I'm sorry I can't share what I'm writing exactly to protect my work. It follows multiple characters who are protagonists and multiple antagonists. It will be an anthology by the time I'm done. This is a freaking huge project. I'm thinking Dark Heroic Fantasy (Sub-genre Fantasy) Although I'm not sure. There are a lot of elements to the series on a whole. Romance, while not the main plot device drives forward character development. Central Themes and Idea's in my series. Alienation, Abuse, Mental Illness, Loneliness, Ambition, Betrayal, Coming of Age, Courage, Deception, Discovery, Dungeons, Self Discovery, Escape, Freedom, Good vs. Evil, Isolation, Jealousy, Justice, Loss, Love, Lust, Power, Prejudice, Security, Spirituality, Survival, Chaos and Order, Character Development, Light and Darkness, Family, Fate, Free Will, Heroism, Identity crisis, Illusion of Power, Overcoming adversity, Power corruption, Pride, Questing, Adventure, Rebirth, Reincarnation, Reunion, War, Politics, Religion, Youth and Beauty, Vanity, Wisdom and Experience, Romance, Intimacy, Requited Love, Unrequited Love, Possible Sexuality, Will to survive. (Gods and Devils, Supernatural, Occult, Sword and Sorcery, Magical themes.) Possible genre that I've come up with that I fit into even in sub genre: Anthology (Definite) Fantasy, Scifi Fantasy, Supernatural Fantasy, Action Adventure, Portal Fantasy, Paranormal Romance, Heroic Fantasy, Lost World, Young Adult, Dark Fantasy, Trilogies, Anthologies, Series, Singles (Side Quests) If there's anything I didn't list in the genre section sorry. I tried. I'm not big on young adult genre literature but I'm noticing a trend and I'm beginning to wonder. I liked reading fantasy growing up, a lot of Dragon Lance, Piers Anthony ect... I also liked fan-fiction growing up, mostly reading it and helping friends never wrote my own. My stuff was always cannon. A lot of my friends who liked my writing loved fan-fiction, anime, fantasy, over the top characters, video games, and supernatural stuff. A lot of them had mary-stu sue characters in fiction. :/ lol I'm more interested in character / world development and fantasy .
Is that it? And they're all central, huh? That'll be a toughie to nail down. Why are you afraid to share an excerpt? Think we're gonna jack it?
Hey you helped my out in another thread. lol Thanks by the way. Sadly I've had some of my artworks and writing stolen. Both in real life school environments, or DA (devinatart) Its sadly ruined my trust in people as well as damaged my confidence. Sorry. Yes all of those are going to be very much entwined its a very complicated story. So much so that I have a huge ass poster of timelines with places and people synchronizing everything to stay consistent. Central to the whole series but each individual book may not always cover something. I need an overall idea so I can work with it a bit better on an individual basis.
You haven't given enough information for anybody to suggest what genre your work fits in. Theme doesn't determine it - I've written a romance that deals heavily with loss. Harry Potter is a fantasy that deals with loss. There are thrillers that deal with loss and MG that deals with loss and YA that deals with loss. Pertinent questions are: - How old are your protagonists? If they're teenagers, your book is YA. If they're adults, it can't be YA. - Where and when is it set? Historical setting = historical. Future setting = speculative, sci-fi. - Are there any supernatural elements? Magic, ghosts, mythical creatures, etc. If yes, horror or fantasy or something along those lines. You've indicated that there's magic, so you're writing fantasy of some sort. Whether it's YA dystopian fantasy or adult epic fantasy is impossible to say.
Its a Fantasy/Western/Colonial South/Paranormal/Romance/Erotica That is about as close as I can narrow that that down based on your list. Well Mardigras just got more interesting. an·thol·o·gy anˈTHäləjē/ noun noun: anthology; plural noun: anthologies a published collection of poems or other pieces of writing. "an anthology of European poetry" So are you writing a shorts compilation? Or are you writing a multi-MC novel? Cause the former doesn't have stories with intersecting plot-lines, themes, or characters. The latter does.
It sounds to me as if you're writing Fantasy, as you are including magic, etc. Just including a love story as part of the plot doesn't make it a genre Romance. Romance as a genre has specific requirements for marketing purposes, and I believe the development and happy ending of the love story has to be the central purpose of a Romance—and the book will end shortly after the love story is resolved. (We have a few published and experienced Romance writers on this forum, so somebody will certainly correct me if I'm wrong.) I'm with @Tenderiser in that you haven't really given us enough information to pinpoint an exact subgenre of Fantasy, and I also agree that themes don't determine genre. I'm also wondering, along with @deadrats and @Cave Troll, exactly where this all fits into the idea of an anthology. If you are writing many short pieces set in the same general world, you can call this an anthology, providing all the stories stand alone, and are merely collected together for the convenience of the reader—and a reader doesn't have to read them in any particular order. If they are all required reading to complete an overall story arc, however, this is not an anthology. Might be a series? Or just simply 'chapters?' Or a complicated, multi-character novel? Obviously you are nervous about showing your work around (you'll probably need to get over this at some point) but if you can give us a short, focused summary of how your story/stories is/are set up and what 'happens' in them, then we can maybe help. I forgot to ask, but are these stories completed? Or are they still in the planning stage, or somewhere in between? In other words, are you looking to market your finished work now (and need to determine the genre) or are you wondering what genre to aim for when you write the stories? This is a pretty good run-down on what the different genres are like: https://querytracker.blogspot.co.uk/2009/04/defining-genres-where-does-your-book.html
I agree with the posts above and would add that it's probably not that important that you be able to precisely categorize your exact sub-genre... if you're planning to work with an agent and publisher, you need to know enough to submit to people who work with Fantasy, but then they'll make final determinations of how to market your book. And if you're planning to self-publish, you don't need to get much beyond the Amazon categories. Classifying beyond that is probably unnecessary, unless you have some specific purpose in mind....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthology In book publishing, an anthology is a collection of literary works chosen by the compiler. It may be a collection of poems, short stories, plays, songs, or excerpts. In genre fiction anthology is used to categorize collections of shorter works such as short stories and short novels, usually collected into a single volume for publication. That is what I will be doing is stuffing these bad boys into one novel a bunch of short side stories that archive an entire universe. I'll also have my main series I'm working on. I did my research. I wasn't sure I just wanted the short stories as a tiny little whatever's when I could have them compiled together. I've read that when it comes to poetry an anthology usually consists of multiple authors. However I've also read that an anthology can be a single author with a compilation of short stories.
Ages range and differ between protagonists and antagonists, they even age through the series. I'm dealing with being of different life spans, anywhere from 0-90 and 100's or even 1000's of years old. Two of the protagonists start from birth and work there way up into their adult years one dies in his 30's and the other one last for hundreds of years. Another is 1000's of years old before the two are even born. Dealing with gods and mortal and the supernatural beings. Setting differs between worlds or places. I listed in my themes magic occult and so and so forth. It will definitely be in the fantasy genre (I should say I'm trying for fantasy.) but I need it narrowed down.
Both I have my main stuff and my side stories stuff that slots in at different intervals. When the main story focus's on a certain character for a while I can have a side story that I don't want to over complicate in the actual series that can be read to further explain absence. Think Star Wars It has its main series and a bunch of off shoots.
Some of them are and some of them aren't. I'm still in the writing process. I'm looking to aim for a specific genre and keep it in mind while writing so It makes thing less complicating. Not looking to market until I have at least 6 books finished. Five of which must be main before I start publishing. Right now I have 1 side story finished and 1 main finished. Everything is completed in the outline and I know exactly where I'm going. I have things nailed to the wall scene for scene in some cases.
@Xboxlover then you can do it in a novel format for a series. Many have done it in the past, and still do it. So you don't have to write smaller sub-novels along with the main, then it will get all wonky, and people will shy away from having to buy all the extra filler books just to get the complete story. Though most use third POV for things as grand a scale as yours, but that doesn't mean you can't use first. Just use page breaks often and you should be good. Unless you plan on doing what the Animorphs series did, and have each main to a book, and cycle through them in linear fashion in the order it started in. But those books were shorter at around 150-160 pages.
