What do you do when your genre just refuses to work?

When you’ve tried every content genre you know—Action, Crime, Horror, Thriller, Performance, Love, Society, and more—and every single one just does not fit your story?

Sure, some parts of several of those genres fit your story. Those parts even seem essential.

Some parts feel like a stretch, but you can make them work if you squint.

And some parts don’t fit at all.

If you’re honest, it’s like your story is secretly three genres in a trenchcoat trying to sneak past some gatekeeper rubric.

In other words: your genre feels like an utter mess. A confusing mish-mash. Like somewhere, somehow, your story took a wrong turn, and now it’s doing a bunch of things poorly and nothing really well. It simply refuses to check all the right genre boxes at the same time.

And when you try to just pick the best-fitting genre and make it work, it feels like you’re ham-fistedly shoving your beautiful, unique, personal creation into a standardized mold it truly doesn’t fit.

When genre feels like all of that, what do you do?

That’s what I’m exploring in this episode. I’m taking genre deeper than conventions and obligatory moments to show you what it’s really measuring.

You’ll hear:

• A key reason why your story’s genre is so hard to spot (hint: you’re not the problem, and your story isn’t either)
• How the content genres map onto real life—and how I can take one bike ride with my brother and spin it into four different genres
• How knowing your story’s genre helps your readers follow the plot—and derive meaning from your story
• And more!

Plus, I’m taking you on vacation with me. I just got back from the beach, where my brother and I rode bikes along the marsh. And in this episode, I’m bringing you along for the ride.

What genre was our bike ride? You’ll have to listen to find out!

Links mentioned in the episode:

• Your primer on content genres: The 12 Core Genres That Power Every Great Story
• Get the free Content Genre Overview with resources for every genre
• See photos from my bike ride with Thomas
• Listen to peaceful marsh sounds

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