Sunday, August 7, 2011

Literary definitions

Paranormal romance
  • Paranormal romance is a sub-genre of the romance novel. A type of speculative fiction, paranormal romance focuses on romance and includes elements beyond the range of scientific explanation, blending together themes from the genres of traditional fantasy, science fiction, or horror. ...
  • A sub-genre of romance that focuses on a world-view that is different from the norm.  One or more of the main characters in the romance has supernatural abilities.  Often, the hero or heroine is an immortal.  Typical types of characters in paranormals include vampires, werewolves, or witches.
  • Romance novels with a supernatural element.  Since many urban fantasy books contain romance, we tried to use this category for books where the romance is a primary storyline, rather than a secondary plot.
Urban fantasy

  • Urban fantasy is a subset of fantasy defined by place; the fantastic narrative has an urban setting. Many urban fantasies are set in contemporary times or contain supernatural elements. However, this is not the primary definition of urban fantasy. ...
  • A subgenre of Fantasy; the action takes place in this world at this time, with no change in Earth's history, but rather in its dynamics (i.e., physics: usually magic is possible). Another area most often under the influence of secular paganism.



short sto·ry
noun 
short stories, plural
  1. A story with a fully developed theme but significantly shorter and less elaborate than a novel
  • a prose narrative shorter than a novel
  • A short story is a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format. This format tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as novellas (in the 20th and 21st century sense) and novels or books. ...




nov·el·ette
noun /ˌnävəˈlet/ 
novelettes, plural
  1. A short novel, typically one that is light and romantic or sentimental in character

  • a short novel
  • A novelette (or, rarely, novelet ) is a piece of short prose fiction. The distinction between a novelette and other literary forms, like a novella, is usually based upon word count. ...
  • A story shorter than a novella and longer than a short story, 10,000-20,000 words long.
  • A work of between 7,500 and 17,500 words
  • A fictional work of between 15,000 and 25,000 words.


no·vel·la
noun /nōˈvelə/ 
novellas, plural
  1. A short novel or long short story
  • novelette: a short novel
  • A novella (also called a short novel) is a written, fictional, prose narrative longer than a novelette but shorter than a novel. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Nebula Awards for science fiction define the novella as having a word count between 17,500 and 40,000. ...


nov·el
noun /ˈnävəl/ 
novels, plural
  1. A fictitious prose narrative of book length, typically representing character and action with some degree of realism
    • - the novels of Jane Austen
  2. A book containing such a narrative
    • - she was reading a paperback novel
  3. The literary genre represented or exemplified by such works
    • - the novel is the most adaptable of all literary forms
  • an extended fictional work in prose; usually in the form of a story
  • fresh: original and of a kind not seen before; "the computer produced a completely novel proof of a well-known theorem"
  • a printed and bound book that is an extended work of fiction; "his bookcases were filled with nothing but novels"; "he burned all the novels"
  • pleasantly new or different; "common sense of a most refreshing sort"

  • (novelist) one who writes novels

  • A novel is a long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century.
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