Novels

[fadedrose]

Copied from Virtual Salt.com. I thought it was fascinating that there are so many types of novels. All I knew were romance, science fiction and mysteries. =========================================================================

Types of Novel
Robert Harris
Version Date: May 26, 2000
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Here is a list of some of the types of novel. Some novels fall under more than one type. It is possible, for example, to have an epistolary, detective, psychological, regional novel. Some techniques used in writing novels (satire, metafiction) might also be argued as their own types. This list is not intended to be exhaustive, but rather to show the variety of types.

adventure novel
allegorical novel
anti-novel
apologue
autobiographical novel
best seller or pulp fiction novel
bildungsroman or apprenticeship novel
children's novel
Christian novel
cult or coterie novel
detective, mystery, thriller novel
dime novel
dystopian novel
epistolary novel
erotic novel
fantasy novel
Gothic novel
graphic novel
historical novel
hypertext novel
interactive novel
multicultural novel
novel of manners
novella
pastoral novel
picaresque novel
postmodern novel
prequel
proletarian novel
psychological novel
regional novel
roman a clef
roman fleuve (river novel)
romance novel
science fiction novel
sentimental novel
sequel
series novel
spy novel
utopian novel
western novel

Harris, Robert. "Evaluating Internet Research Sources." VirtualSalt. 15 June 2007. 17 Oct. 2008 <http://www.virtualsalt.com/evalu8it.htm>.

[SheilaT]

1. Hmmm. A novella is simpl a shorter piece of

work, not a genre. And a prequel and a sequel are simply novels that come before or after another one, and maybe no really a separate category. And doesn't dime novel simply tell us how much it originally cost?

[fadedrose]

2. My poor vocabulary...

Maybe there's another word in that list that means "funny" and I don't know it, but shouldn't there be a word for "comic" or "humorous?"

And does a work become a prequel after someone writes a sequel or is it called a prequel because he intends to write a sequel? It may never get written if he gets hit by a bus and the novel would be a stand-alone (another category he doesn't list).

[SheilaT]

3. Perhaps it was a list he made more or less off

the top of his head, and not intended to be exhaustive or definitive.

There are sub-types within genres that aren't listed there, such as types of mystery novels: police procedural, cozy, and so on. Within science-fiction and fantasy (and it makes me totally crazy that they are lumped together) there are further sub-groupings, such as sword and sorcery, alternate universe, space opera, and so on.