What do you do when your genre just doesn’t work? When you’ve tried every content genre you know, and each one feels a little right and a little wrong? When genre feels like a beat sheet, a box, a cage too small for your story?

If that feels painfully familiar, let’s try a different approach to genre—one that centers on what it’s really measuring.

When Your Genre Doesn’t Work

I see it all the time:

You try on two, or three, or four content genres for size to see how they fit your story. Action. Crime. Performance. Society.

Every one of them matches a few moments in your story, moments that feel absolutely essential. And every one has gaping holes that don’t match at all, and you don’t see any route to filling them.

And when you finally just pick one and try your best to make it work, it feels incredibly uncomfortable and wrong. Like you’re taking your expansive, unique, deeply intimate and personal creation, and you’re shoving it hamfistedly into a standardized mold not made for it at all.

It makes you wonder: are you grossly misunderstanding genre? Misunderstanding your own story? Or is the problem not your story or your genre, but you, the writer, who might just be bad at this?

I can tell you right now, the problem is not you.

But the problem might be that genre feels like a box, a mold, a cage.

So in this episode, I’m going to explore another way to think about genre. A way that’s not centered on a list of conventions and obligatory moments your story must include, but instead, invites you to examine the conflict underneath any moment.

I won’t promise to fix what’s broken in your story’s genre in the span of this episode. But I will give you a pathway to explore what’s really going on in your story.

In other words: what are we really talking about when we talk about genre?

In order to answer that question, let’s take a trip to the beach.

This trip, by the way, pairs really nicely with some ambient salt marsh sounds. Hit play below, and then keep reading.

Bikes at the Beach

Last week, I went on a family vacation to the beach.

I love going to the beach. We’ve been going to the same beach for decades. And yet, I find that I’m still discovering new things I haven’t seen before every time.

This year, for the first time, we decided to rent bikes.

There’s a little paved bike path that runs between two rows of houses, then up around the golf course, along the marsh, through the teeny-tiny strip of town and shops, along the highway for about half a mile, and then into the state park, a gorgeous wilderness of palmetto trees.

I’m not a very skilled cyclist, but I got in fifteen miles a day for a few days trekking up to the state park and back.

Midway through the week, my brother decided to join me. I’d already refreshed my memory on the route, so I had the advantage of recent experience. Thomas had ridden this path on our trip in the spring, so he knew generally where we were going, but he rediscovered the specifics along the way.

Like the first bridge.

Right next to the golf course, there’s a little wooden bridge that crosses a narrow strip of pond. It’s short and flat, with tall wooden rails on both sides. Which is good, because there’s a bit of a curve at the point where the path meets the bridge.

And Thomas, still getting his footing on both the bike and the route, took that curve at just the wrong speed and angle and wobbled his way right into the railing. If the railing hadn’t been there to catch him, he’d have landed in the pond.

He recovered quickly, though, walked his bike to the end of the bridge, and hopped right back on to lead us on the ride along the marsh and through the town.

At the highway, we swapped spots. I took the lead, since the cars are fast and the bike lane on the edge of the road is narrow and the shoulder drops right off into the marsh and I knew precisely where we were going to turn. And a few minutes later, without incident, we made it to the state park.

The trails through the state park are just gorgeous. They weave through the forest, packed dirt bumpy with tree roots. Sometimes there are sandy patches, which I called out to Thomas because they were soft and slippery underneath our wheels and made it difficult to stay balanced. But the sand is also covered in fascinating tracks made by deer and a bunch of other animals I don’t know how to identify.

Occasionally, the trails open up to stunning marsh views. In a couple places, a boardwalk takes you across a section of marsh to the next stretch of land and trees. And when we reached the first one, this time, I paused to warn Thomas.

“Boardwalk ahead,” I told him. “And this one doesn’t have rails.”

“The stakes are much higher this time,” he said, and I agreed.

The first boardwalk is the longest. The second is half its length.

And then, right before the landmark at the end of the trail, there’s a teeny-tiny boardwalk, maybe six feet long and two feet above the ground, that carries you over a teeny-tiny stream, which was dry when we crossed it. This teeny-tiny boardwalk doesn’t have a rail, so there’s always the possibility of falling off it. But even if you do, you don’t have very far to fall.

“The stakes on this one are much lower,” I told Thomas.

Which all got me thinking: what are we talking about when we talk about genre?

When the Genre Isn’t Clear

I’m going to pivot for a moment from the beachside bike ride and talk about writing for a minute. Bear with me.

Lately, I’ve been having lots of conversations with writers about genre and stakes. I’ve given several writers the feedback that I’m having trouble identifying their stories’ stakes; that their stakes are unclear.

Or that their genre seems to shift in the middle of the story. It starts as an action story, and ends as a performance story. Or it starts as a crime story and ends as a status story.

Which, of course, begs the question: what genre is their story?

Genre Makes Us Uncomfortable

I think sometimes writers get uncomfortable when we start talking about the genres your stories fit into.

Genre can feel like a restrictive cage, a formulaic beat sheet or a prescriptive set of scenes and tropes and conventions and moments you’re obligated to include in your story.

It can feel like, instead of being guided by your own unique creative mind, you’re simply regurgitating a pattern a thousand other storytellers have already recited.

I assume writers sometimes get uncomfortable when we start talking about genre—because I know I get uncomfortable talking about genre.

The last thing I want to do is make writers feel like I’m restricting your creativity rather than empowering it to flourish.

I worry that when I tell a writer their genre isn’t clear, or their story bounces from one genre to another and ends in a third, that they’ll feel like I’m removing the things about their story that they love most.

I worry that when I take a writer on a process of exploration to discover their genre, and we consider and discard two or three, that they will feel frustrated, or like their story is somehow wrong for not easily offering up its genre.

I worry that if the genre I see and propose to the writer comes as a great surprise to them and doesn’t seem to fit at first, that they will feel like I misunderstand their story, or am trying to force it to become something it isn’t—when in reality, what I’m seeing is connections that already exist to a trustworthy framework that they can innovate on.

All this to say: I get uncomfortable when a story’s genre isn’t obvious, because I worry that the process of finding that genre will feel to the writer like we’re cramming their story into an ill-fitting mold.

And if I find the process of identifying a story’s genre uncomfortable, I have to imagine that sometimes, you do, too.

But Genre Tells Us What Matters

So why does this matter so much? Why put ourselves through this if it’s just a way to make us both feel bad that I am misunderstanding the story and the writer has created something that doesn’t fit in a standard box?

Why are we worrying about genre at all?

Because a story’s genre tells us—the writer, the editor, the reader—what we’re measuring in the story.

The genre tells us what matters. It tells us what to focus on. It tells us what to track as we follow the characters from the first page to the last.

In other words, the genre tells us the stakes.

It tells us what the story is actually about.

What the protagonist is fighting to gain, or at risk of losing.

What the arc of story is amidst all the chaos and noise of everyday life.

The genre points us to the thread to follow. And we need to know which thread to follow, because that’s how we draw meaning from every single event in the story. Otherwise, they’re just a list of things that happen, and we don’t know what to do with them.

I should specify here that I’m talking about content genres. These aren’t the words that categorize the books on the shelves of Barnes and Noble. They’re the words that point to the stakes at the heart of your story: words like Action, War, Crime, Horror, Thriller, Love, Performance, and Society.

If that terminology is new to you, I highly recommend you head back to The 12 Core Genres That Power Every Great Story, for a deeper dive on content genres.

The Genres of Bikes on the Beach

But assuming that you’re tracking with me, let’s go back to the bikes in the forest by the marsh.

What did Thomas and I mean when we said that the stakes were high on one boardwalk, and the stakes were much lower on another?

We meant that we were measuring something specific on that bike ride. And when the stakes were high, we were very, very aware that the thing we were measuring was at risk.

Genre 1: Action

Did I mention that I’m not a very experienced cyclist? And that Thomas had already fallen off his bike once?

The stakes I was measuring throughout that entire ride were survival stakes—the preservation of my physical body. I would get muddy if I fell off the teeny-tiny boardwalk. I might get scraped up, bloodied and bruised, if I fell off the longer boardwalk into the marsh. I could fracture a limb if my bike slipped in a patch of sand and I caught myself wrong in the fall or crashed into a tree. And on the highway with its narrow bike lane, I could get hit by a car.

So while ninety percent of this ride was along peaceful, quiet, nearly-empty trails and paths and streets, in my mind, the genre was an action story, where the stakes are life and death.

At some point, though, I had to call that into question. Because, let’s face it, it was extremely unlikely that I was going to die on that bike ride. And indeed, I did not die, and neither did Thomas.

So then I wondered, what other stakes could we measure?

Genre 2: Performance

Well, if life and death are not in question, but we’re still at risk of falling off our bikes, then this isn’t a story about survival. It’s a story about skill.

And the genre where we measure a protagonist’s skill is the performance genre.

In the performance genre, the stakes are respect versus shame. Suppose Thomas or I fell off the boardwalk into the marsh in a performance story. I might still get scraped up. But what we’d really be measuring is, how embarrassed am I to have fallen? How bad am I, really, at riding a bike, and how much of my family’s respect have I lost by falling?

That story wouldn’t be about how many bruises I got or how much dirt I was covered in. It would be about how much shame I felt for having lost control of my bike and getting covered in dirt and bruises.

Action and Performance are the most obvious genres for this bike ride—Action because it’s the genre I felt like I was in, and Performance because it’s the genre I was actually in.

But this is a fun exercise, so I ran it again. What other stakes could we measure?

Genre 3: Love

Well, I was hanging out with my brother on this bike ride. So this could be a story about connection.

And the genre that measures human connection is the love genre.

In the love genre, the stakes are love versus hate. Thomas and I are very close and get along great. But suppose he got angry at me for not warning him about the curve before the first bridge. Or suppose I pushed him off the boardwalk. Or suppose we made it over every boardwalk entirely unscathed, but got into a fight along our fifteen-mile ride.

That story wouldn’t be about whether or not Thomas got a splinter when he ran into the rail of the bridge. It would be about how he felt about me, and how I felt about him, and he’d probably feel a lot more negatively towards me if he got a splinter on the bridge and blamed me for giving it to him.

Let’s run the exercise again. What other stakes could we measure?

Genre 4: Society

Well, we were on a family beach trip. So this could be a story about family dynamics and power hierarchies and our ability to be recognized within a community.

And the genre that measures recognition is the society genre.

In the status genre, the stakes are power versus impotence. Someone has power, and someone else does not.

Suppose we had a very strict grandmother who had a regimented schedule for how our time at the beach would go, or who frowned upon bike rides for whatever reason. Suppose Thomas and I had snuck out of the beach house with our bikes, undetected, and we were trying to have a fun morning ride without drawing her ire. Maybe if we got back in time, we could sneak back in without her noticing—but if we came back muddy from falling into the marsh, she’d be sure to see and berate us.

That story wouldn’t be about whether or not we got injured in a fall in the marsh. It would be about whether we were able to fulfill our own plans without penalty, and a fall into the pluff mud would definitely incur penalty.

One Morning, Many Genres

I could keep going. I could point to the animal tracks and take us to a crime story, or I could point to the speed at which we raced along the highway and through the forest and speculate about a thriller antagonist chasing us.

It’s a little bit more of a stretch to try to contort this into a War story or a Western, but I bet I could do it, if pressed.

My point, though, is this: that fifteen-mile bike ride along the marsh with my brother could have so many meanings. There are so many human life values at stake that we could measure.

That’s the nature of life, our experience every single day. We are balancing our needs for survival and safety and connection and esteem and recognition and respect and self-actualization and self-transcendence all at the same time. At one moment, one need is more painful, and the next, another gets louder.

Stories distill that constant chaos of everyday life into a singular narrative from which we can draw clear meaning about one thing.

The genre allows us to identify the one value at stake that we are measuring throughout the entire story.

That way, we’re not getting distracted by life-or-death action stakes when the story is really a performance story about esteem. Or we’re not getting distracted by love-or-hate love story stakes when the story is really a society story about power dynamics.

Or we’re not left wondering what the heck is going on and why it matters when a story does its best to mimic real life by giving us all the stakes at once. That may make for good verisimilitude, but it doesn’t make for a very engaging story.

What I’m Talking About When I Talk About Genre

When I guide a writer to find their story’s true genre, this is what I’m doing: I’m looking at the story they’ve created, and I’m seeking out the stakes.

I’m asking: What are we measuring at the beginning of the story? In the middle? At the end?

The events in the story are clues about the story’s genre. Every genre has a stock inciting incident and a stock climax. Every genre has conventions and obligatory moments, because these are the moments in the story when that arc of the thing we’re measuring takes major turns and we see that measurement really clearly.

But underneath all of that, beyond the beat sheets and obligatory moments, there is the thing that we’re measuring. The heartbeat under every scene. The human life value that matters most in this story.

When the obligatory scenes are all over the place and genre feels like a cage, this is what I come back to.

What are we measuring? What is at stake?

From there, we can figure out what the story is really about, and then choose the genre that will make that clear to the reader.

From there, we can sift through all the scattered stakes of the story and orient around the one that is most important.

Which brings us to the end of our marsh bike story.

The True Stakes of Bikes by the Beach

Thomas and I made it safely back: over the teeny-tiny boardwalk, the medium boardwalk, and the long boardwalk; out of the state park; along the highway; through the town; around the marsh; over the bridge (with no falls this time); and back home to our beach house.

We had a really, really lovely ride. Which makes for a terribly boring story, because at the end of the day, none of those stakes were truly at risk—not the action stakes, or the performance stakes, or the love stakes, or the society stakes. The parts of life that don’t make for a good story are some of the parts I enjoy the most.

Your story, though, is probably the opposite of our ride. It probably has many stakes at risk, which is one of the reasons why identifying a genre is just so dang hard.

It doesn’t mean you’re doing it wrong. It doesn’t mean your story is broken.

It simply means that right now, you’re sending your readers’ attention in a lot of directions at once. And in order for them to draw meaning from your story, you need to point them to the one clear thing you want them to measure.

What are the stakes of your story?

Dig Deeper Into Content Genres

If you want to take a closer look at all the content genres to help you sort through what your story is truly about, I highly recommend checking out The 12 Core Genres That Power Every Great Story.

You can also download my free Content Genre Overview. It lists all twelve content genres and links to resources to learn more about each one. Get it by entering your email in the form below:

Get My Support to Spot Your Genre

And if you are really, truly stuck and you cannot for the life of you sort through which genre matters most in your story, that’s a perfect time to reach out for help.

The first phase of my revision coaching process is called Next Right Step. In it, I’ll help you identify whether your genre and stakes are working right now. If they’re not, I’ll spot what questions you can explore to unlock them. And if they are, then yay! I’ll point you to your next revision priority.

If that sounds like the kind of support you need, fill out the form below, and I’ll be in touch.

Until next time, I wish you clear and thrilling stakes in your stories, and wonderfully boring lack of stakes in your life. May it all be as peaceful as a bike ride on the marsh.

Happy editing!