Genre

• (Because it is French, it is pronounced with a soft G/Z sound, slant-rhymes with "conga")

• A genre is a style, type, or category of writing

• Each genre has some distinguishing characteristics.

• The 3 main genres are prose, poetry, and drama, each of which can be fiction or non-fiction

• There are many sub-genres as well:

  • In fictional prose, there are dozens of genres, such as science fiction, thriller, and mystery.

  • In nonfictional prose, there are many different genres, such as persuasive, expository, and explanatory.

  • In poetry, some common genres include the lyric, the ode, and didactic verse