When I was writing Atlantic Split, I asked for opinions on what genre it fitted into. Whilst I knew it was quite hard to define, I certainly didn’t expect someone to say it was “sci-fi.” There are no spaceships or aliens and it isn’t set in the future, so why did that person say it was sci-fi? Well, this person was classifying it as an alternate history, kind of like a dystopia and yes, in fact in broad terms this comes under sci-fi.

Below is an image of the genre map from Book Country. As you can see, it’s not got everything but it has a lot of sub categories that you wouldn’t even think of. So yes, from this perspective, Atlantic Split is sci-fi. However, I know it’s not sci-fi and if I had put it in that category on my publishing sites, people would be very confused.

When I classify The Luke Bright Series as a whole, I call it young adult. However, even that‘s not entirely true. Young adult is if the protagonist is under 18 and hasn’t had any adult experiences. Luke’s 19 and is experiencing a lot of things for the second time, so he actually should be classed as a new adult. However, all the subcategories of new adult focus primarily on romantic or sexual plots – therefore that wasn’t the right option either. So, I settled on young adult. However, there’s an even narrower classification that The Luke Bright Series fits better into. Coming of age. All about growing up and finding true purpose.

However, in each individual book there are scenes of different genres: crime, mystery, action, adventure, legal and romance. That’s why it’s so hard to classify, and even the different books in the series differ from one another. One book might have more of one type of scene than the others, but is this okay? Shouldn’t a whole series be consistent?

Admittedly, I did have to change a few of the books to make them more in line with each other in their early drafts and now they’re much more streamlined. Also, much more exciting. However, if I personally had to choose a favourite genre of scene to write, it would be action. I love action scenes due to the high paced nature. However, the emotional scenes and legal scenes are also some of my favourites.

Being able to write over different genres does take some time, and it’s a good idea to have a practice to see what you like the best, even if it’s just a minor scene that needs a new genre. However, don’t force something you’re uncomfortable with if you don’t want to, and likewise, don’t use a huge variety of genres if they don’t fit in together. At Liberty To Live will be a much better example to learn from than Atlantic Split as it’s covers a whole lot of genres but these all fit in together to the wider story.

Atlantic Split is the first book in The Luke Bright Series and is available to purchase NOW! Please follow me on my blog and my social media links below and use the links on my website to purchase a copy if you have not done so. Don’t forget to leave a review! The second book, At Liberty To Live will be released in AUTUMN 2018. Thank you once again for taking the time to read this blog post.

N.A.K.