Fiction

• Fiction is story that is written about imaginary characters and events and not based on real people and facts
• Mystery. A popular genre, boasting a huge established audience. All mysteries focus on crime, usually murder. The action tends to center on the attempts of a wily detective-type to solve the crime.
• Romance. A huge category aimed at diverting and entertaining women. In romance novels, you have elements of fantasy, love, naïveté, extravagance, adventure, and always the heroic lover overcoming impossible odds to be with his true love.
• Women’s Fiction. It’s common knowledge in the publishing industry that women constitute the biggest book-buying segment. So, it’s certainly no accident that most mainstream as well as genre fiction is popular among women
• Science Fiction / Fantasy. Novels depict distant worlds and futuristic technologies that whirl readers far away from the here and now and yet provoke contemplation of contemporary issues.
• Thriller. Tense, exciting, often sensational works with ingenious plotting, swift action, and continuous suspense. In this genre, a writer’s objective is to deliver a story with sustained tension, surprise, and a constant sense of impending doom that propels the reader forward.
• Western. These novels about life on America’s postCivil War western frontier usually involve conflicts between cowboys and outlaws, cowboys and Native Americans, or Easterners and Westerners.
• Horror. Filled with gut-wrenching fear, this popular genre keeps readers turning the blood-filled pages. From a writer’s perspective, the defining characteristic is the intention to frighten readers by exploiting their fears, both conscious and subconscious.
• SPECULATIVE FICTION. A literary “super genre”, which encompasses several different genres of fiction, each with speculative elements that are based on conjecture and don’t exist in the real world.
• Science Fiction. Stories with imagined technologies that don’t exist in the real world, like time travel, aliens, and robots.
• Sci-Fi Fantasy Fiction. Inspired by mythology, folklore, and fairy tales that combine imagined technologies with elements of magical realism.
• Supernatural Fiction. Sci-fi stories about secret knowledge or hidden abilities including witchcraft, spiritualism, and psychic abilities.
• Space Opera Fiction. A play on the term “soap opera,” sci-fi stories that take place in outer space and center around conflict, romance, and adventure
• Urban Fantasy Fiction. Fantasy stories that take place in an urban setting in the real world but operate under magical rules.
• Utopian Fiction. Stories about civilizations the authors deem to be perfect, ideal societies.
• Dystopian Fiction. Stories about societies deemed problematic within the world of the novel, often satirizing government rules, poverty, and oppression.
• Apocalyptic Fiction. Stories that take place before and during a huge disaster that wipes out a significant portion of the world’s population.
• Post-apocalyptic Fiction. Stories that take place after an apocalyptic event and focus on the survivors figuring out how to navigate their new circumstances—for example, emerging after a global nuclear holocaust or surviving a total breakdown of society.
• Alternate History Fiction. Stories that focus on true historical events but are written as if they unfolded with different outcomes.
• Superhero Fiction. Stories about superheroes and how they use their abilities to fight supervillains.