Should YWS get rid of some of the genres for literary works?

I'm going to be making some changes to the Literary area over the next few weeks, and one thing I've been looking at are the genres (ex. Romance, Mystery, Teen Fiction, etc.).

Prior to 2012, YWS had only the following genres: Dramatic, Narrative, and Lyric for Poetry; and Romance, Sci-Fi, Historical Fiction, General Fiction, Action/Adventure, Fantasy, and Fanfiction for Short stories & Novels. All other types did not have any specific genres.

I added the other genres to help users with categorizing their works, but while it may be helpful for authors, I'm not sure it's helpful for readers. Not many people are clicking on the genre list when browsing Literary works, and I think it's because there's so many.

The proposal

So, here's what I'm thinking. First, reduce the genres to just the following:
- Dramatic
- Narrative
- Lyrical
- Romance
- Sci-fi
- Historical
- Fanfiction
- Action / Adventure
- General
- Fantasy / Supernatural
- Mystery / Horror

As now, you'd be able to pick two genres to categorize your work under.

Secondly, you'd be able to create tags of your own choosing. So if you still wanted to categorize your work under Health, Politics, Teen Fiction, etc., you could just create a tag. Tags would not show up in the genre list of course, but by clicking on a tag when you see it, you'd see all other works categorized under that tag.

The tags idea is great! Then we can be a lot more specific both in labeling our works, and in looking for what we want to read.

I really like this idea.

I actually joined YWS about a year and half ago when the site was renovating into its new shiny look, but I went on a long hiatus since then and returned recently. The site actually changed drastically from what I can remember, but it's a good kind of change. The only thing that bothered me was the fact that there are way too many genres and options to choose from, and I really didn't know where to start. If narrowed down, it would definitely be easier to navigate. :]

how about 'literary fiction' and 'literary poetry' sections for stuff that isn't genre fiction?

I like the slimming down, it'll make things a lot easier! However, I think I'd like if "Teen/Young Adult" got left in? Since it is usually a separate thing. But I don't know. I guess most of what gets written is YA anyway.

I think the more the better. I generally believe the more words English language has the better.

I'm all good with the tags idea. It would be great to categorize everything more specifically according to their topics. But there are risks, though. Improper tagging (like using mature-level tags and using multiple tags but of the same category) might be a problem. However, I think that can be easily solved!

I agree with Stells, YA is a popular and evergrowing genre, we don't want to leave it out and have to change it later.

(And when I say we I mean you )

Is YA really a genre though? I always just regarded it as an easy way for bookstores to organize books by intended demographic. On YWS, everything is technically YA.

Good point . . .


YA is . . . Young adult . . . Teen fiction . . . all that kind of stuff. Really I've never have used that genre (I know that other writing websites DO consider it a genre), so I can't really attest as to its usefulness.

I agree with Nate though - it isn't really a Genre for YWS at all.

I strongly believe satire should stay a genre. It causes enough misunderstandings when properly classified as it is, and there's a fair number of pieces classified as satirical that have been submitted since the new system. There's also a fair number of pieces that have not been classified as satire because they predate the new system, like the infamous Top Ten Reasons Why Women Are Better Than Men and the numerous response pieces.

I also think giving non-fiction a genre of its own would help promote it and give a home for pieces that otherwise don't fit under the classification system. I've fielded a couple of questions about where to put essays and such, and having a non-fiction genre would really help simplify matters.

As for poetry, I think it'd be a good idea to consolidate Dramatic, Lyrical, and Narrative into one Poetry genre and use those as tags.

Getting rid of dramatic / lyrical / narrative sounds good, and keeping the satire category sounds good as well.

With non-fiction, we still have the "Articles" category. I could add a genre for non-fiction, but it seems redundant.

Edit

On second thought, I'll go ahead and add the non-fiction genre. Not all articles are non-fiction, and not every novel is fiction.