I'm preparing to write a query letter for my novel and I'm not exactly sure what genre it is. At first, I qualified it as fantasy, then as magic realism, but the more I search, the more conflicting information I find. Here's what I do know about my story: -It's YA -It's contemporary -no elves, magicians, vampires, werewolves, etc. -there are a few mentions of greater forces at play, but nothing specific -MC mentally "travels" to a dream place (somewhat explained by an alteration in brainwaves pattern, as in shamanic journeying) -there is a helping spirit in the dream (a telepathic fox) -there are meaningful coincidences in the normal world linking it with the dream, but no magic per se. Any help would be appreciated!
It’s fantasy, broadly speaking (magic realism is a sub genre of that imo). There are fantasy novels with no magic whatsoever, not even something like the dream world you have, so this falls pretty easily into that category. A publisher will categorize it however they want for marketing purposes, but for queries I’m leaning toward fantasy, and let’s face it that genre sells right now.
I agree with Steerpike - query it as a YA fantasy. No need to be specific about subgenre at this stage.
