So, I'm currently writing a story that I just realized will genre shift from horror to urban fantasy and... Well, I realized that I'm not familiar with shifting genres to begin with, but also that I can't think of a story that successfully genre shifted out of horror into something else(well, besides camp, but that's usually unintentional). And this strikes me as really hard, because shifting from something that's terrifying to something that still has lingering elements of that, but emphasizes something else, strikes me as tricky. For some details, my thought currently is the horror bit of the story depicts an unwilling transformation of the character into something, and the urban fantasy bit is coming to terms with what that transformation means going forwards. Don't know if this helps, but hopefully it does. Thoughts? When you've read genre shifts that worked, why did they work? And, when genre shifts don't, what did you dislike about them?
I'm a big horror fan but not a fantasy fan. If I bought a book marketed as a horror and it turned out not to be a horror, I'd be pissed and probably leave a review reflecting that. An urban fantasy fan who doesn't like horror isn't going to read the horror half of the book to get to the fantasy bit. So you're left marketing to readers and/or agents and editors who like both horror and urban fantasy. You're left trying to fulfill the genre conventions of both and trying to come up with a marketing plan that encompasses two marketing categories. It's not impossible, but it sure is making your job harder than it needs to be!
I would think genre mashing does best when it's at the same time rather than one before the other. The way you describe doing it sounds like maybe you're trying to make two stories one.
Fair point. Sounds like my best approach is to ditch the whole separation of genres within the same genre, and just keep both in place throughout(what with dark fantasy being a thing and all).
This is reminding me of one of my favorite book series. The hollows by Kim Harrison. When I found it in the store it was in the horror section but it is far more an urban fantasy than a horror series. As I got more into the genre I realized that a lot of urban fantasy books have elements of horror. If it were me, I would classify the whole story as urban fantasy. Then you could add your horror elements into that. They do work well together, and it is easier to classify your story as one genre.
Why not part it out? Part one, the horror, part two, the urban fantasy spawned of that horror - for example. And end your horror on a cliff hanger or some other point that gets to wrap that up, and come back in part two.
I agree 100% with @Tenderiser, the only way I can see this kinda working would be to set a horror story within an urban fantasy but it should be a horror story from beginning to end. I don't think that would work; it's basically the same thing he is (was?) thinking of doing but on a larger scale, you would be trying to appeal to two different groups, sure, there would be an overlap but the sales of the second book would suffer because almost no one wants to buy the second book without reading the first (especially if they are strongly tied) so urban fantasy fans are not likely to buy it, therefore, you would only be appealing to an extremely niche audience.
I know I'm replying to an almost six-month-old message, but if you're still trying to hash this out by chance, you might consider going nonlinear with it. Tell the mystery part first. Mystery into horror is a well established formula for thrillers, and if you could find a valid way to flip the two parts of the timeline, the flow of the mood might work beautifully. Not knowing the story, I would guess that would involve telling all but the end of the mystery, jumping back to the horror and ending with the answer to the mystery. You could just as easily (which is to say not easily at all) shuffle the two halves, jumping back and forth throughout the book. Think Stephen King's "It". Restructuring on this level would be a bitch, but you might end up with a brilliant framework, one that intertwines the big mystery reveal and the peak of terror into one huge climax! Cork board it and see what happens. (Rearrange index cards marked with scenes until they form the timeline. You probably knew what that meant.)
