OLD POST ALERT! This is an older post and although you might find some useful tips, any technical or publishing information is likely to be out of date. Please click on Start Here on the menu bar above to find links to my most useful articles, videos and podcast. Thanks and happy writing! – Joanna Penn
Many authors don't want to categorize their writing, but the best way to immediately turn on (or turn off) a new reader is to relate your book to something they already like.
I had a hospital appointment back in early March which happened to fall on the same day as the launch of Between Two Thorns, my latest novel. I was rather nervous, as I had to go home and get ready for the launch straight after the appointment – unsurprisingly it was on my mind. When I mentioned it to my doctor, she lit up, excited (as most people are) to hear I was published. “What kind of book is it?” she asked. “Urban fantasy.” I replied.
She gave me a blank look.
“Is that like Lord of the Rings?” I shook my head. “No, but it is a kind of fantasy. It's set in modern day Bath, but has evil faeries and mad sorcerers.” She beamed again. “Oh, I like the sound of that! I thought you meant it was something with elves in it.”
Variants of this conversation happen every time I mention ‘urban fantasy' to anyone who is
a) not a science fiction and fantasy (SFF) reader or
b) not an SFF writer or
c) not an SFF publisher.
It's hit and miss with booksellers – some are very excited, others say “Oh, I don't do *that* section of the shop” and move away like I've been writing pamphlets extolling the virtues of eating a live frog every morning. (I don't, by the way.)
I'm a geek.
I'm a huge fan of SFF and I am immersed in that world. Just like everything that mankind has ever created, the moment you have groups of people producing, consuming and enthusing about something, it quickly becomes riddled with jargon and categorization that only means something to the group of people who produce, consume or enthuse about it.
That's true of the term ‘urban fantasy' but what makes it more tricky is that we still debate what that encompasses in our community. That's true of all things though, isn't it?
So what I would like to do is talk about how a few people have defined it, what I mean when I say “I write Urban Fantasy” and point you in the direction of a few places you can dive in and experience it for yourself.
The urban angle
Urban fantasy has been defined by the places in which the fantasy (magic and or strange creatures, usually) is set – i.e. the urban environment. It gives flexibility in terms of the time period; the city could be in the Victorian, Tudor, post-American civil war – whenever. As long as the fantasy is rooted in the city, it's urban fantasy.
Whilst I can see the sense of this, I don't like to chain what I consider to be urban fantasy to being set in densely populated cities. I think urban fantasy novels can – and do – roam into the countryside, small towns and villages and sometimes only one cottage.
In some urban fantasy, the city itself is a character.
The horror angle
Paul Cornell, who recently had a rather splendid urban fantasy novel called “London Falling” published, described urban fantasy as “Horror in which the characters will probably survive.” I like the thinking here; a lot of urban fantasy features monsters and the horrific to varying degrees. However, for me, ‘horror' also implies that urban fantasy is often scary and I don't agree with that.
How I define urban fantasy
The way I conceptualize urban fantasy is magic and weird stuff creeping in at the edges of a world in which magic is not the norm. Everything appears normal until you walk down a particular alleyway after midnight on the third Tuesday of the month. The person sitting opposite you on the underground train looks normal but is in fact looking for a particular flavour of grief to steal and bottle up to take back to his master. The majority of the people who live there will have normal lives, oblivious to the magical all around them, hidden in plain sight.
Blurring genre lines
What makes this definition even more tricky is that urban fantasy books often straddle two or more genres (in fact, I like to do that with practically everything I write). There's a lot of common ground between urban fantasy and paranormal romance, for example. In the latter the romance between two key characters forms the spine of the plot and story progression, in urban fantasy the romance is only one of many threads and the novel isn't built around it.
Is a definition really that important?
You know, there's been a bit of me thinking that whilst I've been writing this. After all, surely it should all be about the story, the characters and the quality of the writing. Who cares what sub-genre category a book falls into?
But then I think about how we find books in shops and online and how we describe them to each other. These genre labels act as a kind of shorthand and connect us to similar books that we can discover and love. If you're a writer seeking an agent and/or publisher, it's important to know where your word baby fits into the bigger picture because that agent or publisher needs to convince booksellers to stock it and they like to know where to put your book and how to market it.
Want to dip your toe into Urban Fantasy?
One of my favorite urban fantasy novels is “American Gods” by Neil Gaiman.
If you like police procedural stuff, give “Rivers of London” by Ben Aaronovitch and “London Falling” by Paul Cornell a go.
If you like angels – but not the traditional – try “Blood and Feathers” by Lou Morgan.
If you're looking for some urban fantasy for young adults, try “The City's Son” by Tom Pollock.
If you want to try it in tiny bite-sized chunks, I wrote a year and a day of weekly short stories set in the Split Worlds that you can read here: www.splitworlds.com/stories and if you like, you can have them delivered every week to your inbox for free (the sign-up for that can be found there too). There's the first novel of the Split Worlds series “Between Two Thorns” too of course!
Have you got any urban fantasy novels you would recommend? Please do leave a comment below.
Her latest book is Between Two Thorns, available now from Angry Robot Books.
Top image: Bean Chicago. Flickr Creative Commons by Justin Kern
View Comments (33)
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
1 2 3 Next »The "police procedural stuff" reminds me of Douglas Adams' Dirk Gently novels. Extremely funny and loaded with fantastic events.
I started reading Jennifer Estep's Paranormal Romance Series about Big Time, which was tons of fun. She started a second urban fantasy series that I've enjoyed (although her first book is a touch repetitive I love the characters) about the Elemental Assassin. Features the big south USA.
Ooo! Very helpful article. The genre lines seem to have become so blurred lately (a good thing when reading but not so great when you're a writer trying to pigeonhole your novel), and this helps bring them back into focus. Thanks!
I think the reigning king of urban fantasy would be Jim Butcher with his Harry Dresden series. If you haven't had a chance to pick these up, you're missing out on an amazing, witty, inspirational story.
I was surprised not to see Jim Butcher mentioned until your comment. Butcher's Dresden Files are amazing.
Now that's a very interesting question, and similar to one I've been pondering myself lately...
If you have written a book which straddles more than one genre, how do you categorize it correctly without misleading potential readers? To me, the word 'fantasy' implies something which is not real and is desired - it doesn't immediately conjour up fairies or wizards or fantastical creatures, although I accept that for many it does, and maybe I'm wrong simply by virtue of being outnumbered!
For instance (and this isn't intended just to be a plug for my book, though if it works that way I shan't complain!) I've written a story which is set in a contemporary city (London) and it is basically a romance but also has elements of ... well that's where it gets tricky, because the main character believes she exists in two 'worlds', or 'time-zones' or 'realities' - she doesn't want to, but doesn't know how to stop it, or even at one point, which one is the 'real' world... does that come under 'fantasy' (because she could be dreaming up a different reality for herself because the other one is too painful) , 'science-fiction' (because she might be time-travelling without meaning to) or ...what?
Genre/Category is such a difficult thing to pin down, as Joanna so rightly says. My book isn't published yet, so the question of categorizing has yet to come and bite me on the what-not - I've gone for 'a dystopian romance' for the time being, but have absolutely no idea if that's what it really is... or, more importantly, if that is what potential readers would agree it is... thanks for your thoughts, Joanna. Great website by the way!
I think you need to identify which element forms the spine of your story. If it's romance more than anything else - if the plot is built around that and the book would cease to work if the romance was removed - then you could call it a dystopian romance if the dystopian setting is important 0r prominent too.
An example: The Time Traveller's Wife is a romance. It's irrelevant that time travel is involved to a science fiction reader, as it's not the focus of the story, the romance is. As a sci-fi fan, I didn't enjoy that book nearly as much as romance readers.
I guess what I'm also saying is be aware of who you think will enjoy the book the most. Unless the two worlds / time-travel aspects are prominent, drive the plot or are at least explored a great deal, the book is primarily romance. That's my tuppence anyway - I'm no expert!
Thanks for your input Emma - I think that is kind of the conclusion I've come to at this point; it is primarily a romance, so at least I got that bit right! The dystopian/other reality element is perhaps quite not as prominent as the contemporary setting and the romance is romance in both, so I may even drop that when I do the big marketing push.
Fiona, I'm glad I'm not the only one to have the problem!
I wrote a straight up horror romance. I had my book listed at Amazon under Paranormal Romance, but was advised that it didn't belong there, so I moved it. Now it's in categories that don't bespeak of romance or a love story at all. Which is frustrating because I feel the romance element has really helped it to do well with female readers that might not otherwise have tolerated a horror novel.
Urban Fantasy, while reading the paragraphs I wondered if the Marvel Comics Super Heroes would be Urban Fantasy since it would be Science Fiction and Fantasy. I am trying to finish a Time Travel Romance novelette so it is Science Fiction, but the word URBAN – brings it to the underground or unknown world, which could exist, to the inexperienced eye. I am not a home garden nut, but some days I wondered if there really are gnomes because we ate two guyabanos, which were heart shaped, and one sitting on the table waiting to be sliced for dessert. Guyabanos supposedly kills cancer cells inside our bodies. Urban Fantasy would work more on the self-published route with the same display marketing of Marvel Comics. It might help to have an artist conception of the Urban unorthodox dwellers, to help promote the novel beyond the cover.
Lovely post Joanna & Emma.
Emma, as an urban fantasy (YA) author myself, you had me at 'It’s set in modern day Bath, but has evil faeries and mad sorcerers'. I loved that line! I also love Bath! In fact, I'm currently writing a sequel (my 6th book) which is set partly in Bath (and London, Salisbury, Winchester...)
I usually categorize urban fantasy as 'fantasy set in a modern day world' or something along those lines. I have quite a few favourites like Shalini Boland's Marchwood Vampires series, Melissa Pearl's Time Spirit series and Betwixt, Poppet's Scarlet Vamporium, Laura Elliott's Shadow Slayer, Alexandra May's The Elemental (set in the Wiltshire area).... I could easily go on!
http://suzyturner.com
Great post! I struggle with defining Urban Fantasy too, and I came up with something very close to this part of your post: "The way I conceptualize urban fantasy is magic and weird stuff creeping in at the edges of a world in which magic is not the norm."
My favourite UF stuff is by Kelley Armstrong, Jaye Wells and Lilith Saintcrow.
Great post. I'm very pleased to see some new names here that I haven't come across before. I will be checking them out. I write urban fantasy too (first one coming out in 11 months with Spence City) and the one thing that urban fantasy let's you do is explore some of the big issues in parallel with a different world. Sounds pompous, but it isn't, since you can do it with as much humour as you want. After being a psych thriller heavy-hitter, it's invigorating and a great deal of fun. As for classification--I'd go for contemporary urban fantasy--then everyone knows it's in the here and now and, yes it's going to have a thriller element and a boy meets fae aspect, but the focus of the book has to be the SFF.
Hope to see you all around at some stage.
DCF
Last thing I read in this category was The Genesis (blood of ages series) by k l Kerr . Vampire urban fantasy takes places in what feels like a normal city, definitely fits the UF and not the PR genre, which I honestly prefer. The city's dark, brooding, vampires have guns, good action scenes.