Fantasy sub-genres

As I continue to edit through my first draft, I question what genre of fantasy is my book.

Here is a list of fantasy sub-genres from A World Without Ends (there are more, those intertwine with the others) :

  Comic Fantasy

•   Contemporary Fantasy
•   Dark Fantasy
•   Heroic Fantasy
•   High Fantasy
•   Historical Fantasy
•   Magical Realism
•   Mythic Fiction (Fantasy)
•   Romantic Fantasy
•   Sword and Sorcery
•   Urban Fantasy

I’m not going to define all of them, I trust you to read up on sub-genres you haven’t heard of.

The category my novel falls into is high fantasy.

High Fantasy – The term high fantasy (also epic fantasy) refers to fantasy that depicts an epic struggle between good and evil in a fantasy world with an epic range of settings, characters and plot. It is an extremely character-driven fantasy that focuses on a greater good for their world. For example: George R. R. Martins A Song of Ice and Fire.

The point of this research is, once you understand where your story falls, you can either follow the rules and definitions or break them– and that can be for any genre.

As an author: Have you used this research before?

As a reader: What genre do you prefer to read?

#DWTSmith #highfantasy