Urban Fantasy as Genre (or, more than just vamps and sex)
Urban Fantasy is a genre. It’s a genre completely separate from paranormal romance, contrary to what a lot of people say. It’s not just paranormal romance without the romance, and it’s not just contemporary fantasy. It is its own specific genre, with its own specific genre trappings.
All genre (esp popular genre) has trappings. Space Opera has faster than light travel, strange aliens, berserk AI’s and space ships and bigger than the universe plots. Epic Fantasy has swords, epic plots, gods playing with humanity and various races and kinships (as well as magic). Each of these also has a diction for the narration that fits the mode of the genre itself. Note- these are not rules. These are just items that is usually in the genre, that grew naturally inside of the genre as it expanded, and is something readers come to expect. When genre is near the end of it’s popularity cycle, a lot of writers will break the trappings and expand it. Sometimes this will warp and change the genre, creating a new genre out of the old. Other times it will only appeal to a small audience and gain a cult following.
Genre trappings are usually separated into: narration style, plot style and setting. Space Opera has space as a setting, narration style of epic fantasy usually mimics Tolkien, plot style for both are epic and repetitive in it’s world saving-ness (and defeating of evil empire-ness). Etc, etc.
In Urban Fantasy we have a specific narration style- one borrowed from Noir. First person, sarcastic, tough to the core. Usually female, but sometimes male. The plot is also borrowed from Noir, as well as some murder mysteries or thrillers. It revolves around solving a mystery, usually with many twists and turns with a surprise whodunnit at the end.
The setting is contemporary, where magic exists and there are different races/species based on mythology, much like we have in Epic Fantasy. The species usually come from horror/horrific in bent, so instead of elves you get vampires, instead of dwarves you get werewolves, etc. Elves, faeries, dwarves and elves can exist in an urban fantasy, but they are usually far darker and closer to the original mythology that they were borrowed from, unlike their epic fantasy correlations. They are also far less common.
Unlike popular opinion, having a relationship or sex or anything with one of these supernatural creatures is not as common a plot trope/setting trapping as people believe. This is because a lot of non-readers assume that paranormal romance and urban fantasy are identical, which they are not. Urban Fantasy is contemporary noir combined with classical fantasy and horror. It’s a bit The Big Sleep, Tolkien, and I Am Legend wrapped up in a modern day setting. Paranormal Romance uses all the trapping of the Romance genre and combines them with horror tropes and some fantasy tropes. But the main trappings are Romance. The plot, the story, the character arc, all romance.
While Urban Fantasy’s trappings are almost strictly noir combined with fantasy.
So if a story doesn’t have horror elements, isn’t at all dark, but has fantastical creatures in a modern day setting, then what is its genre?
I would say contemporary fantasy…like Charles De Lint or Emma Bull.
A great post Paul. For one I have never made that assumption the two genres are the same, however, I would say you’ve made a good explanation of Urban Fantasy making it clearer to me as I am a novice of this particular genre.
There are many sub-genre’s of urban fantasy such as magical realism, dark fantasy, contemporary fantasy, etc. I am going to be interviewing Agent Laurie McLean on Tale Chasing on Thursday about this very thing.
Thanks for writing the article Paul. It’s a big fight among people who think that urban fantasy is paranormal romance when in fact the two are in different sections in the story. Urban fantasy can be found in the sci-fi/fantasy section and paranormal romance in the romance section!
Great article! Very nicely put.
I disagree that urban fantasy has to be in first person, though. Mine aren’t, and I know there are a few others (Caitlin Kittredge’s STREET MAGIC springs immediately to mind) which also aren’t.
I also don’t think they have to be strictly contemporary, but that’s a minor quibble.
I know! You’d think the separate shelving would make it obv! And yes, I love the sub-sub-sub genres as well. I was just trying to get rid of the basic assumption that this is a strictly romance genre…
but thanks for the comments!
I wrote a post a while back about noir and speculative fiction. I’d been listening to Seth Harwood’s Crimewave, reading Richard Morgan, and saw Finch and The City & The City on the horizon. I found a lot of great speculative fiction that embraces noir, both science fiction and fantasy. I found it interesting that there are numerous ways to combine noir and fantasy that would not be considered urban fantasy (Glenn Cook’s Garret PI for instance), but most of what I’d urban fantasy has significant noir elements.
One of those noir elements that uf makes use of is the 1st person narrator, but there are plenty that break that “rule.” From what I’ve seen 3rd person in an urban fantasy is USUALLY pretty tight 3rd person versus the more omniscient view you might find in high fantasy.
1st person vs 3rd person is only one of the “standard” urban fantasy trappings that can get mixed and matched to great effect. I, for one love my genre books difficult to classify. I’ve taken that obsession to a special extreme with my TagShadow project.
I love the discussion that results for this kind of post.
I wish Laurell K Hamilton would read this and stop bookending her Mary Sue porn with plot and calling it “urban fantasy”.
And that’s true, yeah.
Mine are indeed a very tight third.
I just try to slip my 2p in on that point when I can, ever since I had a fairly new writer tell me she was rewriting her ms in first person instead of third, since she’d had been told her book “wasn’t UF” since it wasn’t first person. She was rather upset about it, as I’m sure you can imagine. All that work!
Totally agree with you on loving genre-defying/genre-combining fiction! As a reader and a writer, I like to go in unexpected directions.
“I just try to slip my 2p in on that point when I can, ever since I had a fairly new writer tell me she was rewriting her ms in first person instead of third, since she’d had been told her book “wasn’t UF” since it wasn’t first person. She was rather upset about it, as I’m sure you can imagine. All that work!”
Who told her that? We have to learn to trust certain criticism, before making a big step like that- if it was her agent or a publisher, they’re saying that for a reason (can’t market it as well), but a lot of Urban Fantasy uses third person…
Just most use first.
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