My present project, Norman in the Painting, needs a specific genre. I called it a suspense with paranormal elements but someone said that category didn’t fit. A suspense novel involves imminent danger, high stakes, and threats. Usually the readers and characters know the perpetrator, but the problem is to avoid the impending doom. Waves of frightening peril increase in intensity and lead to the crushing climax, and then at the end all is resolved.
Multiple threats and murders happen in Norman in the Painting, but the focus is not the arc described above.
Mystery seems like a generic description since mysterious elements are in many books in other genres as well. Specific mystery novels have a puzzle to solve, The protagonist has to find out whodunit in a crime that readers do not see happening. Clues are sprinkled throughout the story and the main character’s clever investigative skills unravel the complicated case.
Norman nor Jill have to track clues to know who did what. They have a problem surrounding their relationship that is not under their control. They have to figure out what to do about it.
A romance novel has a hero and heroine who meet, have conflict at first, develop into a romantic relationship, and then live happily every after. Norman in the Painting ends with a slim possibility of Jill and Norman being happy ever after because of the dangerous situation they agree to embrace. It’s less than a 50/50 chance they will be able to remain together. The required expectation that they will, eliminates my novel from the traditional romance genre.
After exploring all the possibilities, I’m back to my original category: a paranormal romance, which gives the novel a freer ending.
What genre is your novel?
Julaina Kleist-Corwin 
Oh, dear, Julaina — you mean they don’t live happily ever after like in the fairy tales? My heart is broken! Nice discussion on trying to fit unusual works into stock genre categories. I’ll bet there are many authors out there facing the same dilemma. Life (and art) just don’t fit tidily into academic boxes.
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So true about fitting into the boxes. Things could change with Jill and Norman as far as the ending goes, but at this point, they try but alternate realities aren’t always easy to access.
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