August 5, 2025 • 21 mins
Genre isn’t what you think it is. Here’s how to use it better.
Genre. Let me guess:
It’s the bane of your existence. A convoluted soup of arbitrary descriptors that almost but not quite mean the same thing. Sci fi or fantasy? Paranormal or supernatural? Upmarket or book club? Do words even have meaning?
Or, it’s a restrictive box with tropes and conventions you feel like you need to cross off a checklist, until your story is more “paint by numbers” formulaic than an original creation unique to your imagination.
Or, it’s a necessary evil in your query letter. Your task is to say the right genre words to the right agent to appeal to their interests and make them want to request your manuscript. Get it right, you get a book deal. Get it wrong, you fail.
Genre can be all those things, for sure.
But what if, first and foremost, it were a tool that works for you?
In this episode, I’m throwing out the way we usually talk about genre. And I’m replacing it with an approach to genre that’s actually useful for crafting great stories.
Not just useful, actually. Essential.
You’ll learn:
- What “genre” actually means
- Why the genre labels on the shelves at Barnes and Noble won’t help you craft a great story
- The 12 fundamental genres that apply to every great story
- 2 questions to begin identifying your story’s genre
This approach to genre won’t constrain your creativity within someone else’s box. Rather, it will reveal the story you truly want to tell.
Links mentioned in the episode:
- Get the Content Genre Overview: alicesudlow.com/90
Rate, Review, & Follow on Apple Podcasts
"I love Alice and Your Next Draft." If that sounds like you, please consider rating and reviewing my show! This helps me support more writers through the mess—and joy—of the editing process. Click here, scroll to the bottom, tap the stars to rate, and select “Write a Review.” Then be sure to let me know what you loved most about the episode!
Loving the show? Show your support with a monthly contribution »
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
genre.
It's the bane of your existence.
A confusing swirl of words todescribe books that mean almost
the same thing, but somehowstill don't tell you anything
useful about your story.
Are you writing sci-fi orfantasy paranormal or
supernatural?
Chiclet women's fiction orromance upmarket or book club,
(00:24):
what do these words mean anyway?
Can your book be 17 things atonce or genre is a restrictive
box?
With tropes and conventions youfeel like you need to cross off
a checklist until your story ismore paint by numbers formulaic
than an original creation,unique to your imagination.
(00:44):
or genre is a necessary evil inyour query letter.
Your task is to say the rightgenre words to the right agent
to appeal to their interests andmake them want to request your
manuscript.
Genre can be all of those thingsfor sure.
A convoluted soup of arbitrarydescriptors, a cookie cutter
(01:05):
formula.
That homogenizes creativity, anindustry puzzle where if you get
it right, you get a book dealand if you don't, you fail.
But what if genre is somethingelse entirely?
What if there's a way toapproach genre that makes it
first and foremost a tool foryou, the writer.
A tool that isn't arbitrary butbuilt on the fundamental root of
(01:29):
why we tell stories in the firstplace.
A tool that doesn't stiflecreativity, but shines a light
on what's most important in yourstory.
A tool that's not aboutperforming in the publishing
industry, but empowering you tocraft the story you most want to
tell.
In this episode, I'm going toshare that version of genre.
(01:51):
We'll unpack the marketinglanguage that you're probably
familiar with.
I'll show you what it tells youand what it doesn't, and then
I'll share the genres that tellyou what you actually need to
know about your story whenyou're revising the story you
truly want to tell.
Let's explore a genre as arevision tool that works for
(02:11):
you.
(02:59):
Welcome to your next draft.
Today we're going to talk aboutgenre.
Your genre is one of thefoundational defining decisions
that you'll make about yourstory, and yet the ways that we
learn to talk about genre aren'tall that useful for writers.
It's really difficult to drawfoundational story shaping
(03:22):
meaning from words like fantasyor women's fiction.
They don't give you much to holdonto.
So in this episode, I'm going togive you a totally different way
to think about genre, theversion that's actually useful,
honestly essential in yourrevision process.
It's also flexible, inspiring,and empowering.
(03:44):
If you've studied story Grid,what I'm about to share is going
to feel like a familiarrefresher.
I learned this from Sean Coin atStory Grid.
If you haven't, well.
You're in for a treat.
Learning.
This transformed how I editstories and I think it will for
you too.
Before we dive in, I want to letyou know that I've created a
free download to go with thisepisode.
(04:05):
It's a list of all the genresthat I'm going to talk about
with additional podcastepisodes.
To dig deeper into each one, youcan get the content genre
overview@alicesulo.com slash 90.
Go to the link into your emailand I'll send it straight to
you.
And of course that link is inthe show notes as well.
(04:25):
I think this is something you'regoing to want to see as well as
hear, and something you're goingto want to reference regularly
as you're crafting your stories.
So grab thatdownload@alicesudo.com slash 90.
Alright, enough preamble.
Let's get to the good stuff andlet's start with an important
definition.
What is genre?
(04:48):
Genre is a way of categorizingthings, in this case, books.
So that like is grouped withlike, It's a way of identifying
similarities between books andgathering them together.
Think of the last time that youwalked into a bookstore.
There might have been a sci-fishelf, a YA shelf, and a
cookbooks shelf.
(05:08):
And those shelf labels areimportant because they help
readers find books.
If you're looking for the latestAndy Weir novel, you go to the
sci-fi shelf.
If you're looking for the latestJohn Green novel, you go to the
young adult shelf.
if you're looking for the latestIna Garten cookbook, you go to
the cookbook shelf.
There's a ton of variety on eachof those shelves, but it's
(05:28):
variety within a certain set ofexpectations that allow us to
group similar things together.
So genre is a way ofcategorizing books with similar
qualities, which begs the nextquestion.
What qualities are we using tocategorize books?
This is where genre gets reallyinteresting.
(05:49):
Here are some genres you'reprobably familiar with,
dystopian Ya.
Adult romantic upmarket,historical fiction, Southern
gothic, hard sci-fi.
Let's break those words down andsee what they're actually
describing.
Ya and adult, these words aredescribing the age of the
(06:13):
audience for this book,dystopian historical, Southern
gothic sci-fi, the fantasy partof romantic.
These words are describing thesetting of the story in space,
time, realism, and mood.
A dystopian setting is typicallyan apocalyptic imagining of the
future.
(06:34):
A historical novel is set in areal place and time.
In the past, a southern gothicnovel is set in a moody,
haunting American south.
A sci-fi setting could beanywhere in the universe, but
relies heavily on technology.
And the hard part of hard sci-fiindicates that that technology
needs to be really grounded inreal physics, even if the
(06:56):
specific devices are imaginary.
And a fantasy setting could beanywhere in the universe, but it
relies on some variety of magic.
Upmarket.
This is describing the style ofthe book on a spectrum from
literary to commercial, literaryfiction puts a heavy emphasis on
beautiful language, richcharacter development and quiet
(07:18):
plots.
Commercial fiction puts a heavyemphasis on exciting, engaging
plots.
And upmarket straddles the linebetween them.
Beautiful language, with areally compelling plot hook.
Here's the key.
All of these categories arehelpful for readers to find
books that they'll enjoy, booksthat will give them the
(07:39):
emotional experience they'relooking for.
All of these categories arehelpful for publishers to decide
how to market to those readers,to identify who those readers
are, where those readers arelooking for books, what images
those readers need to see on thefront cover, and what words
those readers need to see on theback cover in order to recognize
that this book is for them.
(08:02):
All of these categories arehelpful for agents to pitch
books to the publishers who canreach those readers.
None of those categories tellyou the writer what should
happen in your story with oneslight exception, but we'll get
to that in a moment.
The audience age, the style, thesetting, the realism, the mood,
(08:26):
none of that tells you anythingabout the content of your story.
None of that tells you whatinciting incident will spark
your story.
None of that tells you what goalyour character will pursue.
None of that tells you what kindof conflict will take place in
the climax.
None of that tells you how yourcharacters and their world will
(08:47):
change by the end of your story.
These genres do not describeyour story's plot or your
story's character arcs.
They help readers find yourbook, but they offer you very
little help in planning,writing, or editing your book.
I consider them marketinggenres.
They're helpful language tomarket your book and make sure
(09:08):
that it's placed on the rightshelf at Barnes and Noble, but
they're of limited use when itcomes to structuring your story.
So what does help you edit yournovel?
What categories describe, notthe setting or the audience, but
the plot and character arcs Thecontent.
Genres The content genres gobeyond surface level details.
(09:32):
To describe the conflict at theheart of your story, there are
12 content genres, action, war,horror, crime, thriller, western
love, performance, societystatus, morality, and worldview.
The first nine genres areexternal genres describing the
(09:54):
plot and external actions of thestory.
The last three genres areinternal genres describing the
character arc and internaltransformation of the
characters.
These genres aren't arbitrary.
They weren't chosen at randomfrom the dictionary.
They don't even come from, say,a survey of all the books on the
(10:14):
shelves right now at Barnes andNoble.
No, no.
These genres exist because theyall address our core needs as
human beings struggling tonavigate a complex world.
the action genre exists becausewe need to survive, and this
world is full of threats to ourlives.
From lions to tornadoes, toDarth Vader, the war, horror
(10:37):
crime and thriller genres existbecause survival and safety
become much more complicatedwhen you're in community with
other people.
Sometimes individuals within acommunity can't be trusted to
act in the collective groupinterest.
Sometimes entire groups ofpeople at scale come into
conflict with others andsometimes monstrous enemies
(11:00):
beyond our comprehensionthreaten not only to take our
lives, but to condemn us to afate worse than death.
The Western or eastern genreexists because navigating the
tension between the authority ofa community and the authority of
the individual is difficult.
When should we sacrifice our ownsovereignty in order to
(11:21):
participate in a community?
and when should we reject thatgovernance and assert our
individual authority?
The love performance and societygenres exists because we want
more from other people thansimply reassurance that they
won't hurt us.
We want them to like us, loveus, respect us, care For us, the
(11:41):
love genre exists because weneed people as romantic partners
and as friends, and yetrelationships are complicated.
How do we find, build andmaintain loving connections with
other people?
The performance genre existsbecause we need our community's
approval.
How do we demonstrate ourworthiness and gain the approval
of other people?
(12:03):
The society genre exists becauseas soon as you bring people
together, we develop hierarchiesand power dynamics.
Who has power?
How does their power work, andhow do we shift the balance if
that power becomes tyranny?
Thus far, all the externalcontent genres.
The internal content genres alsodescribe our fundamental human
(12:25):
needs.
The status genre exists becausewe need our community to respect
us and we need to respectourselves.
What are we willing to do orsacrifice in order to rise in
social standing?
The morality genre existsbecause life is constantly
presenting complex moralchallenges, and we are forced to
(12:47):
choose how to navigate them.
How do we overcome our ownselfishness and make morally
good choices?
The worldview genre existsbecause the highest
accomplishment we can everachieve is self-actualization.
When faced with something beyondour understanding, how can we
process it and grow into thebest, wisest, most mature
(13:09):
version of ourselves?
If you're a student ofpsychology, this escalating
exploration of human.
Might be pinging somethingfamiliar.
All these genres could be mappedonto Maslow's hierarchy of human
needs.
At the bottom of the pyramid arethe physiological needs, the
fundamental food, water,shelter, et cetera, that we need
(13:31):
in order to survive.
In other words, the action genrenext are the safety needs, the
need for security and resourceswithin a society.
That's the realm of war, crime,horror, and thriller.
Next, our needs for love andbelonging.
In other words, the love genre.
(13:52):
next, our needs for esteem.
For third party validation andself-respect.
That's the realm of theperformance society and status
genres.
And at the top of the pyramidare the self-actualization
needs, the realm of the moralityand worldview genres.
I say all of this to emphasizethat the content genres tap into
(14:14):
the fundamental heart of whatstories are, what stories are
about, what stories do for us asreaders, as consumers, as
students of the humanexperience.
These content genres areindependent of the superficial
external trappings, like how oldyour audience is, or how
literary your language is.
(14:36):
these content genres are thecentral core that makes the
story work.
The rest of the genre terms aresimply stylistic choices for how
you'd like to deliver it.
You can put any content genre inany setting.
You can write it for anyaudience.
You can write it with the mostbeautifully literary prose or
(14:56):
the most prosaic commercialstyle.
Of course, there are pairingsthat are more common than
others.
YA dystopias, for instance, areoften action stories because the
dystopian setting lends itselfto questions of survival.
How do we protect ourselves andothers when society has fallen
apart?
That's the Hunger Games, butdystopias are also often society
(15:20):
stories.
Can we overthrow a big brotherin 1984?
And a lot of dystopias, though,not all of them, also include a
love subplot.
Think Kanes and peta, orsometimes the love story is the
main plot.
Consider warm bodies a zombieretelling of Romeo and Juliet.
It's a zombie dystopia with alove primary genre and a strong
(15:43):
horror sub plot.
Or let's look at Sci-fi, starWars, Enders Game Alien and
Firefly are all sci-fi stories,but Star Wars is an action
story.
Enders Game is a war story.
Alien is a horror story, andFirefly is a Western set in
space.
(16:03):
I love Firefly for a number ofreasons.
And one is that it illustratesperfectly how the content genre
core can be placed in anysetting.
It's not the setting or theaudience or the style that
determines the plot and stakesof the story.
It's the content genre.
There are also pairings that areuncommon.
(16:24):
I doubt that there are manychildren's books that are war
stories, for instance.
But honestly, I bet there are afew.
After all, there are childrenwho are growing up in war zones,
and those children desperatelyneed stories to help them
survive injustice and horrorbeyond their comprehension.
(16:44):
Because that is what stories do.
They show us how to navigate acomplex world, how to meet our
fundamental human needs indifficult circumstances that
threaten our ability to survive,to join together in community,
to find love and belonging andrespect, and to become the best
version of ourselves.
(17:05):
The content genres allow you toidentify what that core of your
story is.
the rest of the categories,their marketing language to give
your content genre core a uniqueflavor and help it reach its
readers.
Now, I hinted way back at thebeginning that one of the
marketing genres I mentioneddoes give you content clues.
(17:27):
That genre is romantic.
Romantic is a blend betweenromance and fantasy.
Fantasy, remember, is a settingyou can put any content genre in
a fantasy setting.
Romance though is a marketinggenre that always points to the
love content genre.
Anytime you see a romance, youknow that you're in for a love
(17:48):
story.
So a romantic novel is going toinclude a love story, and it's
going to be in a fantasysetting.
I mention this so that you know,sometimes the marketing genres
do happen to point to thecontent genres.
Romance novels are love stories,murder mystery novels are crime
stories and horror novels arewell horror stories.
(18:12):
But while marketing genres canoffer clues about the flavor and
tone and genre blend of yourstory, the most important way
that you can use genre in therevision process is to identify
your content genre and use it toorient the foundations of your
story.
That will tell you so much morethan hard sci-fi or upmarket
(18:34):
historical fiction, or evenromantic ever could.
Now, hopefully everything I'msaying sounds so clear and
logical that this feels supereasy to grasp and inspiring to
apply to your story.
But I do want to give you a fairheads up.
Figuring out your story'scontent genre can be really
tricky for some genres, the oneswhere the content genre peaks
(18:58):
through in the marketing genre.
The choice is fairly clear.
A romance novel will be in thelove content genre, but it can
be tough to figure out whetheryour sci-fi story is action or
war or horror or something elseentirely.
in your current manuscript, youmight have signals of several
different genres and choosingwhich one your story is actually
(19:20):
about can be a real challenge.
There are a lot of ways tofigure out your story's content
genre and identifying thecontent genre is one of the most
important things that I do withclients inside of Story Clarity,
my big picture story revisionpackage.
But for now, I want to give youjust one way to start exploring
your content genre.
(19:40):
Well, okay.
Two, because I couldn't resist.
Here's the question I want youto ask yourself.
What fundamental human need isyour story exploring?
Where on Maslow's hierarchy ofneeds, does your story fall?
If that's tough to answer?
An easier way in might be what'sat stake in your story?
(20:03):
What do your characters gain ifthey are successful, and what do
they lose if they fail?
Those are your first clues toidentifying your story's content
genre, and to using genre as atruly effective editing tool.
Now if you want more on genre,I've got you covered.
I've got several more episodeson genre coming up where we'll
(20:25):
dig into how to use the contentgenres to edit your story.
I have a conversation with myfriend Savannah Gibo, a fellow
editor and book coach comingsoon that'll get into how she
coaches writers to use genre atvarious stages of your writing
process and how to troubleshootcommon genre problems.
And I've got a conversation withmy friend Kim Kessler, whom
(20:47):
we've heard on the podcastbefore.
She's an absolute genius at theinternal genres, which are the
key to crafting powerfulcharacter arcs.
so I'm excited to share herwisdom with you.
In the meantime, if you want togo deeper into all of these
genres, definitely grab thecontent genre overview.
You can download it forfree@alicesudo.com slash 90.
(21:12):
In it, I list all the genres andwhat fundamental human need they
explore, and I also link topodcast episodes on each content
genre so you can study them inmore detail.
Those episodes come fromSavannah Bilbo's podcast fiction
Writing Made Easy because shehas excellent episodes on each
one.
So go get thatdownload@alicesudler.com slash
(21:34):
90, or of course, find the linkin the show notes.
That's all for now.
I'll leave you to ponder what'sat stake in your story.
Until next time, happy editing.
genre.
It's the bane of your existence.
A confusing swirl of words todescribe books that mean almost
the same thing, but somehowstill don't tell you anything
useful about your story.
Are you writing sci-fi orfantasy paranormal or
supernatural?
Chiclet women's fiction orromance upmarket or book club,
(00:24):
what do these words mean anyway?
Can your book be 17 things atonce or genre is a restrictive
box?
With tropes and conventions youfeel like you need to cross off
a checklist until your story ismore paint by numbers formulaic
than an original creation,unique to your imagination.
(00:44):
or genre is a necessary evil inyour query letter.
Your task is to say the rightgenre words to the right agent
to appeal to their interests andmake them want to request your
manuscript.
Genre can be all of those thingsfor sure.
A convoluted soup of arbitrarydescriptors, a cookie cutter
(01:05):
formula.
That homogenizes creativity, anindustry puzzle where if you get
it right, you get a book dealand if you don't, you fail.
But what if genre is somethingelse entirely?
What if there's a way toapproach genre that makes it
first and foremost a tool foryou, the writer.
A tool that isn't arbitrary butbuilt on the fundamental root of
(01:29):
why we tell stories in the firstplace.
A tool that doesn't stiflecreativity, but shines a light
on what's most important in yourstory.
A tool that's not aboutperforming in the publishing
industry, but empowering you tocraft the story you most want to
tell.
In this episode, I'm going toshare that version of genre.
(01:51):
We'll unpack the marketinglanguage that you're probably
familiar with.
I'll show you what it tells youand what it doesn't, and then
I'll share the genres that tellyou what you actually need to
know about your story whenyou're revising the story you
truly want to tell.
Let's explore a genre as arevision tool that works for
(02:11):
you.
(02:59):
Welcome to your next draft.
Today we're going to talk aboutgenre.
Your genre is one of thefoundational defining decisions
that you'll make about yourstory, and yet the ways that we
learn to talk about genre aren'tall that useful for writers.
It's really difficult to drawfoundational story shaping
(03:22):
meaning from words like fantasyor women's fiction.
They don't give you much to holdonto.
So in this episode, I'm going togive you a totally different way
to think about genre, theversion that's actually useful,
honestly essential in yourrevision process.
It's also flexible, inspiring,and empowering.
(03:44):
If you've studied story Grid,what I'm about to share is going
to feel like a familiarrefresher.
I learned this from Sean Coin atStory Grid.
If you haven't, well.
You're in for a treat.
Learning.
This transformed how I editstories and I think it will for
you too.
Before we dive in, I want to letyou know that I've created a
free download to go with thisepisode.
(04:05):
It's a list of all the genresthat I'm going to talk about
with additional podcastepisodes.
To dig deeper into each one, youcan get the content genre
overview@alicesulo.com slash 90.
Go to the link into your emailand I'll send it straight to
you.
And of course that link is inthe show notes as well.
(04:25):
I think this is something you'regoing to want to see as well as
hear, and something you're goingto want to reference regularly
as you're crafting your stories.
So grab thatdownload@alicesudo.com slash 90.
Alright, enough preamble.
Let's get to the good stuff andlet's start with an important
definition.
What is genre?
(04:48):
Genre is a way of categorizingthings, in this case, books.
So that like is grouped withlike, It's a way of identifying
similarities between books andgathering them together.
Think of the last time that youwalked into a bookstore.
There might have been a sci-fishelf, a YA shelf, and a
cookbooks shelf.
(05:08):
And those shelf labels areimportant because they help
readers find books.
If you're looking for the latestAndy Weir novel, you go to the
sci-fi shelf.
If you're looking for the latestJohn Green novel, you go to the
young adult shelf.
if you're looking for the latestIna Garten cookbook, you go to
the cookbook shelf.
There's a ton of variety on eachof those shelves, but it's
(05:28):
variety within a certain set ofexpectations that allow us to
group similar things together.
So genre is a way ofcategorizing books with similar
qualities, which begs the nextquestion.
What qualities are we using tocategorize books?
This is where genre gets reallyinteresting.
(05:49):
Here are some genres you'reprobably familiar with,
dystopian Ya.
Adult romantic upmarket,historical fiction, Southern
gothic, hard sci-fi.
Let's break those words down andsee what they're actually
describing.
Ya and adult, these words aredescribing the age of the
(06:13):
audience for this book,dystopian historical, Southern
gothic sci-fi, the fantasy partof romantic.
These words are describing thesetting of the story in space,
time, realism, and mood.
A dystopian setting is typicallyan apocalyptic imagining of the
future.
(06:34):
A historical novel is set in areal place and time.
In the past, a southern gothicnovel is set in a moody,
haunting American south.
A sci-fi setting could beanywhere in the universe, but
relies heavily on technology.
And the hard part of hard sci-fiindicates that that technology
needs to be really grounded inreal physics, even if the
(06:56):
specific devices are imaginary.
And a fantasy setting could beanywhere in the universe, but it
relies on some variety of magic.
Upmarket.
This is describing the style ofthe book on a spectrum from
literary to commercial, literaryfiction puts a heavy emphasis on
beautiful language, richcharacter development and quiet
(07:18):
plots.
Commercial fiction puts a heavyemphasis on exciting, engaging
plots.
And upmarket straddles the linebetween them.
Beautiful language, with areally compelling plot hook.
Here's the key.
All of these categories arehelpful for readers to find
books that they'll enjoy, booksthat will give them the
(07:39):
emotional experience they'relooking for.
All of these categories arehelpful for publishers to decide
how to market to those readers,to identify who those readers
are, where those readers arelooking for books, what images
those readers need to see on thefront cover, and what words
those readers need to see on theback cover in order to recognize
that this book is for them.
(08:02):
All of these categories arehelpful for agents to pitch
books to the publishers who canreach those readers.
None of those categories tellyou the writer what should
happen in your story with oneslight exception, but we'll get
to that in a moment.
The audience age, the style, thesetting, the realism, the mood,
(08:26):
none of that tells you anythingabout the content of your story.
None of that tells you whatinciting incident will spark
your story.
None of that tells you what goalyour character will pursue.
None of that tells you what kindof conflict will take place in
the climax.
None of that tells you how yourcharacters and their world will
(08:47):
change by the end of your story.
These genres do not describeyour story's plot or your
story's character arcs.
They help readers find yourbook, but they offer you very
little help in planning,writing, or editing your book.
I consider them marketinggenres.
They're helpful language tomarket your book and make sure
(09:08):
that it's placed on the rightshelf at Barnes and Noble, but
they're of limited use when itcomes to structuring your story.
So what does help you edit yournovel?
What categories describe, notthe setting or the audience, but
the plot and character arcs Thecontent.
Genres The content genres gobeyond surface level details.
(09:32):
To describe the conflict at theheart of your story, there are
12 content genres, action, war,horror, crime, thriller, western
love, performance, societystatus, morality, and worldview.
The first nine genres areexternal genres describing the
(09:54):
plot and external actions of thestory.
The last three genres areinternal genres describing the
character arc and internaltransformation of the
characters.
These genres aren't arbitrary.
They weren't chosen at randomfrom the dictionary.
They don't even come from, say,a survey of all the books on the
(10:14):
shelves right now at Barnes andNoble.
No, no.
These genres exist because theyall address our core needs as
human beings struggling tonavigate a complex world.
the action genre exists becausewe need to survive, and this
world is full of threats to ourlives.
From lions to tornadoes, toDarth Vader, the war, horror
(10:37):
crime and thriller genres existbecause survival and safety
become much more complicatedwhen you're in community with
other people.
Sometimes individuals within acommunity can't be trusted to
act in the collective groupinterest.
Sometimes entire groups ofpeople at scale come into
conflict with others andsometimes monstrous enemies
(11:00):
beyond our comprehensionthreaten not only to take our
lives, but to condemn us to afate worse than death.
The Western or eastern genreexists because navigating the
tension between the authority ofa community and the authority of
the individual is difficult.
When should we sacrifice our ownsovereignty in order to
(11:21):
participate in a community?
and when should we reject thatgovernance and assert our
individual authority?
The love performance and societygenres exists because we want
more from other people thansimply reassurance that they
won't hurt us.
We want them to like us, loveus, respect us, care For us, the
(11:41):
love genre exists because weneed people as romantic partners
and as friends, and yetrelationships are complicated.
How do we find, build andmaintain loving connections with
other people?
The performance genre existsbecause we need our community's
approval.
How do we demonstrate ourworthiness and gain the approval
of other people?
(12:03):
The society genre exists becauseas soon as you bring people
together, we develop hierarchiesand power dynamics.
Who has power?
How does their power work, andhow do we shift the balance if
that power becomes tyranny?
Thus far, all the externalcontent genres.
The internal content genres alsodescribe our fundamental human
(12:25):
needs.
The status genre exists becausewe need our community to respect
us and we need to respectourselves.
What are we willing to do orsacrifice in order to rise in
social standing?
The morality genre existsbecause life is constantly
presenting complex moralchallenges, and we are forced to
(12:47):
choose how to navigate them.
How do we overcome our ownselfishness and make morally
good choices?
The worldview genre existsbecause the highest
accomplishment we can everachieve is self-actualization.
When faced with something beyondour understanding, how can we
process it and grow into thebest, wisest, most mature
(13:09):
version of ourselves?
If you're a student ofpsychology, this escalating
exploration of human.
Might be pinging somethingfamiliar.
All these genres could be mappedonto Maslow's hierarchy of human
needs.
At the bottom of the pyramid arethe physiological needs, the
fundamental food, water,shelter, et cetera, that we need
(13:31):
in order to survive.
In other words, the action genrenext are the safety needs, the
need for security and resourceswithin a society.
That's the realm of war, crime,horror, and thriller.
Next, our needs for love andbelonging.
In other words, the love genre.
(13:52):
next, our needs for esteem.
For third party validation andself-respect.
That's the realm of theperformance society and status
genres.
And at the top of the pyramidare the self-actualization
needs, the realm of the moralityand worldview genres.
I say all of this to emphasizethat the content genres tap into
(14:14):
the fundamental heart of whatstories are, what stories are
about, what stories do for us asreaders, as consumers, as
students of the humanexperience.
These content genres areindependent of the superficial
external trappings, like how oldyour audience is, or how
literary your language is.
(14:36):
these content genres are thecentral core that makes the
story work.
The rest of the genre terms aresimply stylistic choices for how
you'd like to deliver it.
You can put any content genre inany setting.
You can write it for anyaudience.
You can write it with the mostbeautifully literary prose or
(14:56):
the most prosaic commercialstyle.
Of course, there are pairingsthat are more common than
others.
YA dystopias, for instance, areoften action stories because the
dystopian setting lends itselfto questions of survival.
How do we protect ourselves andothers when society has fallen
apart?
That's the Hunger Games, butdystopias are also often society
(15:20):
stories.
Can we overthrow a big brotherin 1984?
And a lot of dystopias, though,not all of them, also include a
love subplot.
Think Kanes and peta, orsometimes the love story is the
main plot.
Consider warm bodies a zombieretelling of Romeo and Juliet.
It's a zombie dystopia with alove primary genre and a strong
(15:43):
horror sub plot.
Or let's look at Sci-fi, starWars, Enders Game Alien and
Firefly are all sci-fi stories,but Star Wars is an action
story.
Enders Game is a war story.
Alien is a horror story, andFirefly is a Western set in
space.
(16:03):
I love Firefly for a number ofreasons.
And one is that it illustratesperfectly how the content genre
core can be placed in anysetting.
It's not the setting or theaudience or the style that
determines the plot and stakesof the story.
It's the content genre.
There are also pairings that areuncommon.
(16:24):
I doubt that there are manychildren's books that are war
stories, for instance.
But honestly, I bet there are afew.
After all, there are childrenwho are growing up in war zones,
and those children desperatelyneed stories to help them
survive injustice and horrorbeyond their comprehension.
(16:44):
Because that is what stories do.
They show us how to navigate acomplex world, how to meet our
fundamental human needs indifficult circumstances that
threaten our ability to survive,to join together in community,
to find love and belonging andrespect, and to become the best
version of ourselves.
(17:05):
The content genres allow you toidentify what that core of your
story is.
the rest of the categories,their marketing language to give
your content genre core a uniqueflavor and help it reach its
readers.
Now, I hinted way back at thebeginning that one of the
marketing genres I mentioneddoes give you content clues.
(17:27):
That genre is romantic.
Romantic is a blend betweenromance and fantasy.
Fantasy, remember, is a settingyou can put any content genre in
a fantasy setting.
Romance though is a marketinggenre that always points to the
love content genre.
Anytime you see a romance, youknow that you're in for a love
(17:48):
story.
So a romantic novel is going toinclude a love story, and it's
going to be in a fantasysetting.
I mention this so that you know,sometimes the marketing genres
do happen to point to thecontent genres.
Romance novels are love stories,murder mystery novels are crime
stories and horror novels arewell horror stories.
(18:12):
But while marketing genres canoffer clues about the flavor and
tone and genre blend of yourstory, the most important way
that you can use genre in therevision process is to identify
your content genre and use it toorient the foundations of your
story.
That will tell you so much morethan hard sci-fi or upmarket
(18:34):
historical fiction, or evenromantic ever could.
Now, hopefully everything I'msaying sounds so clear and
logical that this feels supereasy to grasp and inspiring to
apply to your story.
But I do want to give you a fairheads up.
Figuring out your story'scontent genre can be really
tricky for some genres, the oneswhere the content genre peaks
(18:58):
through in the marketing genre.
The choice is fairly clear.
A romance novel will be in thelove content genre, but it can
be tough to figure out whetheryour sci-fi story is action or
war or horror or something elseentirely.
in your current manuscript, youmight have signals of several
different genres and choosingwhich one your story is actually
(19:20):
about can be a real challenge.
There are a lot of ways tofigure out your story's content
genre and identifying thecontent genre is one of the most
important things that I do withclients inside of Story Clarity,
my big picture story revisionpackage.
But for now, I want to give youjust one way to start exploring
your content genre.
(19:40):
Well, okay.
Two, because I couldn't resist.
Here's the question I want youto ask yourself.
What fundamental human need isyour story exploring?
Where on Maslow's hierarchy ofneeds, does your story fall?
If that's tough to answer?
An easier way in might be what'sat stake in your story?
(20:03):
What do your characters gain ifthey are successful, and what do
they lose if they fail?
Those are your first clues toidentifying your story's content
genre, and to using genre as atruly effective editing tool.
Now if you want more on genre,I've got you covered.
I've got several more episodeson genre coming up where we'll
(20:25):
dig into how to use the contentgenres to edit your story.
I have a conversation with myfriend Savannah Gibo, a fellow
editor and book coach comingsoon that'll get into how she
coaches writers to use genre atvarious stages of your writing
process and how to troubleshootcommon genre problems.
And I've got a conversation withmy friend Kim Kessler, whom
(20:47):
we've heard on the podcastbefore.
She's an absolute genius at theinternal genres, which are the
key to crafting powerfulcharacter arcs.
so I'm excited to share herwisdom with you.
In the meantime, if you want togo deeper into all of these
genres, definitely grab thecontent genre overview.
You can download it forfree@alicesudo.com slash 90.
(21:12):
In it, I list all the genres andwhat fundamental human need they
explore, and I also link topodcast episodes on each content
genre so you can study them inmore detail.
Those episodes come fromSavannah Bilbo's podcast fiction
Writing Made Easy because shehas excellent episodes on each
one.
So go get thatdownload@alicesudler.com slash
(21:34):
90, or of course, find the linkin the show notes.
That's all for now.
I'll leave you to ponder what'sat stake in your story.
Until next time, happy editing.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
New Heights with Jason & Travis Kelce
Football’s funniest family duo — Jason Kelce of the Philadelphia Eagles and Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs — team up to provide next-level access to life in the league as it unfolds. The two brothers and Super Bowl champions drop weekly insights about the weekly slate of games and share their INSIDE perspectives on trending NFL news and sports headlines. They also endlessly rag on each other as brothers do, chat the latest in pop culture and welcome some very popular and well-known friends to chat with them. Check out new episodes every Wednesday. Follow New Heights on the Wondery App, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to new episodes early and ad-free, and get exclusive content on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And join our new membership for a unique fan experience by going to the New Heights YouTube channel now!