The Genre Battle: Spiritual Fiction

I found an interesting site that outlines all the genres: Book Country Genre Map.

This site also led me to understand why I have such difficulty appending genres to my works.

Science, one religion out of many, has a huge category all to itself. All other works must be imaginary (this would make a nice separate category--I have an imaginary short coming up), romance, historical, or mystery/thriller/horror. I was surprised at how many stories I could think of that did not fall into one of those categories.

There are also broad "genres" that demonstrate the lack of descriptive categories, such as:

• women's fiction (Which is still just a misleading name for romance? Another disappointment.)
• young adult (Oh, you mean 18-25, right? What? 12-18? Since when is a 12-year-old an adult?)
• literary fiction

In these instances, it's an attempt to appeal to a particular audience but exchanges the use of the aforementioned categories. Of course, you can append additional genres on these, but it still becomes Women's Fantasy or YA Historical. Plenty of classics are haphazardly cast into the literary fiction category. (Let's not forget the tiny isle of nonfiction.)

At least, this is the vibe I get from discussions and applications of genre.

So, I decided to classify my works as spiritual fiction. It's a simple label that will apply to most of what I write. It's still an undescriptive label, but my point is those that have been firmly established have established themselves in a way that screams they are the only way. I'm glad I found a genre I fit under, but it's upsetting that there's little representation for other types of writing.

Why does a writer write what they write? Why does a fantasy author stick to fantasy or a historical author stick to history?

I would assume that it's because they're doing what they love.

If science fiction or fantasy were the only genres available, of course eventually someone would break the shell somehow, but authors, despite what they personally liked, would write SF/F until they felt they liked it. Because in a world were they were the only genres, writing SF/F would be what made a person an author. And if one loved writing books, it would therefore be necessary that they like SF/F.

There's some confusing logic for the day. Hopefully, my genre confusion ends here!

Prologue: A Creationist Novelist

So, I was doing some research and came across a post on how to make a great prologue. I was interested to see that it listed creation prologues as a big (and definite, no exceptions) no-no.

Really, I was filled with disappointment because my own novel currently has a "creation" first chapter.

Although I will be reworking the chapter, I was curious to find specifics of why creation shouldn't be included in the story and directed my research to focus on creationist prologues.

Say No to Creation!

As I read more and more articles on prologues, I realized there weren't any reasons to declare creation prologues a no-no, as long as they were relevant to the plot. Some went as far as labeling these type of prologues overdone and "crappy."

That's when it clicked in my mind.

The message seemed less like "creation chapters always subtract from the plot" and more like "I personally don't like creation." Articles that gave the low down on improving plots obviously did not mention creation prologues, while those that did went well out of their way to rag on them. I've read my share of fantasy novels with creation prologues (or ancient war history, which is another prologue that got the no-no label) and was glad for the background to better understand the world.

I had to remind myself there are quite a few 'anti-creationists' out there. I'm not saying people should be one way or the other, but it was a bit disappointing to realize that people's negative mindsets against God and Jesus (specifically for God knows the reason) could affect seemingly unrelated advice and be so easily disguised when giving out such information.

And the bigger the name, the more likely people are to follow without hesitation. With great power, you have to be more careful about misleading your flock.

Creation Belongs with the Creatures

If a story centers around God, a god, or gods, it makes sense to involve creation. It can't be described as an overdone measure because there is nothing new under the sun. Even fantastical stories are based on our daily lives. Of course, unless it's a scifi fantasy, God (or some similary entity) exists, but there's a difference from him being pivotal to the progression of the story and him/her/them/it just being (or never actually being 'created' by the author).

I saw advice given that creation prologues are only okay if the god is pivotal to the plot, but creation also has to do with the creatures themselves. Depending on how you tell your creation story, it can reveal necessary information about the creatures more effectively than any history. The question then is less, "Is it important to the plot?'"(Because it should be.) And more, "Do you want to reveal those things?"

People frequently use the disclaimer "this is just my opinion" or that there are exceptions to the rules, but this was one of the few cases where the authors had an unusually firm stance, which, as I say above, I believe in this case was the result of their beliefs about creation in general.

When giving advice, I believe the point is also to encourage and not mislead. If my novel hadn't been greatly influenced by my journey and discovery with Jesus, I would have trashed my first chapter without hesitation after seeing those two or three articles dismissing creation prologues. Like I said, I do have some big edits to make to it.

The Mainstream Genre

I came across a similar problem when I tried to find what genre my novel fit into. I quickly narrowed it down to scifi/fantasy or Afrofuturist. Then I was caught in a revolving door.

My novel didn't "transcend" or "expand" upon what is capable on Earth. The creatures in my novel weren't magical or a product of scientific advancement. A new world was involved, but it wasn't a different dimension, the future, or the past.

As I thought more and more on it, I felt a little offended at labeling my novel a fantasy just because a god was involved. That view of the balance between scifi & fantasy seems to proclaim "if it ain't science, it ain't real."

Was my novel idea really that unconventional? I didn't think so.

Because of the increase in self-publishing, less novels are being sliced and diced by editors to fall into certain genres. Additionally, underrepresented novels are being published because they are bypassing the process that would reject their novel for not falling into a certain genre.

I still have a bit of searching to do before I decide the genre for my current and upcoming novels, but I'm certainly glad that I don't have to put someone else's beliefs over my own and my readerships' and label them a fantasy.

But I do love me some fantasy.