Fantasy definitions

Following on from my post on Tuesday, I did another search, concerned that I have been completely misinformed about the definition of dark fantasy.  Funny, how new I suddenly feel to fantasy despite having been reading and writing it for at least a decade now.

I have never really given much thought to the sub genres of fantasy, I have always just read what I enjoyed and written what I wanted.  It was only the submission process that forced me to start looking at where my books fitted into the market.  As with most things in my life, I feel I should have prepared myself better.

During my search, I found this article including a good definition of dark fantasy and explanations.

And then I found this list of fantasy sub genres.  Cor blimey!  I did wonder if any of these were made up?

Here is another, shorter list.

Reading through lists like this does give an awful lot of inspiration of paths untrodden.  Overall the general consensus of the online search seems to be that the sub genres are utterly subjective.

I am quite affronted by the idea that I may have confused dark fantasy with paranormal romance, although it explains a lot, and feel the desperate need to dig my way out.  Is my book correctly defined as dark fantasy or has it fallen into the paranormal romance trap, lost in the woods?  I’ll have to do more thinking about this, but not until after I’ve redrafted and given the Book-Formerly-Known-As-Silver a new lease of life before it's even started.

I think I need to redefine my personal definition of dark fantasy, and then put it one side and continue to write whatever I feel the burning need to.  I can always define it later.

The fantasy genre is just far too confusing but this is only because it is vast and with so much potential.  And isn’t this why we love it so much?

Speaking of my Emily May novel!  Remember to catch the next instalment of The Twilight Zone tomorrow – who was the strange woman in the closed nocturnal house?