Genres are contrictive like corsets. At least thats how it feels. In order to squeeze my story into a genre, I will be cutting off its ability to breathe or be active. It will just be another pretty debutante at the ball, when at heart its really a circus freak. Not that I'm trying to avoid assigning genre perse. When I first started drafting my WIP, I mulled it over and fretted. I thought I had my genre, but then something critical wouldn't sync. So I moved on. I decided that if I started writing, the genre would become clear. It hasn't. My WIP is intended to be a series. It has a nonlinear narrative with the main plot set in the near future in a mostly realistic setting, but with magical subtleties, I guess. (Magical realism?) The nonlinear aspect comes in when I weave these (necessary) flashbacks to entirely different characters, settings, and times based on real historical events with little fictional twists (Alt History?). My setting is darn close to a living thing and it has portals that lead to entirely different worlds (Portal Fantasy?) Where at least in book 1, we don't spend much time. My character has a nasty love triangle triangulating and it should be very rewarding when it pans out, as well as critical to the plot, if not the sole plot (fantasy romance lean?) It has that sassy 1st POV antag and all the fixings for Urban Fantasy except its a smalltown rural setting. Theres prolly more I'm forgetting. I'm thinking spec fic, but subgenres are mystifying me. How important is knowing your genre? And how on earth do you narrow it down?
Actually, what genre does is give you an audience and a much easier time marketing your book. It's no more restrictive than giving your manuscript a title. Extremely important, since genre is how you'll market your book. You narrow it down by determining what the main driver of your book is. Your book is set in a world with different laws of physics to ours (magic) so right away you're in fantasy. The subgenre depends which of the other elements are the most important, and which are incidental. The majority of books in all genres have a romance, but unless the romance is the main plot of the book then the genre itself isn't romance.
Okay, thats along the lines of what I was thinking, Tenderiser. Thanks! Maybe I just need to wrap it up. The whole thing took on a life of its own. Its premise and theme remain unchanged, but the plot and conflicts really morphed and evolved, making me wonder how to categorize it.
