Do You Know The Difference?
Urban fantasy, modern fantasy, contemporary fantasy… Do you know the difference between these fantasy subgenres?
It’s really hard to categorize a book when there are so many subgenres, especially when not everyone knows them by name.
When I first started writing seriously, I described my genre as modern fantasy—a term I had only seen a handful of times. I wrote magical elements synonymous with fantasy yet contained it in a modern setting. And that’s how I had to explain it to people who’d never heard of the term before.
Then, I stumbled upon a description of urban fantasy and switched how I described my writing to other people. And more people knew of urban fantasy, so I didn’t need to go into details as much!
But while doing some comp author research—with Neil Gaiman’s American Gods, to be specific—I realized a lot of reviewers were calling it contemporary fantasy instead.
So what’s the difference?
Contemporary Fantasy:
Seems like a contradiction, doesn’t it? Contemporary is the real world, and Fantasy isn’t. But we can define contemporary fantasy as the modern world being filled with fantasy elements.
Urban Fantasy:
Urban fantasy is a sub-genre of contemporary fantasy, and it mostly deals with fantasy elements within a city setting. It also seems to have a specific formula, in that it incorporates themes, issues, and conflicts faced by urban populations as its main plot points, has mostly vampire/werewolf/demon/witch/warlock characters, and the MC is either a detective or does a lot of detective work.
Modern Fantasy:
Related to low fantasy, magical realism, etc., modern fantasy is apparently another term for contemporary fantasy.
Low Fantasy:
As opposed to high fantasy (think The Lord of the Rings with its made-up locations such as Lothlorien and Rivendell and races like elves, orcs, etc.), low fantasy has these same magical elements thrust into the real world, rather than a whole other imagined world.
Magical Realism:
Set in the real world, magical realism has magical elements that are presented as “normal.” Here, the magic is deliberately left unexplained in order to normalize it as much as possible.
But with all that out of the way, it appears there is still mass confusion.
You see, the term urban fantasy has also been stretched to mean “fantasy set in the modern, real world.”
If you compare Goodreads lists of both urban and contemporary fantasy, you will find a lot of the same titles. As a matter of fact, around 23.5k users list Gaiman’s American Gods as strictly fantasy, while around 2.6k users list it under urban fantasy, and only a little under 800 users list it under contemporary.
So when it comes to The Elemental’s Guardian, which subgenre do I label it as?
Simple answer: urban fantasy. Complicated answer: contemporary fantasy.
Did you know any of these subgenres? Let me know in the comments!
Raine