What Do You Do When Your Genre Doesn't exist?

        There is an exceeding number of book genres in existence. And those genres have sub-genres. Romance runs the gamut from Amish and bonnets, to sleezy stuff on the racks at gas stations and dollar stores. History can be almost everything. And then there is dystopian, The Hunger Games, When Atlas Shrugged, 1984. 

        Fantasy can be high fantasy, with elves and orcs and epic battles between good and evil- Lord of the Rings, Eragon, Blood of Kings. Or fantasy can be low-fantasy, where odd things happen in our own world--Twilight, Harry Potter, most fairy tales, the Arabian Nights. And then there is a bunch of weird fantasy novels for adults living in their parents basements. No offence to those of you who have found gems in all the weird stuff out there.

        I have spent much time researching the genre of my novel.   Some fantasies have dragons and trolls, but nobody can do magic. My people don't have dragons. There is no magic, but rather railway engines and telegraph wires. And everybody is human, no elves and dwarfs. That excludes it from high fantasy. It isn't Victorian or Edwardian, so it isn't steampunk. My people don't even have zeppelins. I felt a little hopeful when I discovered a book series with the genre of Gunpowder fantasy. I thought, "Hmm, this is closer." Nope. That book was about elvish Napoleons, and wizards firing off cannons. What do you call a book set in an early-mid 1800's world that has no magic and worships a Judeo-Christian God? After two years I have come to the decision that my genre doesn't exist...yet. I just have to invent it.

       The path to inventing a genre is a tough one. I entered my story in a contest. One of the judges said my combination of another world, medieval castles and civil war technology was strange. She basically said, "Who attacks a castle with cannons?" People did it all the time in the 1600's. Another person said that my names, so normal, felt out of place in another world. I don't know if the judges were right. Personally, I dislike fantasy books with long unpronounceable names. I find it distracting.

     My comfort is that most of those best-selling series out there are new genres some brave author invented. 

     Nobody had heard of dystopian for teens until Suzanne Collins wrote The Hunger Games.

     Publishers rejected the story of a boarding school for wizards twelve times. And now, Harry Potter is still a favorite.

    Since when do vampires and humans fall in love? The wildly successful Twilight. 

    If you can come up with a strange new idea, you can probably sell it. I hope. :-)