Moonpearl
The Yuri Empress
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After various complaints from authors that the Genres used by Scribble Hub are hard to understand, I decided to create a guide to them. As this guide is the work of one singular user and is not made in association with Tony, it's unofficial.
The following explanations were written using Novel Update's official genre definitions (on which Scribble Hub's genres are based), further research into the nature of several more elusive genres, and my own personal experience of using these genres prior to Scribble Hub.
Action:
Focuses on physical danger and conflict. Typically this means characters getting into a lot of physical fights, but it can also extend to fighting to escape dangerous situations (e.g. running away as a boulder chases you down a narrow path), so long as the need to escape is immediate. Action tends to be fast-paced and high-stakes.
Adult:
R18, essentially. This is a novel that is only suitable for adult audiences. This usually infers a lot of graphic sexual scenes, but can also mean a lot of graphic violence.
Adventure:
Focuses primarily on characters adventuring. This means exploring new places and environments, and is usually associated with very long journeys (crossing a whole country or even further) where characters encounter amazing situations along the way.
Boys Love:
A genre that focuses on love (sexual or romantic) between men. To qualify for this genre, a novel’s primary romance must be between men and must be significantly present within the work.
Things that do not count include (but are not limited to): relationships between men who are not the main character; one-night-stands or sparse sexual encounters; a male main character having a husband or boyfriend who barely ever appears; or a male main character having a side romance with a man while his main romance is with a woman.
For everything related to sexual/romantic relationships between men that do not qualify for the Boys Love genre, there is a “Boys Love subplot” tag that you can use for your novel instead.
Comedy:
A novel whose aim is to make the reader laugh as they read it. The situations the novel contains are usually presented in a humorous way, rather than intending the reader to take them seriously, and there are sometimes very absurd situations included. Traditionally, these stories have a happy ending, but this isn’t required.
Drama:
A novel that aims to create very strong emotions in the reader (particularly sadness or tension) through grandiose events and conflict. There are usually two types, although works can and often do merge the two.
Type 1 focuses on conflict within interpersonal relationships. These employ misunderstandings or conflict of interest between lovers, friends, family, or other people, sometimes to melodramatic degrees. (Think of soap operas, K Dramas, and the way that arguments and messy feelings within friend groups are often referred to as “drama”.)
Type 2 focuses on conflict on a grander scale. These can be revolutions, war, political intrigue, etc.
Regardless of the method used, the conflict employed by a novel must be sufficiently strong enough to evoke strong emotions in a reader in order to qualify as drama.
Ecchi:
Sexual fanservice usually aimed at heterosexual men. Novels falling into this genre cannot be pornographic or include sex scenes, but nonetheless go to great lengths to place (almost always female) characters in sexual situations. A good way to describe it is “borderline porn”. Examples of ecchi scenes include men falling and accidentally landing with their faces in women’s breasts, walking in on women while nude, and women’s clothes getting conveniently torn off in fights.
Fanfiction:
A fan work that makes direct use of someone else’s characters or setting. Stories that are inspired by or make use of a story that’s diffused into a cultural phenomenon generally aren’t considered fanfiction. (e.g. A story with Dracula isn’t fanfiction of Bram Stoker’s novel unless it deliberately uses Bram Stroker’s characters and/or exact setting. A new reimagining of the Little Mermaid isn’t fanfiction. Making use of the King Arthur legend wouldn’t be fanfiction.)
Fantasy:
A broad genre in which fiction involves magic and/or another world and races. Traditionally, a fantasy novel would be set on a fictional world inspired by ideas of Medieval Europe, with other fictional races of people such as elves, dwarves, fairies, etc. However, it’s possible to have other influences for a fantasy world, to attach a fantasy setting to a version of the real world, or to have a fantasy novel that takes place within a fantasy version of the real world. To achieve the latter two, the novel must involve either magic or fantasy races (such as elves, dwarves, fairies, etc.).
Fantasy is usually distinct from sci-fi in that it doesn’t revolve around science or pseudo-science, has a tendency to treat its wondrous elements and people as stemming from nature or magic, and it doesn’t require justification for its wonderous elements beyond keeping the rules it sets out within the work consistent. (E.g. A fantasy novel doesn’t have to explain why magic exists but, if it states that magic users can only cast 4 spells a day, it will have to explain why one magic user was able to cast 6 in one scene.)
Examples include fairytales, “The Lord of the Rings” by J. R. R. Tolkien, “Good Omens” by Neil Gaiman, and “Howl’s Moving Castle” by Diana Wynne Jones.
Gender Bender:
A genre that focuses on exploring and challenging gender, usually by putting a character in a situation where they are perceived by society as a gender that they do not identify as.
Mainstream gender bender is transformative, meaning that men who identify as men and have bodies that society traditionally views as belonging to men (no breasts or vagina, has a penis) are given a body that society traditionally views as belonging to women (breasts, vagina, clitoris, no penis), or vice versa. They are then forced to live and be viewed as the gender society assumes they are based on their new body (i.e. men “become” women although they don’t identify as women, or women “become” men although they don’t identify as men).
This can be played for laughs or as a serious examination of the distress that occurs when you’re forced to live as a gender you’re not and in a body that you’re not comfortable with.
Other types of gender bender do exist, such as people being changed into sexless bodies or people disguising themselves as another gender for various reasons.
Please note that Gender Bender requires that the situation isn’t normal for the characters in it, or that the situation is abnormal overall. Transgender characters, for whom the mismatch is the default, do not make a novel part of the Gender Bender genre. (There exists a “Transgender” tag to reflect that your story has transgender characters, however.)
Where the Gender Bender genre and the “Transgender” tag are combined, this typically indicates a novel that uses the traditional transformation element to provide a character with a body whose socially-ascribed gender matches their true gender, regardless of whether they know it at the time that they receive it. For example: Through magical or unrealistically scientific means, a trans woman’s body is changed into the body of a typical cis woman.
Examples of Gender Bender include (but are not limited to), Ranma ½, Kämpfer, Kashimashi: Girl Meets Girl, “½ Prince” by Yu Wo, “The Villains Need to Save the World”, and Scribble Hub’s very own “Kammi Ketu” by QuietValerie.
Girls Love:
A genre that focuses on love (sexual or romantic) between women. To qualify for this genre, a novel’s primary romance must be between women and must be significantly present within the work.
Things that do not count include (but are not limited to): relationships between women who are not the main character; one-night-stands or sparse sexual encounters; a female main character having a wife or girlfriend who barely ever appears; or a female main character having a side romance with a woman while her main romance is with a man.
For everything related to sexual/romantic relationships between women that do not qualify for the Girls Love genre, there is a “Girls Love subplot” tag that you can use for your novel instead.
Harem:
A novel in which the main character has multiple romantic relationships at the same time. Alternatively, the character has multiple love interests that the story teases as being equally valid until the end. The former usually implies consensual non-monogamy rather than cheating. Traditionally, all lovers/love interests are only interested in the main character and do not have other relationships of their own.
Historical:
Fiction set in a real-world time and place in history, potentially but not necessarily using real people as characters. The setting must be in a past time – setting the novel last week doesn’t count. Examples include war-time romances and period dramas.
Horror:
A novel whose aim is to scare the audience, or which deals with traditionally horrific elements. Examples include ghost stories and almost every Stephen King novel.
Isekai:
Novels in which the main character is someone from Earth who is transported into another world, becomes stuck there, and must adapt to their new setting. Very traditional isekai uses a standard fantasy setting.
Josei:
Novels whose target audience is adult women. Traditionally this means women aged 18-30.
LitRPG:
Novels set in a game or a game-like world where games and game-like challenges are encountered frequently and are essential to the story, and stats and other RPG elements are present and depicted for the reader as part of the reading experience. Stats must be a significant part of the reading experience to qualify as a LitRPG. Typically, this means providing tables to show them frequently.
Martial Arts:
Novels with a heavy focus on characters fighting using martial arts. Possible martial arts include but are not limited to aikido, karate, judo, tae kwon do, fencing, and kendo.
Mature:
Intended for a mature audience, i.e. not young teenagers. Novels marked Mature involve darker subjects that may not be suitable for younger audiences (such as gore, sex or violence) but are not strictly for an adult audience like the Adult genre. This can be considered to be synonymous with R15.
Mecha:
Novels with a heavy focus on people fighting using giant humanoid robots/machines. Think of Gundam or Pacific Rim.
Mystery:
Novels with a heavy focus on investigating and/or slowly revealing the truth behind an unknown or unclear event or past. The element of the unknown must be strong for the reader, making them extremely curious about what really happened. Murder mysteries are a typical example, where how and why a person died, and who killed them, are the primary focus.
Psychological:
Seeks to examine and challenge the state of the human mind. Generally, this involves trauma, darker and distressing storylines, and mind games and/or potential surrealism. The characters undergo psychological distress and/or changes as a result of what they experience throughout the story. Examples of media in this genre are Revolutionary Girl Utena, Death Note, Neon Genesis Evangelion, and Ghost in the Shell.
Romance:
The primary focus or one of the very main focuses of this story is the romantic relationship(s) of the main character. The development of the relationship(s) is given a lot of attention.
School Life:
A large proportion of the story follows the characters as they spend time in school. This specifically refers to school (i.e. high school and below), and not to university or college.
Sci-fi:
A broad genre which revolves around science, technology and/or space. Unlike fantasy, this cannot involve magic – anything that happens in sci-fi that cannot happen in real life must be attributed to science and/or technology, even though that science may be inaccurate or the technology fictional.
Fictional races of people may appear, but they are either portrayed as aliens or their existence must be explained via science. Exploring, living or battling in space are common themes, and other worlds may be explored – but they’re accessed via technology and science and viewed through the lens of science as well.
(Note that Star Wars is actually a fusion of sci-fi and fantasy, resulting in it being a fantasy wearing a sci-fi skin.)
Seinen:
Novels whose target audience is adult men. Traditionally this means men aged 18-30.
Slice of Life:
Novels without a focused plot, which generally follow the characters as they go about normal day-to-day life. Some other themes (such as romance) and mini-arcs of genuine plot may be included, but the large focus is day-to-day living. “The Snow Country Hunting Life of the Northern Nobleman and the Raptor Wife” is a good example.
Smut:
Erotic fiction. According to the official Novel Updates definition, this is a genre largely aimed at women and which includes a heavy focus on love/relationships between the characters having sex. The usage throughout Scribble Hub may be wider and simply used to denote erotica.
Sports:
Novels with a heavy focus on a particular sport. Examples of sport-themed media are “Free! Iwatobi Swim Club”, “Yuri on Ice”, and “Kuroko’s Basketball”.
Supernatural:
Novels with a heavy focus on powers, beings or events that go beyond the understanding of science (and possibly the laws of nature). These supernatural elements may include beings such as ghosts, werewolves and demons, or people possessing powers such as telekinesis or telepathy. Supernatural fiction is distinct from broader fantasy in that it takes place in settings where the supernatural elements are not supposed to belong, it focuses on the mystery of those supernatural elements, and it is generally moodier and focused on suspense and mystery, rather than on action and adventure.
Examples of supernatural novels include “The Woman in Black” by Susan Hill, “Twilight” by Stephenie Meyer, and “Interview with a Vampire” by Anne Rice.
Tragedy:
Focuses on misfortune and painful loss, typically with the aim of making readers cry or feel sad. To qualify as a tragedy, a novel must either focus continuously on painful events or culminate into an ending that is emotionally painful for the reader (e.g. a story that focuses on a loving couple but has one partner die and the other living to grieve them at the end qualifies as a tragedy).
The following explanations were written using Novel Update's official genre definitions (on which Scribble Hub's genres are based), further research into the nature of several more elusive genres, and my own personal experience of using these genres prior to Scribble Hub.
Action:
Focuses on physical danger and conflict. Typically this means characters getting into a lot of physical fights, but it can also extend to fighting to escape dangerous situations (e.g. running away as a boulder chases you down a narrow path), so long as the need to escape is immediate. Action tends to be fast-paced and high-stakes.
Adult:
R18, essentially. This is a novel that is only suitable for adult audiences. This usually infers a lot of graphic sexual scenes, but can also mean a lot of graphic violence.
Adventure:
Focuses primarily on characters adventuring. This means exploring new places and environments, and is usually associated with very long journeys (crossing a whole country or even further) where characters encounter amazing situations along the way.
Boys Love:
A genre that focuses on love (sexual or romantic) between men. To qualify for this genre, a novel’s primary romance must be between men and must be significantly present within the work.
Things that do not count include (but are not limited to): relationships between men who are not the main character; one-night-stands or sparse sexual encounters; a male main character having a husband or boyfriend who barely ever appears; or a male main character having a side romance with a man while his main romance is with a woman.
For everything related to sexual/romantic relationships between men that do not qualify for the Boys Love genre, there is a “Boys Love subplot” tag that you can use for your novel instead.
Comedy:
A novel whose aim is to make the reader laugh as they read it. The situations the novel contains are usually presented in a humorous way, rather than intending the reader to take them seriously, and there are sometimes very absurd situations included. Traditionally, these stories have a happy ending, but this isn’t required.
Drama:
A novel that aims to create very strong emotions in the reader (particularly sadness or tension) through grandiose events and conflict. There are usually two types, although works can and often do merge the two.
Type 1 focuses on conflict within interpersonal relationships. These employ misunderstandings or conflict of interest between lovers, friends, family, or other people, sometimes to melodramatic degrees. (Think of soap operas, K Dramas, and the way that arguments and messy feelings within friend groups are often referred to as “drama”.)
Type 2 focuses on conflict on a grander scale. These can be revolutions, war, political intrigue, etc.
Regardless of the method used, the conflict employed by a novel must be sufficiently strong enough to evoke strong emotions in a reader in order to qualify as drama.
Ecchi:
Sexual fanservice usually aimed at heterosexual men. Novels falling into this genre cannot be pornographic or include sex scenes, but nonetheless go to great lengths to place (almost always female) characters in sexual situations. A good way to describe it is “borderline porn”. Examples of ecchi scenes include men falling and accidentally landing with their faces in women’s breasts, walking in on women while nude, and women’s clothes getting conveniently torn off in fights.
Fanfiction:
A fan work that makes direct use of someone else’s characters or setting. Stories that are inspired by or make use of a story that’s diffused into a cultural phenomenon generally aren’t considered fanfiction. (e.g. A story with Dracula isn’t fanfiction of Bram Stoker’s novel unless it deliberately uses Bram Stroker’s characters and/or exact setting. A new reimagining of the Little Mermaid isn’t fanfiction. Making use of the King Arthur legend wouldn’t be fanfiction.)
Fantasy:
A broad genre in which fiction involves magic and/or another world and races. Traditionally, a fantasy novel would be set on a fictional world inspired by ideas of Medieval Europe, with other fictional races of people such as elves, dwarves, fairies, etc. However, it’s possible to have other influences for a fantasy world, to attach a fantasy setting to a version of the real world, or to have a fantasy novel that takes place within a fantasy version of the real world. To achieve the latter two, the novel must involve either magic or fantasy races (such as elves, dwarves, fairies, etc.).
Fantasy is usually distinct from sci-fi in that it doesn’t revolve around science or pseudo-science, has a tendency to treat its wondrous elements and people as stemming from nature or magic, and it doesn’t require justification for its wonderous elements beyond keeping the rules it sets out within the work consistent. (E.g. A fantasy novel doesn’t have to explain why magic exists but, if it states that magic users can only cast 4 spells a day, it will have to explain why one magic user was able to cast 6 in one scene.)
Examples include fairytales, “The Lord of the Rings” by J. R. R. Tolkien, “Good Omens” by Neil Gaiman, and “Howl’s Moving Castle” by Diana Wynne Jones.
Gender Bender:
A genre that focuses on exploring and challenging gender, usually by putting a character in a situation where they are perceived by society as a gender that they do not identify as.
Mainstream gender bender is transformative, meaning that men who identify as men and have bodies that society traditionally views as belonging to men (no breasts or vagina, has a penis) are given a body that society traditionally views as belonging to women (breasts, vagina, clitoris, no penis), or vice versa. They are then forced to live and be viewed as the gender society assumes they are based on their new body (i.e. men “become” women although they don’t identify as women, or women “become” men although they don’t identify as men).
This can be played for laughs or as a serious examination of the distress that occurs when you’re forced to live as a gender you’re not and in a body that you’re not comfortable with.
Other types of gender bender do exist, such as people being changed into sexless bodies or people disguising themselves as another gender for various reasons.
Please note that Gender Bender requires that the situation isn’t normal for the characters in it, or that the situation is abnormal overall. Transgender characters, for whom the mismatch is the default, do not make a novel part of the Gender Bender genre. (There exists a “Transgender” tag to reflect that your story has transgender characters, however.)
Where the Gender Bender genre and the “Transgender” tag are combined, this typically indicates a novel that uses the traditional transformation element to provide a character with a body whose socially-ascribed gender matches their true gender, regardless of whether they know it at the time that they receive it. For example: Through magical or unrealistically scientific means, a trans woman’s body is changed into the body of a typical cis woman.
Examples of Gender Bender include (but are not limited to), Ranma ½, Kämpfer, Kashimashi: Girl Meets Girl, “½ Prince” by Yu Wo, “The Villains Need to Save the World”, and Scribble Hub’s very own “Kammi Ketu” by QuietValerie.
Girls Love:
A genre that focuses on love (sexual or romantic) between women. To qualify for this genre, a novel’s primary romance must be between women and must be significantly present within the work.
Things that do not count include (but are not limited to): relationships between women who are not the main character; one-night-stands or sparse sexual encounters; a female main character having a wife or girlfriend who barely ever appears; or a female main character having a side romance with a woman while her main romance is with a man.
For everything related to sexual/romantic relationships between women that do not qualify for the Girls Love genre, there is a “Girls Love subplot” tag that you can use for your novel instead.
Harem:
A novel in which the main character has multiple romantic relationships at the same time. Alternatively, the character has multiple love interests that the story teases as being equally valid until the end. The former usually implies consensual non-monogamy rather than cheating. Traditionally, all lovers/love interests are only interested in the main character and do not have other relationships of their own.
Historical:
Fiction set in a real-world time and place in history, potentially but not necessarily using real people as characters. The setting must be in a past time – setting the novel last week doesn’t count. Examples include war-time romances and period dramas.
Horror:
A novel whose aim is to scare the audience, or which deals with traditionally horrific elements. Examples include ghost stories and almost every Stephen King novel.
Isekai:
Novels in which the main character is someone from Earth who is transported into another world, becomes stuck there, and must adapt to their new setting. Very traditional isekai uses a standard fantasy setting.
Josei:
Novels whose target audience is adult women. Traditionally this means women aged 18-30.
LitRPG:
Novels set in a game or a game-like world where games and game-like challenges are encountered frequently and are essential to the story, and stats and other RPG elements are present and depicted for the reader as part of the reading experience. Stats must be a significant part of the reading experience to qualify as a LitRPG. Typically, this means providing tables to show them frequently.
Martial Arts:
Novels with a heavy focus on characters fighting using martial arts. Possible martial arts include but are not limited to aikido, karate, judo, tae kwon do, fencing, and kendo.
Mature:
Intended for a mature audience, i.e. not young teenagers. Novels marked Mature involve darker subjects that may not be suitable for younger audiences (such as gore, sex or violence) but are not strictly for an adult audience like the Adult genre. This can be considered to be synonymous with R15.
Mecha:
Novels with a heavy focus on people fighting using giant humanoid robots/machines. Think of Gundam or Pacific Rim.
Mystery:
Novels with a heavy focus on investigating and/or slowly revealing the truth behind an unknown or unclear event or past. The element of the unknown must be strong for the reader, making them extremely curious about what really happened. Murder mysteries are a typical example, where how and why a person died, and who killed them, are the primary focus.
Psychological:
Seeks to examine and challenge the state of the human mind. Generally, this involves trauma, darker and distressing storylines, and mind games and/or potential surrealism. The characters undergo psychological distress and/or changes as a result of what they experience throughout the story. Examples of media in this genre are Revolutionary Girl Utena, Death Note, Neon Genesis Evangelion, and Ghost in the Shell.
Romance:
The primary focus or one of the very main focuses of this story is the romantic relationship(s) of the main character. The development of the relationship(s) is given a lot of attention.
School Life:
A large proportion of the story follows the characters as they spend time in school. This specifically refers to school (i.e. high school and below), and not to university or college.
Sci-fi:
A broad genre which revolves around science, technology and/or space. Unlike fantasy, this cannot involve magic – anything that happens in sci-fi that cannot happen in real life must be attributed to science and/or technology, even though that science may be inaccurate or the technology fictional.
Fictional races of people may appear, but they are either portrayed as aliens or their existence must be explained via science. Exploring, living or battling in space are common themes, and other worlds may be explored – but they’re accessed via technology and science and viewed through the lens of science as well.
(Note that Star Wars is actually a fusion of sci-fi and fantasy, resulting in it being a fantasy wearing a sci-fi skin.)
Seinen:
Novels whose target audience is adult men. Traditionally this means men aged 18-30.
Slice of Life:
Novels without a focused plot, which generally follow the characters as they go about normal day-to-day life. Some other themes (such as romance) and mini-arcs of genuine plot may be included, but the large focus is day-to-day living. “The Snow Country Hunting Life of the Northern Nobleman and the Raptor Wife” is a good example.
Smut:
Erotic fiction. According to the official Novel Updates definition, this is a genre largely aimed at women and which includes a heavy focus on love/relationships between the characters having sex. The usage throughout Scribble Hub may be wider and simply used to denote erotica.
Sports:
Novels with a heavy focus on a particular sport. Examples of sport-themed media are “Free! Iwatobi Swim Club”, “Yuri on Ice”, and “Kuroko’s Basketball”.
Supernatural:
Novels with a heavy focus on powers, beings or events that go beyond the understanding of science (and possibly the laws of nature). These supernatural elements may include beings such as ghosts, werewolves and demons, or people possessing powers such as telekinesis or telepathy. Supernatural fiction is distinct from broader fantasy in that it takes place in settings where the supernatural elements are not supposed to belong, it focuses on the mystery of those supernatural elements, and it is generally moodier and focused on suspense and mystery, rather than on action and adventure.
Examples of supernatural novels include “The Woman in Black” by Susan Hill, “Twilight” by Stephenie Meyer, and “Interview with a Vampire” by Anne Rice.
Tragedy:
Focuses on misfortune and painful loss, typically with the aim of making readers cry or feel sad. To qualify as a tragedy, a novel must either focus continuously on painful events or culminate into an ending that is emotionally painful for the reader (e.g. a story that focuses on a loving couple but has one partner die and the other living to grieve them at the end qualifies as a tragedy).
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