Categorizing your novel

a big idea into a little box

A subscriber-submitted question! Which I am always happy to receive and answer in a post… if you have a question about querying, agenting, submissions, etc that you’d like me to answer, please comment below or send me a direct message.

Basically this one boils down to: how do you put a big idea in a small box? How do you categorize a novel that’s not clearly one category, or one genre, or is borrowing elements from multiple genres?

This is typically one of the first sentences in a query: “I am excited to submit to you my novel, TITLE, word count, which is a [descriptive term] for fans of [your comp titles.]

Comp titles are hard enough; what about that short and sweet descriptive term section?