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Types of Genre

Absurdist/Surreal/Whimsical
Absurdist/Surreal/Whimsical

Absurdist fiction is a genre of fictional narrative (traditionally, literary fiction), most often in the form of a novel, play, poem, or film, that focuses on the experiences of characters in situations where they cannot find any inherent purpose in life, most often represented by ultimately meaningless actions and events that call into question the certainty of existential concepts such as truth or value.

Action
Action

Action horror - A subgenre combining the intrusion of an evil force, event, or supernatural personage of horror movies with the gunfights and frenetic chases of the action genre.

Action and Adventure
Action and Adventure

Action-adventure game. The action-adventure video game genre includes video games that combine core elements from the action and adventure genres. With the decline of the adventure game genre from mainstream popularity, the use of the term (and the hybrid term "action-adventure") has been more liberal.

image: filmsite.org
Adventure
Adventure

Adventure fiction. Adventure fiction is fiction that usually presents danger, or gives the reader a sense of excitement.

image: demco.com
Alternative Rock
Alternative Rock

Alternative rock (also called alternative music, alt-rock or simply alternative) is a style of rock music that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1980s and became widely popular in the 1990s. In this instance, the word "alternative" refers to the genre's distinction from mainstream rock music.

Art Punk
Art Punk

Art punk is a category of punk bands who are more ... the term was used as a pejorative for punk bands who were out of step with the genre's ideologies (i.e. post ...

College Rock
College Rock

College rock was the alternative rock music played on student-run university and college campus radio stations located in the United States and Canada in the 1980s. The stations' playlists were often created by students who avoided the mainstream rock played on commercial radio stations.

Comedy
Comedy

Comedic genres. Comedy may be divided into multiple genres based on the source of humor, the method of delivery, and the context in which it is delivered. These classifications overlap, and most comedians can fit into multiple genres.

Crime
Crime

Crime fiction is the literary genre that fictionalises crimes, their detection, criminals, and their motives. It is usually distinguished from mainstream fiction and other genres such as historical fiction or science fiction, but the boundaries are indistinct.

image: cbc.ca
Crossover Thrash (thx Kevin G)
Crossover Thrash (thx Kevin G)

What are the different types of music? Music is an art form and cultural activity whose medium is sound organized in time. The common elements of music are pitch, rhythm, dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture

source: diskuz.com
Crust Punk (thx Haug)
Crust Punk (thx Haug)

The Music Genres List site covers many of the most popular styles of music, the site is becoming the definitive list of music genres on the Internet – thanks to you – and if you feel any music genres are missing (we’re sure there are many!) please send an email to add @ musicgenreslist dot com and we’ll add to get closer to completing the music list of genres.

Drama
Drama

In reference to film and television, drama is a genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humourous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular subgenre, such as "political drama", "legal drama", "historical period drama", "domestic drama", or "comedy-drama".

Experimental Rock
Experimental Rock

Experimental rock (or avant-rock) is a subgenre of rock music which pushes the boundaries of common composition and performance technique or which experiments with the basic elements of the genre.

Fantasy
Fantasy

Fantasy is a subgenre of speculative fiction and is distinguished from the genres of science fiction and horror by the absence of scientific or macabre themes respectively, though these genres overlap. In popular culture, the fantasy genre is predominantly of the medievalist form.

Folk Punk
Folk Punk

Folk punk (known in its early days as rogue folk) is a fusion of folk music and punk rock. It was popularized in the early 1980s by The Pogues in Britain, and by Violent Femmes in the United States. Folk punk achieved some mainstream success in that decade.

General Cross-Genre Historical Romance Juvenile Fantasy LGBT Pulp Fiction
General Cross-Genre Historical Romance Juvenile Fantasy LGBT Pulp Fiction

Urban fiction . Thriller . Conspiracy fiction . Legal thriller . Medical thriller . Political thriller . Spy fiction . Psychological thriller . Techno-thriller . General cross-genre . Historical romance . Juvenile fantasy . LGBT pulp fiction . Gay male pulp fiction . Lesbian pulp fiction . Lesbian erotica fiction . Paranormal romance . Romantic fantasy .

source: answers.com
Goth / Gothic Rock
Goth / Gothic Rock

Gothic rock typically deals with dark themes addressed through lyrics and the music's atmosphere. The poetic sensibilities of the genre led gothic rock lyrics to exhibit literary romanticism, morbidity, existentialism, religious symbolism or supernatural mysticism.

Historical
Historical

Historical fiction. Historical fiction is a literary genre in which the plot takes place in a setting located in the past.

Horror
Horror

Horror is a genre of speculative fiction which is intended to, or has the capacity to frighten, scare, disgust, or startle its readers or viewers by inducing feelings of horror and terror. Literary historian J. A. Cuddon has defined the horror story as "a piece of fiction in prose of variable length... which shocks or even frightens the reader, or perhaps induces a feeling of repulsion or loathing".

Mystery
Mystery

Mystery fiction is a genre of fiction usually involving a mysterious death or a crime to be solved. In a closed circle of suspects, each suspect must have a credible motive and a reasonable opportunity for committing the crime.

Romance
Romance

Romance Genre: Romance fiction is smart, fresh and diverse. Whether you enjoy contemporary dialogue, historical settings, mystery, thrillers or any number of other themes, there's a romance novel waiting for you! Two basic elements comprise every romance novel: a central love story and an emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending.

source: rwa.org
Satire
Satire

Satire is a genre of literature, and sometimes graphic and performing arts, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, corporations, government, or society itself into improvement.

Science Fiction
Science Fiction

Science fiction. Science fiction (often shortened to SF or sci-fi) is a genre of speculative fiction, typically dealing with imaginative concepts such as futuristic science and technology, space travel, time travel, faster than light travel, parallel universes, and extraterrestrial life.

image: flickr.com
Self Help
Self Help

Self-help or self-improvement is a self-guided improvement—economically, intellectually, or emotionally—often with a substantial psychological basis. Many different self-help group programs exist, each with its own focus, techniques, associated beliefs, proponents and in some cases, leaders.

Suspense Fiction Crime Fiction Detective Fiction Gong'an Fiction
Suspense Fiction Crime Fiction Detective Fiction Gong'an Fiction

You’ve no doubt heard the terms crime fiction, mysteries and thrillers – but is there really a difference? The way books are categorized is influenced by a wide range of factors, from an author’s reputation to marketing goals to the space on a store’s shelves.

Thriller Mystery Fiction Legal Thriller Medical Thriller
Thriller Mystery Fiction Legal Thriller Medical Thriller

Thriller is a broad genre of literature, film and television, having numerous, often overlapping subgenres. Thrillers are characterized and defined by the moods they elicit, giving viewers heightened feelings of suspense, excitement, surprise, anticipation and anxiety.

Tragedy Melodrama
Tragedy Melodrama

Tragedy (from the Greek: τραγῳδία, tragōidia) is a form of drama based on human suffering that invokes an accompanying catharsis or pleasure in audiences.

Urban Fiction
Urban Fiction

Urban fiction, also known as street lit or street fiction is a literary genre set in a city landscape; however, the genre is as much defined by the socio-economic realities and culture of its characters as the urban setting.

image: demco.com
Westerns
Westerns

Euro Westerns are Western genre films made in Western Europe. The term can sometimes, but not necessarily, include the Spaghetti Western subgenre (see below). One example of a Euro Western is the Anglo-Spanish film The Savage Guns .

Women's Fiction Class S Femslash Matron Literature
Women's Fiction Class S Femslash Matron Literature

Literary fiction vs. genre fiction Literary fiction is a term used to distinguish certain fictional works that possess commonly held qualities to readers outside genre fiction. Literary fiction has been defined as any fiction that attempts to engage with one or more truths or questions, hence relevant to a broad scope of humanity as a form of expression. There are many sources that help readers find and define literary fiction and genre fiction.

Workplace Tell-all
Workplace Tell-all

Genre is a label that characterizes what a reader can expect in a work of literature. The major forms of literature can be written in various genres. Genre is a category characterized by similarities in style, or subject matter. The classic major genres of literature are: Fiction.