Hello and welcome to The Cubhouse, a blog about writing, reading, finding, researching and analysing children's and young adult books 📚
I'm Siobhán, a developmental editor working with authors of middle grade and YA fiction. I'm also a mum, a volunteer school librarian and a Children's Literature MA grad, so my interest in kidlit is personal and academic as well as professional!
I passionately believe that children and teenagers need and deserve access to great stories, not only because reading for pleasure develops empathy, boosts comprehension levels and contributes to overall happiness and success in life, but also because it's fun.
That's why I spend my days helping brilliant writers create wonderful books fo children and teenagers.
Joelle Wisler
Siobhán's advice shaped my manuscript and query into a project that got a full manuscript request from an agent in the first week of querying.
Jennifer Grolemund
I am completely BLOWN AWAY! Your feedback is SO helpful and SO thoughtful. You are a truly talented editor!
Hazel Compton
One of the best things I’ve ever done for my writing. I’ve been writing for years, but this manuscript critique has developed and delved into a much stronger, deeper and focused version of my novel.
Angela Kecojevic
You’ve nailed everything and picked up on the things only an editorial expert can spot! You really have been amazing. I couldn’t have asked for a better editor to help with this!
This is part thirteenth of my serialisation of my kidilt genre course Space opera, steampunk and slashers, oh my! I’ll be sharing the content here every week over the coming months but you can grab the full course now if you just can’t wait! Read on for lessons with videos and transcripts.
Choosing a genre if you haven’t started writing yet
If you’re still at the early stages of the planning process and you’re not sure what you want to write yet, you can start by narrowing down the genres you’d like to explore in your writing.
Think about your favourite genres. If you’re not sure what they are, don’t worry! I’ve got an exercise for you.
Make a list of your favourite novels. It could be your top ten ever or just ten that you’ve most enjoyed in the past year. Doing this exercise with modern children’s book is absolutely ideal because they’ll be most representative of what these genres look like in kidlit today.
But if you’re new to the children’s book space you probably don’t have a list of middle grade or YA titles you love yet, so start with adult books you love or children’s books you liked when you were a kid. Bear in mind your tastes might have changed since childhood, so just because you loved fantasy as a kid doesn’t mean you want to write it now.
Note down the genre and subgenre for each book. If you don’t know it offhand, look it up online and see how it’s categorised.
You might not spot an immediate pattern, particularly if you’re a fan of the classics or literary fiction as opposed to commercial fiction which is much easier to label! Ask yourself what you like about those books. What elements really stand out to you? Is it the overall tone? Is it the humour? The premise itself? The characters? Start to look for a common thread.
If I were trying to narrow down the genre I love most by looking at my favourite adult books, it might look something like this (disclaimer: my favourite books change all the time but these are a few that I love!).
Dracula (supernatural horror)
Frankenstein (gothic horror / science fiction)
Never Let Me Go (dystopian science fiction)
84 Charing Cross Road (epistolary memoir)
The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole (epistolary humour)
The Secret History (dark academia thriller)
We Have Always Lived in the Castle (gothic suspense)
American Wife (historical / literary)
The Long Walk (dystopian horror)
The Cabin at the End of the World (apocalyptic horror)
There’s a bit of a mix here but the genres and subgenres that crop up most are horror, science fiction, gothic and dystopian, which suggests I like my books scary or dark. Ding ding! I’m a huge horror fan and that’s always where I lean when coming up with new story ideas. You can also see from this list that I like epistolary novels (I’ve been in love with them since reading Paula Danziger and Ann M. Martin’s PS Longer Letter Later) so that might inspire me when coming up with ideas, too. Could I write a horror novel in letter form? Or a dystopian diary? Why not!
Have a go at writing your top ten in your workbook and check which genres dominate your list. Do you fancy writing within those genres for the middle grade or YA market? Go grab some recently published books and see what you think!
This is part twelve of my serialisation of my kidilt genre course Space opera, steampunk and slashers, oh my! I’ll be sharing the content here every week over the coming months but you can grab the full course now if you just can’t wait! Read on for lessons with videos and transcripts.
Already written your manuscript? Why you need to identify the genre now
If you’re already written a novel and still aren’t sure what genre it is, don’t panic – now’s the time to give it some thought! Being clear on your manuscript’s genre once it’s written means you can:
Find suitable beta readers
Remember what I said about finding critique partners who know your genre? The same goes for beta readers! If you can tell people what genre your book is, you’re more likely to find the right people to read it and their feedback is more likely to be relevant and valuable to you because it will take into account the reader expectations associated with your genre. Asking somebody who hates fantasy to tell you what they thought of your magic school story probably won’t result in constructive feedback you can use.
Find the right editor
If you choose to hire a professional editor it can really help to find somebody who’s experienced in your genre. If you hire a developmental editor to feed back on your horror story but they’ve never edited horror before, they might not know what to look out for. And if you’ve written a historical novel, hiring a copyeditor who knows that genre could help them spot anachronisms and things that might annoy fans of the genre.
Write the perfect pitch or blurb
If you know your genre, you can incorporate elements into your pitch or back cover blurb that will entice genre fans (or an agent) to pick up your book. Mystery fans typically enjoy finding clues in the story and trying to solve the case before the protagonist does, so you could show them in your pitch that this is exactly what’s in store for them! Fantasy fans are looking for magical stories so don’t just focus your character’s internal journey in your blurb and forget to mention her superpowers!
Approach the right agents
If you’re going down the traditional publishing route, you’ll want to query agents. If you don’t know your genre it can be hard to find the right agent for your manuscript because different agencies – and different agents within those agencies – are all seeking different sorts of books at any given time. Check out MSWL: you’ll find agents begging for middle grade ghost stories, YA fantasy, science fiction, steampunk, murder mystery… You might have the perfect book for them but you won’t know it if you have no idea of your story’s genre!
Do market research
Finding the right comp titles helps you sell your book to agents and potential readers because you’re telling them that people who loved book X will love your book, too. Knowing your genre will really help you find the most appropriate comp titles because it will narrow down your search.
Attract the perfect readers for your book
If you’re self-publishing, you’ll need to choose categories for your book when you sell it through online retailers like Amazon or add it to review sites like Goodreads. If you really nail your genre and subgenre, your book is more likely to be discovered by your ideal readers because they’ll be actively searching for books in your genre.
This is part eleven of my serialisation of my kidilt genre course Space opera, steampunk and slashers, oh my! I’ll be sharing the content here every week over the coming months but you can grab the full course now if you just can’t wait! Read on for lessons with videos and transcripts.
Why should you pick a genre before you start plotting?
It might sound strange to think about your genre’s categorisation and how you’ll market it before you’ve even started writing. Where’s the fun in that? You can worry about labels later! But thinking about genre upfront can be a really great way to make sure you’re not straying too far from reader expectations when you write, plus it can help you stay on track with your story: does that wild subplot about the next-door neighbour turning into a dragon fit this cyberpunk fantasy? Will supernatural horror fans love it if the creepy monster in the closet turns out to have been a cute little mouse all along? Will YA romance readers feel satisfied when your protagonist’s love interest gets eaten by zombies just before they have their first kiss?
The answer to all of those questions is ‘probably not’. But those ideas absolutely could work brilliantly in a different genre!
Writing a book and then trying to retrofit it into a genre category can be hard work. Say you’ve written a story about a killer stalking a small town, picking off kids one by one, and now you’re trying to decide where it should sit on the shelf. You think the premise sounds like horror but you didn’t actually make it scary. So you call it a murder mystery, instead, except you revealed the killer right at the start. Now what?
By nailing your genre and subgenre early on, you can:
Choose whether to incorporate the genre tropes and conventions that readers expect
If you know which genre you’re writing in, you can make informed choices about which tropes, devices and common themes to include in your manuscript. Maybe you’re writing a cosy mystery and you know fans will expect an amateur detective to solve the case and save the day: it’s your choice whether you align with that expectation or not but at least you won’t be surprised if readers question your choice! You might decide to subvert expectations and put a twist on that ‘amateur detective’ trope (like Alasdair Beckett-King’s Montgomery Bonbon, the ten-year-old amateur sleuth who dresses as a middle-aged detective and tricks the police into inviting her onto cases), deliberately building a fresh approach into your manuscript and then making a feature of it in your agent queries or marketing materials, rather than trying to retrospectively cover up the fact that you didn’t know the genre very well to start with.
Identify if it’s middle grade or YA
It can be tricky figuring out the right audience for your novel but nailing your genre can help. If you know you definitely want to write a slasher horror, it’s probably going to be YA rather than middle grade. If you’re itching to write an animal fantasy, it’s likely to be aimed at a younger readership.
Let the genre inform the tone and mood of your manuscript
If you know you’re writing a gothic romance, you can introduce a dark, moody vibe and foreboding setting from the first page while a lighter, contemporary romance might be funnier and more upbeat in tone.
Picture your ideal reader
Often when we write a children’s book we’re imagining those readers clutching the paperback to their chest and telling all their friends they just have to read it. If you know what genre you’re writing, you’ll get a much clearer picture of that future reader: are they a steampunk fan? A gamer who loves LitRPG? That can help you stay true to your vision of the book, writing a story you know that your reader’s going to fall in love with.
Keep your word count in check
Middle grade and YA come with typical word counts and anything radically longer or shorter in length is likely to get passed over by agents and, even worse, readers. But certain genres, particularly science fiction and fantasy, often come with longer word counts to allow for all the rich world building and exposition that other genres might not need. So being aware of your genre upfront means you’ll have a better idea of your manuscript’s ideal length.
Find the right writing group or critique partner to support you
You might decide to join a writing group or seek out a writing partner to work with while you write, getting ongoing support and feedback on your drafts. By being clear on your genre with those people you’ll be more likely to find the perfect partner to critique your work, rather than sharing your contemporary romance draft with somebody who only reads westerns.
Study the market and get a feel for what’s already out there
Lots of authors don’t feel comfortable reading within their genre while they write a draft in case other writers influence their work. Personally, I think it’s a great thing to be influenced by other people’s work – particularly modern work that’s being published today! You absolutely shouldn’t pander to the market and write for specific trends but it is important to understand what children are reading right now and what’s being published within your genre. On one hand, you won’t be reinventing the wheel by writing stories that have already been done to death, and on the other hand you’ll become familiar with the themes, styles, perspectives and approaches that publishers are looking for and that children want to read right now.
This is part nine of my serialisation of my kidilt genre course Space opera, steampunk and slashers, oh my! I’ll be sharing the content here every week over the coming months but you can grab the full course now if you just can’t wait! Read on for lessons with videos and transcripts.
Pitching agents
I’ve talked about why understanding your manuscript’s genre is important, particularly when it comes to pitching your book to publishing professionals. They’ll want to know quickly what sort of book you’ve written so they can ascertain whether they’re the right person to address your query, and whether they’re looking for books of that genre right now.
But what about subgenre? Do agents need to know that upfront?
There is no rule that you have to tell agents your book’s subgenre. If you want to just call it ‘science fiction’ or ‘fantasy’ or ‘mystery’, that’s absolutely fine! You won’t get in trouble!
If you do know your subgenre, include it, because it’s a quick and concise way of communicating what kind of book you’ve written. But if you’re really struggling to narrow it down or you just don’t think your book fits neatly into a subgenre (and it’s definitely easier with some genres than others), DON’T PANIC!
If you’ve written a fantastic novel with great characterisation, a strong voice, a compelling hook and a well-developed plot, you’re not going to destroy your chances of publication forever by pitching it as ‘urban fantasy’ rather than ‘steampunk’ or calling it ‘a queer romance’ rather than ‘an adventure story with a strong romantic subplot’.
But you will be making the process easier and giving yourself the best chance of success if you know what sort of book you’ve written as it means you can approach the right agents and cut to the chase quickly in your query letter.
So if you’re not sure of your subgenre, leave it out and focus on other ways of communicating your story’s category to agents.
Maybe it’s a fantasy with science fiction elements, or a gothic-inspired mystery, or a romance with fairytale influences, or historical fiction with a spooky twist.
Or perhaps you just call it a romance or a fantasy or a western and let your pitch and synopsis give agents the rest of the picture. That’s fine, too! Don’t lose sleep over pinning down that subgenre if it’s not coming easily.
This is a really interesting interview with two publishing professionals discussing how important genre is when pitching to agents. They both agree that mentioning a specific genre is important, even if your manuscript is genre-bending, but Laura Zats warns against getting ultra specific. What’s she’s really saying, I think, is that it’s great to name familiar subgenres like the ones we’ve been discussing in this course but don’t try to narrow it down to the point that you’re cramming all the book’s tropes into a made-up subgenre!
‘I’ve written a paranormal horror’ is one thing but ‘I’ve written a haunted-house, found footage, enemies to lovers romantic horror novel’ is pigeonholing your manuscript into a space that doesn’t really exist!
Here’s a sample from the interview that I think is really useful:
Do you expect writers to indicate their genre in a query letter, or is it just as effective to leave it open ended, so that you can make the final call? Are you impressed when a writer deems their work “genre-bending” or “hybrid,” or is this too vague of an assessment?
TSF: Genre is very important to include. The purpose of your query letter is to intrigue the agent enough to want to start reading your work. Being able to give a sense of what type of book you’re asking them to read is a crucial part of that. It also shows you know your market. I do love when a writer calls their work “genre-bending”—if that’s what it is—but I want to know specifics. Don’t just leave it there. Genre-bending in what way? Take a classic example in film. If I knew nothing about the movie “Alien,” calling it genre-bending or a genre hybrid would do nothing to tell me what I was getting into. But if you told me it was horror/science fiction, I’d be intrigued enough to want to read on.
LZ: Personally, I love working with books that are cross-genre or genre-bending, but crucially, every book still has a primary genre. Naming one primary genre tells me that you understand genre, that you’re a reader, and that you know where your book fits in the market. When I sell books that cross the boundaries between literary fiction and fantasy, for example, to literary fiction editors, I’ll call it a “work of literary fiction with speculative elements,” and to sci-fi & fantasy (SFF) editors I’ll call it “literary (literary being a quality mostly describing writing here) fantasy.” If a writer has a crossover, I encourage them to use the same technique for querying, with the caveat that stretching a description of your book to fit a genre will end up being a waste of your time.
Continuing this line of thinking, if a writer takes a granular approach to identifying their genre, does this give them an edge? A self-publishing writer who chooses an obscure enough genre often becomes a bestselling writer, at least in that genre. Could this same thinking apply to traditional publishing? Or is there a limit to the number of genres, subgenres, and other descriptors they should use when searching for an agent?
TSF: This is a difficult question because I think every agent and editor is different in what they’re looking for. I think the best thing to do is look at their websites and see what kind of information they’re asking for when you query them. For me, personally, if there’s a snappy marketing way of saying it (“this is an enemies-to-lovers, one-bed-only sci-fi/rom-com set on a spaceship orbiting Mars”) then I’m into it. (I’m not looking for a sci-fi/rom-com, but there’s a ton I am looking for and I love a well-done genre blend). However, if you need to go into more detail, it’s probably better to work it into the description of the plot or in a separate paragraph after you describe the plot.
LZ: While a granular approach might be helpful if an indie author wants to hit an Amazon bestseller list, being too specific with your genre will actively hurt a writer querying their book to agents for a few different reasons. First, listing hyper-specific subgenres can communicate that the writer doesn’t understand how traditional publishing approaches genre (which can be extrapolated to mean that they don’t understand how genre relates to larger organizational structures like imprints). Second, a lot of those online retailer subgenres say more about theme than subject, and theme is not an effective way to pitch a book! And finally, focusing too specifically will more than likely mess up your agent research—you might end up querying too broadly (because no one lists your specific subgenre), which is a waste of time, or you might end up eliminating agents based on broad wish lists without giving them a chance to look at your book. As a rule, stick to well-known and well-established subgenres and let your plot paragraphs do the heavy lifting!
Assuming there is no definitive list of genres, how do you suggest that writers narrow theirs down? Do you have any other advice on why this does (or doesn’t) matter?
TSF: Ultimately, on top of helping industry professionals position your book, it’s also important to show you know the market your book will be competing in, to understand the fans of that genre, to be well-read in that genre, etc. The more you know about the areas you’re publishing into, the easier it will be for you to reach those readers, both with your work and with your marketing efforts to promote your work. And knowing those things, and having a wider reach, will also make you more appealing to publishers.
LZ: Stay as general as you can while still being descriptive! “Fiction” doesn’t cut it as it’s too vague, but “commercial fiction” is fine! “Women’s fiction” is fine! If you’re writing genre fiction, you’ll have more access to common subgenres (for example, urban fantasy, military science fiction, domestic thriller), but if you can’t pick one or are having trouble deciding, it’s okay! Just zoom out a ton and make sure your plot paragraphs in your query are doing their job!
This is part eight of my serialisation of my kidilt genre course Space opera, steampunk and slashers, oh my! I’ll be sharing the content here every week over the coming months but you can grab the full course now if you just can’t wait! Read on for lessons with videos and transcripts.
Combining genres
Some subgenres are so ubiquitous they’re like genres in their own right. Romantic comedy, dystopian sci-fi, urban fantasy. But what if you feel your manuscript contains elements from more than one genre that don’t usually go together? Apocalyptic adventure. Cli-fi romance. Steampunk mystery.
No problem. You can mix them together into a subgenre that suits your book in order to give potential readers a more accurate picture of what they’re getting. But it’s always best to choose one overriding category as your main genre so readers instantly understand the type of book this is.
If you were going to shelve your book at a library or bookshop, which shelf would it sit on? Most bookshops won’t have a ‘romantic fantasy’ or ‘literary horror’ section so whoever’s shelving it has to make a call: what sort of book is this really? Would it appeal more to fans of literary fiction or horror fiction? Which genre’s conventions does the book most closely align with?
When we talk about subgenres like dystopian science fiction, we’re telling readers the overriding genre – science fiction – and then describing what type of science fiction we’ve written. In this case, dystopian. That second term (science fiction) usually comes last because it tells readers our ‘main’ genre and it’s being modified by the term in front of it.
Usually, a romantic fantasy is a fantasy book that features romantic elements so readers will expect it to meet fantasy conventions first and foremost (rich worldbuilding, magical elements, etc.) while a fantasy romance is a romance novel that features fantastical elements so readers will expect romance conventions to be met (like happily ever after).
The same goes for less well-worn subgenres. If you’ve written a romance story set on Mars, you might choose to call it sci-fi romance or romantic science fiction. Which genre is the real focus of your novel? Will it appeal most to romance readers or sci-fi fans? If you had to choose a shelf at the bookshop, which would you pick?
Remember you don’t have to throw every element of your story into your genre description. Just because you feature a romance subplot doesn’t mean you need to call your book a romance (the majority of YA novels feature some sort of romance subplot but that doesn’t define their genre).
Conversely, don’t bury the lede and hide your genre: if your book is set in a magical world where characters have powers and animals fly, it’s important that readers know this is a fantasy upfront.
Some people will actively avoid fantasy novels (as is their right!) so if you pitched this as a screwball comedy or western adventure and they picked it up, chances are they’d put it down again once they read the back cover or got a few pages in. It’s not your job to encourage readers who don’t enjoy your genre to give it a go by pretending it’s something else.
I read a Twitter thread recently about a guy on a dating app who lied about his age, changing it from 52 to 48 so that he’d appear in women’s algorithms even if they’d specifically said that didn’t want to meet men in that age category. He’d ‘fess up once they got matched. ‘But I’m a young 52!’ he said when they complained. ‘It’s important for women to give older guys a chance and they’ll change their minds when they meet me.’
But that’s not his decision! Women have been given the choice to select who they’d like to meet and the men on the app need to respect that. Cheating the algorithm and lying to women about their age won’t impress them, it will annoy them! The same goes for misleading readers about the sort of book you’ve written.
If there are several genres and subgenres calling out to you when you think about your manuscript, write them all down and try to pick the one that really captures your story the best. Which genre’s conventions does your novel really align with? Which genre’s fans will go wild for your blurb? Genre labels are there to help readers pick books they love so you don’t need to be too clever here – just be honest and accurate about the sort of story you’ve written.
This is part seven of my serialisation of my kidilt genre course Space opera, steampunk and slashers, oh my! I’ll be sharing the content here every week over the coming months but you can grab the full course now if you just can’t wait! Read on for lessons with videos and transcripts.
Set the mood
Don’t get so hung up on genre definitions and tropes that you forget to think about the feel of your book. What vibes will it give readers? What’s the overall tone? When they curl up to read your book, how are they going to feel? If you made a mood board for your book, what would the aesthetic be?
Let’s say your book focuses on a love story between two witches so you label it horror because witches are often the domain of supernatural horror. But if the book isn’t written with the intention of being scary or unsettling and instead has romantic, sweet and hopeful vibes, horror fans won’t really be getting what they want.
Instead, you’ve written a romance novel that happens to be about witches so you could call it fantasy romance and that will give readers a much better idea of what they’re going to get from your book and you’ll attract romance fans instead of horror fans.
Make a mood board for your book either on Pinterest or on paper. What sort of book does it look like from the images you’ve chosen? Try showing it to somebody who doesn’t know anything about your manuscript. What genre would they guess it is?
This is part six of my serialisation of my kidilt genre course Space opera, steampunk and slashers, oh my! I’ll be sharing the content here every week over the coming months but you can grab the full course now if you just can’t wait! Read on for lessons with videos and transcripts.
Genre is super important in kidlit!
Genre labels help children make choices and I truly believe genre is even more important in kidlit than anywhere else because young people are still discovering different types of books and learning what they love, so being able to label them and articulate what they enjoy will help them find more of those sorts of books and expand their horizons even further.
If a child goes into a library or bookshop and just says ‘I’d like a book for children my age, please’ they’re taking a huge gamble and might come away with something they hate. Now, that’s fine – it’s good to try new things and they can return the book if they don’t like it. But if they can say ‘I’d like some dystopian sci-fi’ or ‘have you got any funny graphic novels?’ they’re much more likely to get a book they love and that will help turn them into passionate readers.
I volunteer part time as a primary school librarian and children are always asking me ‘are there any stories about football?’ (Yep! In the sports section) or ‘where are the funny books?’ (Try the ‘joke book’ shelf) or ‘do you have anything scary?’ (Check out this horror display!) Most of these kids know what they want and genre helps them find it.
By labelling books with genres and subgenres, we allow children to take ownership of their reading: they learn what they enjoy and can choose to read more of those sorts of books or try new things without relying on adults to help them pick. They don’t have to identify as just ‘middle grade readers’ or ‘young adult readers’ – they can articulate what they enjoy and don’t enjoy and continue to explore the genres they love across all age categories as their reading skills and comprehension develop.
After all, just because you’re ten doesn’t mean you can only read middle grade! I get year 4s and 5s coming in to the library to borrow picture books, chapter books, comics, non-fiction, middle grade and YA. Relying solely on age categories wouldn’t be any help to these children!
Of course, experimenting and playing with expectations as an author is absolutely encouraged. I know it can feel restrictive to have to operate within genre boundaries when you just want to be creative and go with the flow. But genre is as much a marketing tool as anything and publishing relies on clear categorisation, particularly in children’s books.
Genre-bending and crossovers are less common in middle grade, partly because most younger readers aren’t yet familiar enough with the conventions of particular genres to fully appreciate or seek out mash ups or subverted tropes. Less confident or experienced readers can find it reassuring to recognise and even predict common devices and structures in books.
YA and the upper YA space in particular tends to be more experimental as teens become more versed in the traditions and tropes of their favourite genres and are ready to branch out and find something fresh that challenges them.
Go into your local bookshop and note how the children’s and teen books are shelved. Are there sections labelled for wider genres like fantasy, romance and horror? Is anything shelved differently from how you’d have done it? Where would your manuscript sit? Can you find books in the shop that would appeal to your readers? What genre are they?
This is part five of my serialisation of my kidilt genre course Space opera, steampunk and slashers, oh my! I’ll be sharing the content here every week over the coming months but you can grab the full course now if you just can’t wait! Read on for lessons with videos and transcripts.
Do children’s books even have genres?
Middle grade and young adult (and chapters books, ‘junior fiction’, ‘teen’, new adult and adult fiction) are not genres, they’re audiences.
When booksellers, reviewers and even publishing professionals list middle grade and YA as ‘genres’, it does the authors and readers a huge disservice. It implies that the target age group is all there is to these books. Children’s books are children’s books – they’re all the same, right? If you’re a kid, you’ll read any old middle grade and if you’re a teenager, you’re going to enjoy all YA. No need to narrow down your choices further.
But of course that’s not true! All books are different and so are children.
Ask an eight year old, ‘Hey, what are your favourite kinds of books to read?’ and they’re probably not going to say, ‘I like children’s books!’ Most likely, they’ll say ‘sports stories!’ or ‘murder mysteries!’ or ‘graphic novels about cats!’ or ‘anything with dragons!’ or ‘fast-paced multiple POV portal fantasies featuring a diverse cast and strong character arc’ (now that’s a kid who knows what they want).
So YES, genre absolutely exists in children’s books! Underneath the middle grade and YA age category umbrellas lie (pretty much) all the usual fiction genres you’ve seen in adult fiction. Of course some don’t crop up too often because they’re inappropriate or inaccessible for a young audience, like police procedurals, splatterpunk and erotic thrillers for obvious reasons! So if you were planning to query a middle grade agent with your ultra-violent, sexy courtroom drama, you’re on your own.
It’s not always easy to stick a label on a story since categories and subcategories overlap and can mean different things to different people but understanding what these genre terms typically mean can help you focus your own story ideas and point you in the direction of similar books so you can find comp titles and study your genre. It also means you look knowledgeable and professional if you approach agents and publishers – bonus!
Go to your local library and choose some books from the children’s or teen shelves, the more different from each other the better. Think about the sorts of kids who would like them. How would you describe these books to them? What words stand out on the back cover or in the title that hint at genre? Are there any children in your life that you’d recommend these books to?
This is part four of my serialisation of my kidilt genre course Space opera, steampunk and slashers, oh my! I’ll be sharing the content here every week over the coming months but you can grab the full course now if you just can’t wait! Read on for lessons with videos and transcripts.
What’s a trope and how does it relate to genre?
In the context of literary genres, tropes are common motifs or literary devices that crop up in stories so regularly that readers become familiar with them and even expect them. They’re a big part of genre fiction because popular genres come with reader expectations and conventions.
Fantasy fans read fantasy novels because they enjoy the conventions of the genre and the tropes that often appear. It’s virtually impossible to write a novel within any genre that doesn’t feature a common trope somewhere!
Here are some popular tropes you’ll recognise from your own reading, along with the genres they’re most common in. These pop up in middle grade and/or YA often! Check out TV Tropes for thousands more!
The chosen one (fantasy)
Love triangle (romance as a main plot or any genre as a subplot – YA and above)
Haunted house (horror)
Enemies to friends (contemporary as a main plot or any genre as a subplot)
Friends to lovers (romance as a main plot or any genre as a subplot – YA and above)
Abandoned house / isolated setting (horror)
Found footage (horror)
Meet-cute (romance)
Forbidden love (romance or fantasy)
AI out of control (science fiction)
Police are useless (mystery and horror)
Zombie apocalypse (horror or science fiction)
Radiation causing superpowers (science fiction or fantasy)
How do tropes work in kidlit?
Tropes are especially important in books for a young audience. Children who are still gaining confidence as independent readers and learning what they like and don’t like can find genre conventions and tropes reassuring and comforting: they go in to a book with an idea of what to expect and they get it! I’ll talk much more about this in a little while.
You’ll spot the same devices and motifs popping up in stories time and time again, partly because readers enjoy them but also because they act like a shorthand within genres. If you see ‘chosen one’ or ‘friends to lovers’ on the back of a book it’s like a code: you immediately know what sort of story you’re getting, what genre it’s likely to be and whether you’re going to like it.
There’s a lot of advice out there warning authors away from tropes. People often assume ‘trope’ equals ‘cliché’ – and sometimes it does. A cliché is something that’s overused and tired and if a trope is used lazily or in the wrong story, it can feel like a gimmick or a sign that the author ran out of ideas. But when done right, a favourite trope can feel like an old friend to your readers.That’s why it’s important to know your genre really well. You’ll learn which tropes are popular, which ones feel overdone and how you can put your own twist on the tropes you love.
Don’t force it
I am not saying you have to cram your manuscript with tropes in order for it to be successful! If you’re shoehorning subplots and beats into your book simply so you can tick boxes on a genre convention list, it will feel clumsy and obvious to agents and readers. A trope only works if it’s handled well and feels authentic within the story. If you’re featuring a ‘friends to lovers’ moment in your manuscript, you have to do the groundwork and make readers believe and care about that dynamic from the start.
Don’t treat tropes as a to-do list. As with everything in this course, the more you understand something, the more you’re equipped to make deliberate, informed choices. When you know your genre well and are truly a fan of those types of stories, you will almost definitely be including popular tropes in your manuscript without even realising. Does your murder mystery feature red herrings and figurative smoking guns? Does your futuristic science fiction novel have characters zooming across space like it’s nothing? Do your romance protagonists first meet in a big, adorable way? Trope alert! You’re nailing it already.
I don’t want you go walk away from this course thinking you have to jam as many tropes as you can into your manuscript or completely rewrite your book so it aligns with all the common genre characteristics.
Maybe, after doing a bit of research, you’ll realise your book’s tropes align much more closely with a different genre and that’s how you should be pitching it. Or you’ll spot that you have included a trope without noticing and decide to lean into it further, really making sure readers recognise and enjoy it.
Look out for tropes when you read other novels and ask yourself: did that contribute to my enjoyment of the book? Did it signpost genre for me? Would it have been just as good without it? What other books do those tropes remind me of?
This is part three of my serialisation of my kidilt genre course Space opera, steampunk and slashers, oh my! I’ll be sharing the content here every week over the coming months but you can grab the full course now if you just can’t wait! Read on for lessons with videos and transcripts.
What’s a subgenre?
A subgenre (or sub-genre if you prefer) is just a more specific category within a wider genre, like ‘steampunk’ within science fiction or ‘cosy’ within mystery. It helps to narrow down types of stories even further so that readers know exactly what they’re getting and can make better choices.
Most genres are pretty huge. Fantasy, for example, can include stories about witches, dragons, zombies, fairytales, deep dark woods, flying kittens, magic sweets, bloody battles, unicorns, tin men, talking white rabbits and so much more. Not all fantasy stories will incorporate all of those elements (but can you imagine if it did! 😍) and not all fantasy fans will enjoy reading them all.
Crime stories vary, too. The excellent copyeditor Louise Harnby goes into detail about the different expectations and conventions associated with cosy crime, classic detective, hardboiled crime, spy thriller and police procedural.
Similarly, not all horror fans enjoy all horror subgenres. Somebody who loves supernatural horror might find more realistic stories like slashers or home invasions too scary. I’m a huge horror fan but I can’t stomach a lot of splatterpunk or body horror, for example. This is particularly relevant when it comes to kidlit because middle grade horror is almost always supernatural in some way while YA can feature lots of different subgenres so it’s good to understand the differences.
Sub-subgenre?
Often you can drill down even further within a subgenre. Under supernatural horror, for example, you’ll find ghost stories, vampires, haunted houses and possessions (among others). Under realistic horror, you could list found footage, slasher, psychological or home invasion.
Some people call those smaller categories subgenres in their own right while some think of them as categories or tropes within the supernatural horror genre – but the semantics don’t really matter. As long as you understand what sort of readers will enjoy your novel and what they’re expecting from the genre label you’ve chosen for your book, you’ll have a good chance of getting your book into the right audience’s hands.
Being able to zoom in and out like this, identifying your wider subgenre as well as the more niche tropes it features, will help you find suitable agents and comp titles, too. If you know your book is YA home invasion horror (hmm, does that exist?) but when you search online you can’t find any other books listed under that category in the YA space right now, you can zoom out a little and look at the wider subgenre of realistic horror.
That might bring up stories about serial killers and babysitter stalkers which will probably be similar to your manuscript in tone. If you’re looking for an agent who might be interested in representing your climate fiction (cli-fi) book but nobody’s specifically asking for that sort of fiction at the moment, you can zoom out and look for agents seeking apocalyptic stories or science fiction as these might cover your cli-fi manuscript depending on the plot.
Hi there! I'm Siobhán, a children's book editor who is totally obsessed with horror. This blog is where I explore the spooky, the macabre, the gory and the strange in stories, TV shows, films and games just for kids and teenagers.
This is the sister blog to Writer and the Wolf, my editing website. If you’re writing your own children’s book, head over there for advice and support!
