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For more than three years, I've been writing and re-writing my novel involving immortal characters.
Now I'm finally gathering courage to write a query letter and begin searching for agents. My problem is that I don't know what kind of agents to contact, as my book seems to fall somewhere in between genres.
Without actually getting into the plot, my book is an ensemble piece involving seven immortal characters, some who have lived merely decades, others centuries or millennia. The setting is contemporary (2018, mostly inside a hotel). The book borrows a lot of tropes from the mystery genre, especially from traditional mysteries (a murder in a confined space where all the characters know and suspect each other, lots of red herrings, a fair challenge to the reader where all the clues are presented throughout). The central question is not a whodunnit, however, but a whydunnit and it involves something related to the characters' condition as immortals (not the origin of immortality itself).
Here's the difficult part. These immortals are simply long-lived characters who come back to life upon death; nothing sets them apart from normal people besides their prolonged existence. They don't have any special powers. There is no magical system inside the story. There are no other paranormal beings inside the narrative (think ghosts or vampires or werewolves). Thus this can't fall into the paranormal mystery subgenre.
I've turned to fantasy too, but most subgenres that seemed somewhat plausible (contemporary fantasy or urban fantasy, for example), seemed to be quite heavy with the supernatural elements; my book isn't. If anything, it has a pretty rational approach to the issue of immortality.
Somebody in my writing club suggested magical realism. The problem is that this genre is about the complete opposite of my book in terms of tone (since it involves a certain mysticism, languid pace and flowery prose). My book is fast-paced, full of snappy dialogues and does actually treat immortality as something special, rather than a natural occurrence.
I'm afraid if I pitch my book as just a mystery, most agents/publishers/mystery readers will be turned off by the supernatural element. If I pitch this as fantasy or paranormal mystery, they will be expecting magic and paranormal beings. I don't know enough about SF subgenres to see if there's anything that fits, as I've only read a bunch of classic SF novels. Thus, I can't seem to figure out my audience either.
Thoughts? Also, are there any other books that fall between similar genres that you could tell me about (mystery with a slight supernatural twist)? It might help me tremendously, as I'd have a starting point in seeing what kind of audience these books attracted.
Edit: My book is somewhat similar to Death Note in that the supernatural element is more of a plot device/means for the mystery to happen, not the mystery investigated itself. If you suspend your disbelief and accept that Shinigami/Death Notes (or in my case, immortality) exist, then the mystery itself focuses on a (series of) murder(s), involving humans and caused by humans. That's one of the extra reasons why I hesitate to call this fantasy.
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Yeah, you have to plainly label this as fantasy. Not science-fiction. Because the fantasy elements are ones that would jar the reader if they were expecting reality. And I think it will turn off anyone accessing your book if it wasn't stated upfront.
Your queries can talk about "a mystery" without saying the book belong in the mystery genre. Or you can call it both mystery and fantasy. Your choice.
I would not worry about the subgenres. They're marketing and they will vary depending on the publisher (or reviewer or bookstore, etc). If your book fit neatly into a known subgenre, you could use it. But I don't suggest you try to force it.
I was going to suggest you look at the classification for The Many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers. Because the fantasy element is very slight and the book is mostly about other things. To my surprise, I'm not seeing it marketed as fantasy at all, though the fantasy part is mentioned directly in descriptions.
But how it is marketed is not necessarily the same as how it is pitched. I bet the word "fantasy" or a similar one was mentioned when Thomas Mullen was trying to sell it. And I would definitely use the word "fantasy" with your book, even if your queries focus on other things.
I'd be curious to hear how it goes for you.
Your novel has a major supernatural element in it: people come back from the dead.
No matter how you spin it, the central premise of your novel is supernatural. Correct me if I am wrong, but if you remove this element the story is not at all the same. This supernatural occurrence is a major plot device which the characters discuss in-world. Even if it's origin goes unexplained, your story is set in a supernatural universe (of which some of your characters may be ignorant, but they still live in it).
By the same idea of "what world does this story belong to", murder-mysteries take place in a murder-universe where serial killings are normal (even expected), and murderers are caught by ridiculous details like buttoning their coat wrong. Agatha Christie did not write about the supernatural, but her stories are not set in the real world. Murder-mysteries follow their own logic, but there's a difference between borrowing tropes to subvert them, and setting your story within the genre's "universal rules".
Since your immortals can't die, they violate a fundamental tenet of the murder mystery genre. It's my attempt to be objective, but I think most murder-mystery fans would say that a murderer who "fakes his death" by actually dying, then comes back later alive and turns out to have been the killer all along, would not be an acceptable "solution" within the mystery-universe.
Go for Contemporary Fantasy or as Chris Sunami suggests the popular subgenre of Fantasy-Mystery. I see no reason why you'd want to avoid an existing label if it could give you a marketing boost. Sure, we all hope that our writing surpasses genre labels, but why deliberately shun the people who would be actively looking for a story like this.
Don't worry about not being "supernatural-enough" (or murder-mystery-enough, or comic-relief-enough, or Hemmingway-enough) even genre-fans enjoy a range…. Unless a publisher is offering you a bag of money to shove a few extra ghosts and werewolves and magic swords into it for fan service, stick with the rules of your universe.
When immortals show up in sci-fi, fantasy and horror no one even blinks. I think this might be a case where you would be better off not jarring the reader out of story, even though it feels like it's not a major theme that is explored.
Keep in mind, genre isn't an exact science, it's a marketing tool, and cross-genre books can actually do very well. Neuromancer is science-fiction noir. Star Wars is science-fiction fairy tale. Harry Potter is fantasy/mystery/teen-series. Books fall outside the lines all the time, that just gets glossed over in the marketing materials!
What reader is most likely to enjoy your story? Overall, your best bet is to pick the genre it best fits and to sell it as that genre "with a twist." So if it's basically a contemporary mystery, sell it as a mystery, "but the hero lives forever." Or, if the immortality plot is really that deep in the background, you might want to de-emphasize it in your query entirely, and just note in passing that the book has "some supernatural elements." Keep in mind, however, that many readers of realistic fiction are resistant to anything supernatural at all, so it may be a harder sell this way than as a fantasy mystery, where the expectations are much much looser. (It's also worth noting that fantasy mysteries are popular enough that they basically make up their own subgenre.) Conversely, if there's a reasonable way to rationalize the supernatural elements (or to at least make them reasonably ambiguous) it might be worth the effort to make the book more palatable to the core mystery audience.
If your book is really half-and-half, why not write two queries, one selling it as a mystery with a few supernatural elements, and the other selling it as a fantasy mystery? You'll double (more or less) the potential agents/publishers you're reaching out to, and you'll be able to see first hand which approach gets more traction. The markets change all the time, there's really no way to guess if your twist will turn agents away, or if they'll see it as a fresh breath of air in a stale genre.
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