So Many Subgenres, So Little Time!

So you're interested in fantasy. Well, there's a whole lot of fantasy out there, and looking into the waters can be...well...let's just say they can be intimidating.

What do I mean? I mean SUBGENRES!

Man. Even the word looks intimidating, doesn't it?

No worries. Subgenres are simply a way to define a storytelling trend in a book. Genres in general are used for marketing purposes. It's much easier for a person who is looking for a mystery novel to have an entire section of a book store dedicated to what might interest them than to need to read the back of EVERY book and search through EVERY shelf just to find something that they might find interesting.

Yes, genre can be quite handy for the book-consumer, and for those who need to sell said books to said consumers. Genre simplifies things, so that a person in search of a cozy romance doesn't accidentally buy an H.P. Lovecraft anthology.

It looks so simple. Then you get into subgenres.

Oh, dear. What are those?

It's quite simple. Subgenres are the genres within the genres.

On a single horror shelf, you might find a slasher horror, a psychological horror, a supernatural horror, a Lovecraftian horror, the list goes on and on.

A fantasy shelf can be just as convoluted.

So, if you're new to the subgenre game, here are some of the more common subgenres in fantasy, and the basics of what they mean.

Intro: Why Am I Here?

Hello there! My name is Nicole, and welcome to my blog!

To get what I'm here for out of the way, here's what I'm planning to blog about:
I am a bookworm and writer, so this blog is going to be writing and book related.

What kind of writing and book-related content, you may ask?

In particular, I write fantasy. I am not yet published (at the time of writing this), but I have been writing consistently for the past decade. In recent years in particular I have been doing a lot of research into writing, and I'm constantly trying to improve my craft.

I'm a self-taught writer. The extent of my writing education is through searching the internet for lectures, going to conferences, and studying the way that the books I read are written. And, to be honest, there are some subjects that, in spite of searching, I still struggled to find answers for. Different techniques that, the deeper I searched, the more confusing things seemed. I could read and listen to everything I wanted on subjects like culture and worldbuilding and magic and character, but sometimes the answers I found didn't...click, for lack of a better term. I could understand what was being said, but I still struggled to make what I learned work in a story. I had the pieces, but for a long time I was struggling to put them together.

Which brings me here.

Sometimes the best way to learn something is to hear it from a different point of view, and I figured that maybe my point of view could be helpful to someone else who is in search of answers.

I know that I'm still learning, and I am by no means an expert in writing. Then again, there isn't a single writer out there who knows everything there is to know about the craft. Learning is a constant thing, and I'm excited to learn more through this blog as well.

So, once again, welcome to my blog, and thanks for stopping by!