century such as
Jack London's The Iron Heel and
Sinclair Lewis's ''
It Can't Happen Here. Equally influential, if not more so, have been earlier pieces of political fiction such as Gulliver's Travels (1726), Candide (1759), and Uncle Tom's Cabin'' (1852). Political fiction frequently employs the literary modes of satire, often in the genres of utopian, dystopian, and social-science fiction. •
Utopian fiction: The creation of an ideal world, or utopia, as the setting for a novel •
Dystopian fiction: The creation of a nightmare world, or dystopia, as the setting for a novel •
Social science fiction •
Survivalism: The creation of world where traditional society has collapsed usually due to some post apocalyptic or doomsday scenario, as a setting for a novel •
Sagas (from Icelandic
saga, plural
sögur): stories written in the
Old Norse language, mainly in Iceland, that are about ancient
Scandinavian and
Germanic history, about early
Viking voyages, about
migration to Iceland, and of feuds between Icelandic families. The texts are
epic tales in
prose, often with
stanzas or whole poems in
alliterative verse embedded in the text, of heroic deeds of days long gone, tales of worthy men, who were often Vikings, sometimes Pagan, sometimes Christian. The tales are usually realistic, except legendary sagas, sagas of saints, sagas of bishops and translated or recomposed romances. They are sometimes romanticised and fantastic, but always dealing with human beings one can understand. •
Family saga: The family saga chronicles the lives and doings of a family or a number of related or interconnected families over a period of time. In novels (or sometimes
sequences of novels) with a serious intent, this is often a thematic device used to portray particular historical events, changes of social circumstances, or the ebb and flow of fortunes from a multiple of perspectives. •
Urban fiction (aka street lit): a literary genre set, as the name implies, in a city landscape, as well as being defined by the race and culture of its characters. The tone for urban fiction is usually dark, focusing on the underside. Profanity (all of
George Carlin's
seven dirty words and urban variations thereof), sex and violence are usually explicit, with the writer not shying away from or watering-down the material. In this respect, urban fiction shares some common threads with
dystopian or
survivalist fiction. In the second wave of urban fiction, some variations of this model have been seen. ==Film and television genres==