Jae Baeli Admin
Number of posts : 103 Age : 62 LOCATION : Denver, CO JOB/HOBBIES : Author, Editor, Artist, Webmaster, Singer-Songwriter FAVORITE AUTHORS : Dean Koontz, Jeff Lindsey, Laramie Dunaway,Darian North, Richard Dawkins, Raymond Obstfeld GENRES IN WHICH I WRITE : Novels, Stories, Technical, Business, Academic, Scientific, Copy, Scripts, Journalism, Memoir, Humor, Essay, Blog, Reviews, Poetry, Lyrics Registration date : 2008-11-22
| Subject: About the Genre Sat Nov 22, 2008 7:00 pm | |
| Sub-Categories of Mystery/Crime:
Amateur Detective: a mystery solved by an amateur, who generally has some profession or affiliation that provides ready access to information about the crime.
Child in Peril: a mystery involving the abduction or persecution of a child.
Classic Whodunit: a crime that is solved by a detective, from the detective's point of view, with all clues available to the reader.
Comic (Bumbling Detective): a mystery played for laughs, often featuring a detective who is grossly unskilled (but often solves the crime anyway, owing to tremendous good luck).
Cozy: a mystery that takes place in a small town—sometimes in a single home—where all the suspects are present and familiar with one another, except the detective, who is usually an eccentric outsider.
Courtroom Drama: a mystery that takes place through the justice system—often the efforts of a defense attorney to prove the innocence of his client by finding the real culprit.
Dark Thriller: a mystery that ventures into the fear factor and graphic violence of the horror genre.
Espionage: the international spy novel—here based less on action than on solving the "puzzle"—is today less focused on the traditional enemy spies than on terrorists.
Forensic: a mystery solved through the forensics lab, featuring much detail and scientific procedure.
Heists and Capers: an "antihero" genre which focuses on the planning and execution of a crime, told from the criminal's perspective.
Historical: a mystery that takes place in a specific, recognizable period of history, with much emphasis on the details of the setting.
Inverted: a story in which the reader knows "whodunit," but the suspense arises from watching the detective figure it out.
Locked Room: a mystery in which the crime is apparently committed under impossible circumstances (but eventually elicits a rational explanation).
Medical: generally involving a medical threat (e.g., a viral epidemic), or the illegitimate use of medical technology.
Police Procedural: a crime solved from the perspective of the police, following detailed, real-life procedures.
Private Detective: Focused on the independent snoop-for-hire, these have evolved from tough-guy "hard-boiled" detectives to the more professional operators of today.
Psychological Suspense: mysteries focused on the intricacies of the crime and what motivated the perpetrator to commit them.
Romantic: a mystery in which the crime-solvers fall in love.
Technothriller: a spinoff from the traditional thriller mystery, with an emphasis on high technology.
Thriller: a suspense mystery with a wider—often international—scope and more action.
Woman in Jeopardy: focuses on a woman put into peril by a crime, and her struggles to overcome or outwit the perpetrator.
Young Adult: a story aimed at a teenage audience, with a hero detective generally the same age or slightly older than the reader, pursuing criminals who are generally less violent—but often just as scary—as those in adult mysteries.
-------------------------- SOURCE: "Sub-Genre Descriptions" by Michael J. Vaughn, Writer's Digest, March 18, 2008 | |
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