I hated this part of being an author, I really did.

“What genre is your book?”

“It’s a steam flavoured fantasy with a suspense/horror twist.”

It was written all over their face. “What?”

I had a great idea for a story, and it turned into a great idea for a series but there were problems. When I brought up my book to publish it had to be listed into a specific genre. There wasn’t a choice it had to be somewhere with books of similar nature. This makes sense, I don’t want to find a biography in the fantasy section, but it still irked me because my book wasn’t just one genre.

It had elements of steam level technology, a genre I love but is often overwhelming with its political based plots or dozens of fantastic gadgets. Each in their own way cool, but not what I was doing specifically. My books have elements of those things; I have airships, corsets, intrigue and bizarre contraptions, but they are not the only part of my books.

I have based it in a completely made up fantastical world of my own design with my own quirks, charms and unknown depths. It features things that can’t be explained by science in their world or ours, and are not entirely magical in the sense of traditional stereotypical magic. There was to be no wands, or mythical forces with limitless unfathomable power. Yet there would be things that defied the law of nature, physics and life as we know it.

This was adventure, that would lead its heroes and heroines into great peril, with untold value at the end, but at great risk. There were darker things that wait for them, enemies who have their own goals, and creatures lost in time. There will be something that moves in the shadows. After all, it’s not thrilling without a bit of danger!

There would be in some cases love, and comradeship, but this isn’t a romance series or a book about friends. I have touched on real word issues that are important to me but have tried not to swamp the reader with my ideologies.

Most of all I had a story in my head that had all these things; a great adventure that stretched from the finding of ancient artefacts to this world’s version of modern science and contraptions that would change the world. It would test and try its characters with what is to come, and be a great story I enjoy telling.

I have to list my books in a genre, but where its specified on the genre list isn’t all it is; it’s my story. I define it.