Probably "Fantasy of manners".

No you don't. You need to write it first before worrying about the genre.

Oh, really? I guess that makes sense. I read somewhere that you should know the genre of your book before you even start writing it. thanks tho :) you have taken some stress off me

I have never heard of that, but thanks! I’ll look into it!

An unwritten book has no genre.

You could always start with a very general term like Speculative Fiction since you appear to be speculating a fair amount. You can get more specific as you get closer to completion.

oh thank you so much !! i’ll look more into it

You can always start with an idea. It could be a detective novel. But there’s nothing stopping you from mixing it with romance, travel, horror and whatever. To me, the best books are kinda impossible to categorize.

Speculative fiction. Not every book falls into a single genre, however.

Books don't always neatly slot into a genre. Does your book take place on Earth? Or is it a completely different place with an entirely different history? It could be an extreme case of an 'alternate history'. What is the level of technology in your world? Is it current to our own or more/less advanced?

Genre’s an artificial thing really, more useful to publishers than writers. It’s best just to write what you have to write then decide how you want to label it later.

Why is the genre important? I'm not a writer, but I imagine it would limit me in my creativity if I had a specific genre in the back of my mind the whole time. You are already limiting yourself by thinking that Fantasy requires magic or supernatural elements.

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I guess you’re right but really I just have this thing where I need to know every detail about my book in order for it to be perfect. I really don’t need to know the genre but I spent a good while reading articles about how to write a good book and in most of them they said you should know the genre before hand.

you have no idea how much you’ve calmed down my perfectionist brain. thank you!

It’s basically an alternate history yeah. I wouldn’t say it’s a different planet, just a different world. It takes place on earth but nothing in the real world happened there. There’s no technology I guess. It’s sort of medieval. Best way I can describe it would be kingdoms, super religious people, war, medieval looking houses. They use horses, swords and so on.

thank you !! you’ve boosted my confidence :)

Hi there! This sub is for discussion around published literature and industry news. Your post would be more suitable to an r/writing related community which are dedicated to these sorts of topics. Thank you!

From a marketing point of view that would be enough to slot it into the fantasy genre in my opinion. You mentioned there are religious people in your world, is the religion 'true' in your world? For example, if you think about ancient Greek myth, the gods and goddesses are involved in the story. So are the gods/goddesses of the religion in your story actually there, or are the people just following false religions and their prayers/rituals don't actually do anything?