Photo by Chris Grafton on Unsplash
One of the challenges of writing is focusing the story. Say you know you have written a Thriller, but thrillers are tight, pared down to the basics and yours…has excess. But what do you keep and what do you jettison? Obviously filler (Cutting the Filler 5/2/2024) and dead words (10/9/2018) go, but that is removing stuff…how do you focus it? One of the ways is figuring out which particular subgenre you story fits into.
Doing a general search of “<genres of choice> subgenres” can help you figure out where your story should fall. For thrillers there are Medical Thrillers, Legal Thrillers, and Techno Thrillers, just to name a few. In an old (September 12, 2011) post, Katherine Roid at Scribbling on the Computer (https://kathrineroid.wordpress.com/2011/09/12/list-of-thriller-subgenres/) describes several thriller subgenres. In addition the post includes links to her science fiction and fantasy subgenres. If you want to know more about mysteries, a search on “mysteries subgenres” will open a plethora of options to better focus your story.
My personal favorite is Romantic Thriller or, more accurately, Thriller Romance where Romance has dominance over the Thriller aspect. Do you have a favorite Thriller subgenre, or a genre where Thriller is the subgenre?
I cut my reading teeth on Gothic Romance. Of course, back when I started reading them, I was a child – I didn’t even know the word “genre” and started calling them “girl running away from the house” books, because that’s what every cover features and it pretty well sums up the genre, doesn’t it?
I suppose Medical Thriller or Forensic Thriller – preferably with psychological and/or romantic elements – would be my favorites (to answer your question!)
“Girl running away from the house” certainly is correct. To be a proper Gothic, the house is its own character.
Is there a horror thriller genre? Or subversive thriller?
If there wasn’t before, there should be.
So many genres… I like a good tense thriller. I’m really late on blogs tonight, so I won’t delve any deeper than that.
I’ve enjoyed a few thrillers, but it’s not a genre I’ve deep-dived into. Rebecca by Daphne duMaurier might count, and if it does, it’s a favorite. @samanthabwriter from
Balancing Act
Subgenres are excellent. Good post.
J (he/him 👨🏽 or 🧑🏽 they/them) @JLenniDorner ~ Speculative Fiction & Reference Author and Co-host of the April Blogging #AtoZChallenge international blog hop