Talk:List of writing genres

List of literary genres?

I want to suggest moving this page to a new one titled "list of literary writing genres" or "of literary genres" since it more accurately describes what this page lists. The beginning of the entry, itself, acknowledges that this is a page that lists literary genres and "writing genres" seems like a shorthand. If we do not change it, then we should consider including ALL writing genres, e.g. thank-you note, grocery list, celebrity apology, press release, the list goes on. These are writing genres, but not literary. Obviously, the list would get out of hand if we listed ALL writing genres, hence the change. --Thuddbutts —Preceding undated comment added 20:44, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

Bildungsroman...

...should not be under 'non-fiction genres' but I don't feel comfortable making that change since I'm not active here. Please advise this noob. --Novemberknot (talk) 20:52, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

The sub genres of fantasy

It's all messed up. Sub genres fall generally into three parts of setting. Those are: time, place, and theme (as in general feeling of the setting). Thus Urban should not be set under contemporary. The rest of it is crossover, which is a whole 'nother way of doing it. The better way to separate the genres is this: Time, place, theme. Then you mention that *most* in the setting genre, *tend* to happen in these two other genres.

For example: Urban Fantasy *tends* to happen in Modern Fantasy, Contemporary Fantasy and *sometimes* Futuristic fantasy. (Those are time periods. Historical Urban fantasy is rare, but possible. (I dare you to say it's not. I can so do it. Take Ancient Rome, put in magic, focus on Rome, done. Historical Urban fantasy.) Country fantasy can happen in any time period fantasy.

Paranormal can be set in Urban, but as in the case of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, it has happened also in Suburban and Country (as in Bram Stoker's Dracula) Paranormal is a theme. It's not a place. It does not generally dictate a place. It's just happens that it's more convenient that it is set in a place. Paranormal only tells the feeling that the person will get out of reading the book.Rest of that is crossover genres, like Mystery fantasy, Science-Fantasy, which is a whole other part of genre classification. --Hitsuji Kinno (talk) 15:02, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Somebody has fixed it; thanks. For more reorg info, see "Criteria that define genres" on the Literary genre page.

-- TimNelson (talk) 00:40, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

2013-01-10 FYI:

Fantasy subgenres and List of fantasy subgenres currently redirect here.

Subgenre of science fiction currently redirects to a section of the Outline of science fiction.

--P64 (talk) 00:57, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Fixes

I did a major fixes in the Fiction category because 1. It was hard to read. 2. It was inaccurate 3. Some of the ways it was sorted were weird and didn't fit with any of the sources on said pages nor with the critics on said pages. This should make it much easier to work with and grow in the future.--Hitsuji Kinno (talk) 19:12, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

New template

Template:Infobox literary genre

-- TimNelson (talk) 00:39, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

AfD notification

I proposed Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Metaphysical fantasy. I notified the creator of the article, but he rightly pointed out, that all though he was the creator of the article, he spun it out from this list, so it seems appropriate that I put up a notification here as well. —Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 13:31, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

May be useful

http://www.docstoc.com/docs/7679735/List-of-literary-genres

Not a reliable source. Seems like spam.--Hitsuji Kinno (talk) 19:00, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Dieselpunk

There is no "dieselpunk" genre. It was made for a failed roleplaying game. "Dieselpunk" is called Pulp Fiction. Please remove the listing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.72.11.253 (talk) 15:04, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Non-fiction novel

How is this possible? By definition, aren't novels fiction? Suggest this (and its subs) be deleted. Most of them are already covered under "Memoir" above, anyway.

--23:07, 11 August 2011‎ User:Bookgrrl

Field guides

Where would nature field guides fit? Science and nature writing, perhaps? --Polinizador (talk) 14:01, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

External Links

Full disclosure: I am the author of The Puzzle as a Literary Genre (niquette.com/books/sophmag/puz-lit.htm), which has received many thousands of visitors over the past three years. No surprise. A simple Internet search on "puzzle" turns up hundreds of millions of 'hits'. Nevertheless, the Talk Page for the Puzzle entry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Puzzle) has shown no interest so far in this proposed new literary genre.

Permit me to call attention to a distinguished feature as described in the 2010 essay as follows: "Puzzles can be fiction but their solutions must be nonfiction!" It seems to me that an External Link or Reference link would be appropriate in this article or some other. Of course, I shall be pleased to support research on this subject by literary experts. Paul Niquette (talk)!~92.139.4.139 (talk) 16:46, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Nonfiction categories a little bizarre

The nonfiction categories in "Genres and Subgenres" are dominated by "religious texts." There are 130 "religious text" topics compared to 22 others. Or, rephrasing, 85% of nonfiction genres are religious. This has the appearance of bias.

Several categories are buried in religious though they might be better outside--autobiography, biography, scientific writing, true crime (perhaps the last is an inside joke).

Many nonfiction genres don't make the list at all: law, nature writing, reference, self help, textbooks, travel writing.

The article in my opinion needs a quality warning. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2605:E000:3E0B:BA00:D5B4:48F:88:1B28 (talk) 17:01, 5 December 2015 (UTC)

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This looks a little crazy.

I understand this supossed to be a list of all genres, but some seem a little strange and too specific. Take this:

 Education fiction
   Campus novel
     Campus murder mystery

Okay. Why not Campus Autobiography too? Why not a preschool novel? And how many books are about Campus Murder Mysteries that it needs to be its own genre? Why not just place it under Mysteries?

Just some thoughts --67.176.76.117 (talk) 00:45, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

Uible Fiction?

What is this? I can't find any information on it through Google. Edit: I've removed it because it seems to have been added anonymously. 61.68.153.5 (talk) 23:46, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

British Literature

I've never heard of 'British literature' as a literary genre, and the article it links to isn't about a genre anyway.

Unless we are going to have a 'genre' for every country of the world, it seems bizarre to have 'British literature', especially since the whole history of literature in English up to the 17th century is British, and lots of non-English language literature is also British.

I propose deleting this genre, unless someone can actually find a bookseller's or literary critic's reference to it as a genre, rather than merely a geographical description. Martin Turner (talk) 21:28, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

•  Done

What a mess!

N.B. the very first comment above: "List of Literary Genres?" -Despite the fact that 'genre is defined as "A category of artistic composition, as in music or literature, characterized by similarities in form, style, or subject matter.", a definition shared by Merriam-Webster [1], Dictionary.com [2], and the Cambridge Dictionary [3] it appears from what is listed that an address book, a flyer advertising a lost pet, a child's refrigerator art, and a weather map amended with a Sharpie would all qualify as some kind of "writing" genre, thus making this article entirely useless. According to the linked Literary genre article, "There are 28 common genres found under Fiction and 9 common genres found in Nonfiction." This should be seriously trimmed and merged to that article. Manannan67 (talk) 02:46, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

@Manannan67, that's a good point. I'd support that merger, as this article is a bit unwieldy right now. Historyday01 (talk) 16:15, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

What about information literacy?

If you want to place a "science picture book" somewhere in these categories you can't. So what about inserting a category named "information literacy" under nonfiction genres? EroeGanzo (talk) 14:41, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

References

Hagiography

I find no reference in the above to the lives of the saints. 151.43.27.0 (talk) 08:44, 25 November 2023 (UTC)