Genre Guides

What readers of each genre expect, the beats they look for and the story structures that suit it.

• Romance & Dark Romance: Romance lives and dies on its beats: the meet-cute, the first kiss, the dark moment, the grand gesture. Readers track every one of them, along with the heat level and the boundaries darker work has to respect.
• Romantasy: Two engines in one chassis: the romance beats and the fantasy machinery. Track court intrigue, bargains and prophecies next to the mating bond — romantasy readers expect both arcs to pay off.
• Paranormal / Monster: Supernatural romance runs on rules: what the moon does, what the bond does, who outranks whom. Keep centuries of lore and pack hierarchy consistent across the series.
• Religious / Clean: Emotional intensity without on-page heat: the faith journey, the community, the values clash, and fade-to-black precision where other genres would open the door.
• Epic Fantasy: Secondary worlds accrete detail: magic rules, bestiary entries, dead languages and the prophecy someone has to fulfil. Track them before they contradict themselves in book three.
• Urban Fantasy: Magic hiding inside a city that mostly declines to notice. Track the masquerade, the factions policing it, and what it costs everyone when it slips.
• Cozy Fantasy: Low stakes, high comfort: the shop, the regulars, the small magic that adds up to a life. The conflict is real but never cruel, and everybody gets tea.
• LitRPG & Progression: The power curve is the plot. Track the system rules, the tiers and every stat — readers will remember the numbers better than you do, and they will write in.
• Science Fiction: Technology with rules, factions with agendas, futures with consequences. Pin down your tech constraints so the FTL drive works the same way on page 300 as page 3.
• Dystopian & Post-Apocalyptic: A world after the wrong turn. Track the regime that runs it, the scarcity shaping every choice, and the resistance assembling one risky conversation at a time.
• Mystery / Noir: Fair play is the contract: every clue on the page, every red herring paid off, every alibi checked. Keep the evidence board honest so the reveal is earned.
• Thriller & Suspense: Suspense is engineered: the reader knows more than the hero, or less, and never quite enough. Track the ticking clock, who knows what, and the threat’s next move.
• Horror: Horror is escalation with rules: what the thing is, what it wants, what it can’t do. Track the hauntings and the foreshadowing so the dread compounds instead of repeating.
• Historical Fiction: The past is a foreign country with excellent records: period detail, real events, real people. Keep the dates and the dining customs straight or the letters column will find you.
• Western: Land, law, and the stranger who rides in. Track the territory, who claims it, and the code everyone swears by right up until the moment they don’t.
• Adventure: Forward motion is the promise: a destination, an obstacle course, and a crew you can afford to lose someone from. Track the route and what each leg costs.
• Contemporary: The texture of ordinary life: jobs, families, group chats and the town that talks. Track careers and family trees so nobody’s sister changes jobs between books.
• Young Adult & Coming-of-Age: First everything, and a world getting larger than the self. Track the friend group, the adults who help or fail, and the identity the protagonist is still assembling.
• Literary Fiction: Interiority over incident — the sentence carries the weight. Track image systems, motifs, and the slow turn of a character’s self-understanding.
• Comedy & Satire: Comedy is structure wearing a silly hat: setup, escalation, payoff, and a running gag that has to earn its final appearance.