Friday, April 08, 2016

G is for Genre





Today's letter is G, and while there are several things that G could stand for, I'm going to use today to talk about genre.

Genre is, basically, the type of story that you're writing: romance, mystery, western, action, etc. 

You'll need to know what genre you're writing in, so you can properly market your book to its most enthusiastic readers. More and more books lately include a mixture of genres, such as romantic mysteries or paranormal westerns. These are tricky. If you do it right, you can attract readers from both of the genres. But if you do it wrong, you could alienate readers from both genres so neither one wants to read your book.

Today's tarot deck is the Victorian Fairy Tarot. Here are a couple of sample cards from the deck:

Victorian-Fairy-Tarot-2
Victorian-Fairy-Tarot-9

Images courtesy of Aeclectic Tarot

The card I drew today is the Herald of Spring. It shows a male fairy dressed in green, dancing among the bright green foliage and spring flowers. Clearly he's celebrating the coming of spring, when all the earth wakes up and blooms. This card is telling me my main character, the woman who's a real estate agent in the A is for Action segment, is playful, enthusiastic, and lighthearted. She welcomes everyone, and has an active, childlike curiosity about everything. This leads me to believe the genre of the book will be something light. It feels like a romantic comedy to me, so that's what I'll go with.

2 comments:

Shilpa Garg said...


Tarot Reading fascinates me, though I have never got it done professionally as yet!
I am visiting from the A to Z Challenge Co-host’s Team. Hope you are having a great time reading, writing and networking with co-participants of the A to Z Challenge. Cheers :)
Co-Host AJ's wHooligan for the A to Z Challenge 2016

Elizabeth Delisi said...

Thanks for visiting, Shilpa! I've actually never had anyone else do a professional reading for me, but of course I read for myself. ;-)