The importance of knowing your genre

Are you writing romance, women's fic, thriller, literary, fantasy ... and why does it even matter?

In my early author days, I was impatient with all the discussion of genre. My work could not be bound by the restrictions of a single category! Because genre is just arbitrary lines we draw around fiction, right?

Actually, it’s more than that. Knowing your genre and its shared themes, topics, writing conventions and anticipated readership, can be the difference between a publishable work and a manuscript that moulders forevermore on the slushpile. It was only when I really came to understand what genre I was writing in that I began to have success in pitching my work.

In this post, I’ll let you in on why you need to nail down this important understanding. And bonus! I’ll include some simple exercises to help you determine what genre your work belongs to! 😻