: Re: Would this story be classified as Adventure or Religious Fiction? A pious, benevolent, chaste, vegetarian Catholic monk from America in the 21st Century makes a road-trip to the West Coast from

@Angela458

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I wouldn't worry about what its classification is. I would simply write the story you want to write (assuming this isn't a hypothetical question) and let other people worry about classifying it after the fact.

Unless there is some practical necessity that requires you to write a specific genre, the point of writing should be to express what you want to express.

Robert M. Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is difficult to definitely fit into any one genre. I doubt that he worried too much about that when he wrote it.

Also, your description of the story might not be sufficient to determine anything. Although you describe lots of religious elements, you may not be describing that the book also involves hand-to-hand combat, overcoming a series of deadly traps, and solving many mysteries along the way.

(I doubt you would have failed to mention it if it did, but I'm just making an exaggerated point.)

With that additional bit of information, were it true, the fact that religious things also happen might be diminished in comparison, making it more difficult to absolutely pinpoint a genre. (Ellis Peters wrote a series of mystery books that involved a monk.)

Based purely on the description you gave, I would lean toward it being religious fiction. Although it would be more explicitly so if religious texts and their interpretations were also known to make up a significant part of the story.

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