LITERARY GENRES
Major Genres in Literature:
 Fiction
 Drama
 Non – fiction
 Poetry
1. FICTION - refers to a story that comes from a
writer’s imagination as opposed to one based
strictly on fact or a true story.
SUBGENRES OF FICTION: Horror, Romance, Comedy
 THRILLER – keeps readers on their toes and use
plot twists, red herrings, and cliffhangers to
keep them guessing until the end.
 HORROR – meant to scare, startle, shock and
even repulse readers. Focus on terrified things
such as death, zombies, monsters and etc.
 HISTORICAL FICTION – novels take place in the
past. Written a careful balanc3 of research and
creativity,.
 ROMANCE – center of love story between two
people
 SPECULATE FICTION – a genre that
encompasses a number of different types of
fiction, from science fiction to fantasy to
dystopian.
 SCIENCE FICTION – novels or stories
with imagined elements that don’t exist
in the real world. Some are inspired by
“hard” natural sciences like physics,
chemistry, and astronomy.
 FANTASY – are novels, speculative
fiction stories with imaginary characters
set in imaginary universes.
 UTOPIA & DYSTOPIA – Dystopian
novels wherein societies viewed as
worse than the one in which we live.
SUBGENRE OF SCIENCE FICTION
> STEAMPUNK – subgenre of science fiction that
incorporates refrofuturistic technology and aesthetics
By: BRYLEPOGS
inspired by 19th century industrial steam powered
machinery.
> CYBERPUNK – subgenre of science fiction in a
dystopian futuristic setting that tends to focus on a
“combination of low life and high-tech” featuring
advanced technological and scientific achievements.
> BIOPUNK - focuses on biotechnology. It is derived
from ‘cyberpunk’, but focuses on the implications of
biotechnology rather than mechanical cyberware and
information technology. It is concerned with synthetic
biology.
 MAGICAL REALISM – was born out of the realist
art movement and is closely associated with
Latin America Authors.
 REALISTIC FICTION – novels that are set in a
time and place that could actually happen in the
real world. They depict real people, places, and
stories in order to be truthful as possible.
 FLASH FICTION – defined as very short, is also
known as sudden fiction, short – short stories,
micro fiction, or micro stories.
CHARACTERISTICS OF FLASH FICTION:
 BREVITY – the story should compresses an
entire story into the space of a few paragraphs
commonly uses word limits from just 6 words to
around 1000 worlds on the longer end.
 COMPLETE PLOT - is a story with a beginning,
middle, and end.
 SURPRISE – there should be a twist. Usually in
the form of a twist ending or an unexpected last
line.
 CHECK – LIT – generally deals with the issues of
modern women humorously and lightheartedly.
They are usually written by women, are
addressed to women, and tell on particular
story on women.
 MYSTERY – genre where the nature of an event,
usually a murder or other crime, remains
mysterious until the end of the story.

2. DRAMA – is the portrayal of fictional or
nonfictional events through the performance of
written dialogue that can be perform on stage,
film, or radio.
5 TYPES OF DRAMA
 COMEDY – genre of drama that is intended to
make the audience/people laugh.
 TRAGEDY – distressing loss. The subjects they
dealt with were dark, like war and death, and
protagonists were always burdened with a
tragic flaw that kept them from their happy
ending.
 FARCE – nonsensical genre of drama which
often overacts or engages slapstick humor.
 MELODRAMA – an exaggerated drama, which is
sensational and appeals direcvtly to the senses
of the audience.
 MUSICAL DRAMA – they tell their story through
dance and sing.
3. NON – FICTION
- broad genre of writing that encompasses all
book.
 HISTORY – consist of the accounts of historical
eras and events, this dwells purely in objective.
 BIOGRAPHY – story of another person’s life
written by another author.
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY – story of a real’s person life
written by that person.
 MEMOIRS – any narrative writing based on the
author’s personal memoirs.
 TRAVEL GUIDES – offering suggestions and
practical information for travelers bound for a
particular destination.
- a guide for you to know the destination.
 TRAVELOGUE – they recount an author’s
specific experience traveling somewhere.
 ACADEMIC WRITING/TEXTS – designed to
instruct readers on a particular topic.
- book that are academically written or created.
 PHILOSOPHY – many are published by
university affiliated publishing houses.
- only available for school and not easy to access.
 JOURNALISM – the most regularly consumed in
the form of newspapers and magazines, along
with monthly journals, TV news, reports and
more.
 SELF – HELP / INSTRUCTION – concerns
business successes, buoying confidence, staying
organized, relationship advices, diction, and
financial management.
 GUIDES – focuses on specific skills like
cookbooks, musical notations, athletic
instructions, and tutorials for home hobbyists.
 HUMOR – where analysis and reflection on real
– world events are distilled through the prism of
an author’s point of view.
4. POETRY – involves emotions.
- A composition that uses words to evolve
emotions in an imaginative way.
- A form of self – expression that knows no
bound.
THEME – a truth, lesson, or message
about life.
RHYTHM – the beat, sound, and feels of
the poem.
MOOD – the feeling the poet is trying to
convey.
LINE – a single row of words ina poem.
METER – two number and style of
accented syllables in a line.
STANZA – group of line in a poem.
RHYME – describe word sthat have the
same ending sound.
TEXTULA – poetry genre mastered by
FRANK RIVERA. Entire poems are
written and read on mobile phones.
- TANAGA – traditional tagalong of
poetry.