Hello. I have been working for awhile on a piece of literature but am not quite sure of what the exact genre is defined as. I am thinking it would be fantasy/dark fantasy but there are two different sides to the concept. The story blends realism and non-fantasy elements with a fantasy world. To be more clear, the story begins with a young girl encountering an apparent supernatural entity in an abandoned isolated subway with no recolation of how she got there. In which the entity then shares three stories (stories within the story) about real life people encountering real life situational tragedies. None of which are fantasy but strictly realism. 90% of the novel revolves around the non-fantasy three stories told but the actual setting of the little girl's surrounding would be considered fantasy in theory. Sorry just a little confused on how exactly I would label this. Thanks for all of your replies and recommendations.
Maybe you'd just call it fantasy? As an aside, you might want to rethink the opening. Maybe it's just me but the whole "waking up in a strange place" is a very tired way of opening a book. Start with action. (I know this is not what you were asking and I apologize for giving feedback you may not want. But I couldn't help myself.)
You might could call it urban fantasy. Considering that it's mostly about the sub-stories so to speak though, I'm curious why you even need the little girl and the storyteller as sort of a framing device? What's the point of them and the fantastical element at all if you're focusing on the sub-stories?
It does start with an action, I just briefly summarized a much larger in scale opener. Regardless, how can someone wake up with no memory in a familiar place? Even though this may be a "tired" way of opening a book I still feel the remainder of the story and resolution is extremely original and intelligent enough. It is necessary to open this way for the ending, which kind of makes full circle upon the way it started. Things may change in the future but as of now it's something that can't change. I suppose I over exaggerated the percentage of involvement regarding the stories. They are each fairly even in length in contrast to the size of the entire novel. Though these non-fantasy stories have a huge physical impact on the fantasy world's story, which changes dramatically after each story. There are sequences between each story happening after the non-fiction stories are being told, like puzzle pieces coming together in the fantasy world. Think of it like a Big Fish or maybe Cloud Atlas. It does things similar to these works of literature yet in a very new and different way. In ways that I have never seen before. Instead of a fantasy being told from a non-fantasy world like in Big Fish, it is the opposite. Of course they're a lot of other things going on that make it much different from Big Fish as well. I suppose just fantasy/urban fantasy or maybe even religious fiction since Christianity is a major theme of the novel throughout. Nothing supernatural happens in the non-fiction stories told, only within the main fantasy world the girl exists within.
What are you labelling it for - self-publishing or submission to agents/publishers? For the latter it's certainly fantasy. For self-publishing you can do what you like, so put it under fantasy and religious fiction if you like.
The trouble is, what kind of reader do you want? If you're going to bill your book as "fantasy", readers will be disappointed at the near-total lack of fantasy elements. At the same time, if you try to bill it as a realistic urban thriller, throwing in a random fantasy element will have half of your readers immediately putting it down, since that's not what they want to read.
My point is you shouldn't open with a scene in which a character wakes up. It doesn't matter if its familiar or unknown, its bad form. Your work will be judged by the opening. I'm not saying that's right, but it is the truth. Your opening should be the most original. Hoping a tired opening will be overlooked because the rest of the book is great isn't a very good idea. Why would you write a cliché just because you think the rest of it is original enough? That doesn't make sense. Either way, you write it how you want. I'm sure it will be great. As for the genre question, you'll probably be safest to bill it as fantasy. I think...
I see where you are coming from and it will certainly be something I'll look into, Spencer. Thanks for the insight. I think fantasy is the obvious choice now as well, thanks again for all the great replies.