November 2025 …
Recently I have been preparing synopses and pitches for my two manuscripts, which has led me to the question ‘what is their genre?’ In some cases, where I was reviewing requirements for submissions to literary agents or commercial publishers, the question was even more basic, “Is this Literary Fiction or Genre Fiction?”
I hadn’t spent a great deal of time considering what was meant by literary fiction, other than having the vague idea that it referred to some mystical, elite form of creative writing – a form belonging to writers of classics.
Grey of the Night is naturally a crime/thriller novel. Broadly speaking, its plot follows the police and principal characters finding clues and solving a crime. That fitted neatly into a well-established genre – or so I thought.
The genre for Trials of Henry was less clear. On one hand, it is clearly historical fiction, but based on a real person. It largely takes place in a courtroom or prison in Washington DC but also includes strong elements of a government conspiracy. Even though it is set immediately after the American Civil War, it is not a war story involving manoeuvring armies and battles; it is quite static. While significant action takes place in a court, there is no murky crime to investigate. When writing pitches and synopses for Trials of Henry, I struggled to define its genre, partly because I didn’t think I was skilled enough to write ‘literary fiction’.
Then my mentor, Dr Kate Ryan, reviewed a generic submission of Trials of Henry. She pointed out – in a quite matter-of-fact way – that it was Literary Fiction. I experienced surprise, pride, shock and disbelief – to think that I was capable of writing something that fell into this high-art status!
The key aspect that I hadn’t appreciated, was that the story is heavily about the thoughts and feelings of the main characters – it is character-driven. Of course, it contains a plot which provides challenges for the characters to confront, but the focus is on the characters’ reactions to those challenges. My pleasing realisation was that I had been quite intentional about portraying the characters’ reactions and the consequences. This was especially true of Henry Wirz.
For much of the novel, Henry is in prison, isolated, constrained – not actively able to change his situation. Whilst writing early drafts, I recognised this as a potential problem. In order to keep Henry as a central character, I realised I would need to find ways to show him as active and evolving, especially since the novel is written from a ‘third-person multiple’ point of view. I endeavoured to achieve this by: sharing his journal entries; showing him testing his limits with the guards and prison staff; and letting him realise he did have some power to influence his situation and to use it when required.
But then I started thinking about Grey of the Night. The three principal characters – Laura Grey, Simon Westall and Dr Liz Norris – all have complex back-stories which are revealed during the novel. They also shift in their beliefs and personal philosophies. Again, this was something I particularly focused on while drafting the novel: not just, how do they react in a certain situation, but why? Why would they be naturally drawn to each other?
Hence, while Grey of the Night falls easily into the Crime Fiction genre, it also contains a great deal of internal reflections. Alpha-readers of Grey of the Night noted both aspects – they were ‘hooked’ by the plot from the start, but also enjoyed the development of the characters as they faced challenges throughout the novel.
I am quite happy to think that Grey of the Night deserves its own classification of ‘Literary Crime Fiction’. In his book Crafting Crime Fiction (Manchester University Press, 2023), Henry Sutton suggests that good crime fiction features many literary fiction elements, and good character development engages the reader. The unanimous alpha-reader responses to Grey of the Night certainly support that contention.
The genre classification is not what makes a story great.