One of the classes I attended at RMFW was about how to choose genre for a book. Outside of the agent/editor panels, it was the best session I went to. The speaker was fantastic, and she had some great tips on how to narrow down the genre of your novel.

One thing she recommended was keeping it as simple as possible for people not in the industry. For an agent, editor, or other writers, you want to know where your book fits on the bookshelf at a book store, but being a little more detailed than that isn’t bad.

But for the general public, simplify it as much as possible.

That’s easy for me. At least it is now. I’ve decided my current novel is fantasy. Not urban fantasy, or high fantasy, or sword and sorcery, or any of that. It’s just fantasy.

So…there’s a coffee shop I go to almost every morning. It’s a local place that’s literally a shack in the back of a KMart parking lot. It holds three or four people inside if they’re busy, but I don’t suspect it’s easy to move. Usually only two or three are working. They all know me by face, and one of the women has made it her goal lately to get me to talk more. So the conversation went something like this today:

Her: What are you up to today?
Me: Work. I have to catch up. I just got back from a few days off in Denver.
Her: What were you doing there?
Me: Writer’s conference
Her: Oh, what do you write?
Me: (I know this one, I went to a class about it). Fantasy.
Her: Oh really? Can you recommend any non-violent fantasy novels? My brother loves to read.

Umm…

Hmm…

Really?

I didn’t expect that. I’m prepared to answer questions about being published, about what my story is about, about what one does at a writer’s conference. But apparently, I’m not prepared to make recommendations. At least, not for adult fantasy novels.

It’s not that I don’t read. Off the top of my head – ‘American Gods’ by Neil Gaiman, anything ‘Discworld’ by Terry Pratchett, the ‘Dragon Lance’ books, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Frank Herbert…

But…I don’t think those fit the definition of what she’s looking for. Just an assumption I drew from other bits of the conversation. I’m embarassed to admit I’m drawing such a total blank. But I don’t write sword & sorcery stuff, because I don’t really read it, so…

Anyone have any recommondations? Fantasy for adult readers that’s basically rated PG or PG-13, especially on the violence side of things?