Content genre creates your story's spine. It tells you what kind of an emotional journey you're taking your reader on and what type of structure you'll need to utilize to create it. So when you know your content genre, you're not just giving your story a label, you're creating a framework that shapes your reader's experience. Welcome to the Write It Scared podcast. I'm your host, Stacy Fraser, a formally repressed creative soul, turned fiction writer, story editor, and author accelerator certified fiction book coach. At Write It Scared, we tell the truth about why writing a novel is so hard by acknowledging that most writers grapple with two stories: the one they want to put on the page to the best of their ability, and the often subconscious internal story that prevents them from doing it. This show is designed to help you identify and rewrite the internal narrative holding you back while you discover and write the story you want to tell and learn all the tools to help you do that successfully. Join me each week for a new episode where we'll talk about writing to deepen our understanding of the craft and of ourselves as writers. Writing a novel is an inside job that we do not do alone. Welcome to Write It Scared. I'm glad you're here. Let's dive in. Hi, writer. Welcome back to the Write It Scared podcast, where we talk about the messy and brave act of writing novels and how to do it with more clarity, confidence, and courage. I'm your host, Stacey Fraser, and today we are digging into something that doesn't get enough attention in the early stages of writing a novel, and that is your story's genre. And I don't mean the label you put on the book after it's done. I'm talking about identifying and understanding your content genre, the guts, the meat, what's actually between page one and the end before you start drafting, because when you do that, everything from plotting to character development becomes more focused, more intentional, and a lot less overwhelming. If you've been a listener for a while, you might remember that we dove deep into understanding story structure and character arcs in episode 42. And then we covered how to plan and outline your novel back in episode 50. And that was a pantzer-friendly version. So today's episode is going to build on both of those. And if you haven't listened to them yet, I'd highly recommend going back and checking them out. And I will make sure the link is in the show notes for you to do that. But before we dive into the craft topic, I want to let you know about a free writing summit that is happening this week. The Spark to Story Summit, which is taking place May 27th through the 29th, is a friendly online event for writers ready to take an idea and develop it into a completed first draft. This event is packed with 30 amazing guest speakers, authors, educators, coaches who will share simple practical steps, processes, and craft strategies to help you find your path forward into a completed first draft. I'll be speaking on the 29th about how to overcome shiny object syndrome and stay focused so you finish what you start. And I hope you join us. If you want a free ticket, you can head to the link in the show notes. Okay, now let's talk about genre. We tend to think of genre as marketing category, something that we pick so that our book can sit on the right shelf or show up in the right digital category. And sure, marketing genre is all of that and it's important, but it's only part of the picture of how a book is put together. The other piece that is just as important is content genre. Content genre creates your story's spine. It tells you what kind of an emotional journey you're taking your reader on and what type of structure you'll need to utilize to create it. So when you know your content genre, you're not just giving your story a label, you're creating a framework that shapes your reader's experience. So let's break down the marketing versus content genre in a way that's a bit more granular. Marketing genre, again, is what most writers think of first: fantasy, romance, mystery, sci-fi, historical. This is how your book is going to be categorized in bookstores and on online platforms. And it's useful for positioning the book after it's written. But it does not tell you how to build the book. Content genre, on the other hand, is the internal structure of the story. It's what writers need to keep in mind when planning, drafting, and revising. It answers the question: what kind of journey is my protagonist going on? And it helps you clarify the emotional transformation and ultimate change that your story is building toward. Understanding your content genre is going to give you a roadmap, and it will help you choose the right beats, identify your story's turning points, and deliver what your readers are often unconsciously craving. Every content genre comes with some built-in expectations that show up as conventions, which are recurring elements that readers associate with the genre, and obligatory scenes, which are big emotional turning points that readers expect to see. For example, in a romance, readers expect to see two, sometimes more if you're writing polyam, but two characters on a romantic path that involves emotional intimacy and vulnerability. And the meat cute is an obligatory scene that readers are watching for. So you don't want to leave it out and you don't want to bury it too late because romance readers are going to notice. They're watching for that moment when the love interests first see each other. A convention of mystery is that there is a puzzle, often a crime, that needs solving, and a character, some sort of detective, professional or amateur, who is trying to solve it. And an example of an obligatory moment or scene is the final reveal when the mystery is unraveled and justice is served. In an action adventure story, a reader expects a hero, a villain, and a series of trials and a big climactic showdown. And a must-have moment or obligatory scene is when the hero is brought to the brink of death, physically or emotionally, by the villain, before making a final comeback. These aren't formulas, they are emotional anchors for your story. The key is to meet reader expectations without being predictable. And the best way to do that is to know your content genre and be an invested reader of it. So there are two frameworks that I highly recommend you use to help you identify your content genre and learn what is required of it. And you can use one or the other. They're both saying similar things, just in different ways. And the first is Save the Cat Writes a Novel by Jessica Brody. And the second is the story grid, What Good Editors Know by Sean Coyne. In Save the Cat Writes a Novel, Jessica Brody adapts Blake Schneider's screenwriting method for novelists and classifies stories by their emotional arc, or what transformation the protagonist undergoes. And these are called story genres. And Save the Cat says there's 10 of them. Some examples are the Why Done It, The Rite of Passage, Monster in the House, Buddy Love, Fool Triumphant, and that's just to name a few. Each Save the Cat story genre includes conventions, character arcs, and structural expectations. And I'm not going to list them all here, but I have broken them down into a blog post that goes with this episode. So you can find all 10 Save the Cat story genres along with examples from popular books and movies linked in the show notes. Now the story grid, What Good Editors Know, by Sean Coyne takes a different approach. It classifies content genre based on the source of conflict in the story and splits them into two major categories, external and internal. And I'll give you a quick overview. External content genres focus on the conflict that comes from an outside source, something beyond the protagonist. And these tend to be more plot-heavy with big tangible stakes and a more linear progression. Some examples of external content genres would include action, think Indiana Jones, Crime, think The Godfather, Thriller, think Silence of the Lambs, Horror, that would be Bird Box or It, and Love, think The Notebook or Twilight. War, Western performance, and society stories also fall into the external content genres classified by the story grid. And each of these has a tangible value at stake: life, justice, love, survival. Now the internal content genres, which include status, worldview, and morality, focus on a conflict that is internal to the protagonist. It's inside the protagonist. These stories are more introspective and more emotionally driven. Their stakes tend to be less tangible and favor them being more personal, moral, or psychological. The story grid outlines each genre's core value and core event as well as specific conventions. And I have linked to their site and included more examples in the companion blog post that goes along with this podcast. And you can find that in the show notes. Now, can your story include more than one content genre? Absolutely. And often great stories do, but they can also be tricky to write. But the takeaway here is that you will have only one primary content genre. And that is the one that is going to shape your story spine. And to figure out what the primary content genre of your book is, you need to ask, who is your protagonist? Who's the main character? Whose story is this that we are following? And what is the big problem they're facing? What do they want and what's getting in their way? And that question will really help you understand if the conflict is more external or if it's more internal. And then ultimately you want to ask what kind of change do you want the protagonist and the world that they live in to undergo by the end of the story? So here's what I want you to walk away with from today's episode. Knowing your content genre is knowing your story's foundation. It helps you shape your characters, your plot, and your emotional arc. You don't want to skip over reader expectations. Instead, you want to meet and exceed them with intention. And knowing your content genre and being a reader of the content genre will help you do that. Genre is not a trap, it is a tool, and it's one that can help you simplify your writing process. But that does not mean that it's going to make writing your book easy. So pick a primary content genre and let it help guide you in your decisions as you draft. Study the conventions and the obligatory scenes for that genre because they are the heartbeat of your story. And if you want more help identifying your primary content genre, head over to the blog post linked in the show notes because it's loaded with examples and links to both Save the Cat and Story Grid so that you can find those excellent craft resources. Thank you so much for joining me today. I hope this episode helped you think a little bit more deeply about your content genre and perhaps gave you a new tool or perspective on how to nail down those foundational pieces of your story a little bit more. And if you want to build on what we talked about today, don't forget to go back and check out episode 42, which is all about story structure and understanding character arcs, and then listen to episode 50, where we talk about how to set yourself up to plan and outline your novel in a way that will work for you, whether you're a pantser or a plotter. Together, these three episodes will make a very powerful foundation for writing your novel that doesn't feel so overwhelming and that you can be excited about. So again, thanks for tuning in. I will be back next week with a new guest, Gina Kamer, who is going to talk to us about writing fantasy and building magic systems. So I'm very excited for that conversation. We laughed a lot, uh, so I had to edit the hell out of it. So check back in for that. And I hope that you join us at the Spark Distory Summit, which starts on Tuesday, May 27th and runs through the 29th. It's free to attend, and you can grab your free ticket in the show notes. All right, writer, take care and have a great week. Thank you for listening to the Ride It Scared podcast. If you enjoyed today's show, please make sure to hit the follow button so you never miss an episode. And please leave a review. Reviews help other writers like you find the voices and messages they need to hear to continue to write their stories. Let's lift each other up. Remember, you can be scared and still be unstoppable. I'll see you next week.