GENRE
CHARACTERISTICS
BIOGRAPHY
• An account of a real person’s life written by someone else
• Tells important information about a person’s life, including his or her
achievements or talents.
• Tells how a person talks, feels, and thinks about things
• Either may be the about the person’s whole life or part of their life
• Events are usually told in the order they occurred (chronologically)
MYSTERY
• Solving a puzzling event or situation
• Something unknown
• Solving a crime
• Centered around a person who investigates wrongdoing
• Centered around a person or persons employed to obtain secret
information
AUTOBIOGRAPHY
• An account by a person about his or her own life
• Tells important information about their own life, including
achievements or talents.
• Tells how the person talks, feels, and thinks about things
• Either may be the about the person’s whole life or part of their life
• Events are usually told in the order they occurred (chronologically)
HISTORICAL FICTION
• Story is set in a particular time and place in the past
• Story contains details that make the story more realistic.
• Characters talk, dress, and act like people of that time period
• Story involves real people and actual events that happened in
history
SCIENCE FICTION
• Characters solve problems in a futuristic setting anywhere in the
universe
• Humans, extraterrestrials, or members of other species
• Involve the effects of advanced science and technology on life
• Stories blend fact and fiction
EXPOSITORY TEXT
• Gives factual and verifiable information about a specific
subject.
• Information presented can be checked using other sources
(newspapers, encyclopedias, etc.)
• Uses facts about real events and people
EXPOSITORY TEXT
• Presents information in a clear way
• Gives events in the order in which they happened
• Writing organized by topics
• May use diagrams, photographs, and other illustration
ADVENTURE
• A story has characters who behave like real people and
animals.
• The settings are real or could be real
• The events could happen in real life
• The story has action or suspense, or both.
FOLK TALES
• A story that has been told and retold over generations
• Different countries have similar folk tales
• Folk tales often begin with “Once upon a time” or “Long
ago in a faraway place…”
• Characters can be animals or objects that can speak
FOLK TALES
• The story often teaches a lesson or moral
• Good or smart wins over evil or stupid
• The story is told using the words he, she or it
• Actions or words are often repeated (in a pattern)
• The story has an exciting “high point” at the end
HORROR
• Supernatural
• Non-supernatural
• Provokes a response – emotional, psychological or physical
• Unreal figures (phantoms, mummies, vampires etc)
• Real figures (serial killers, stalkers, etc)
HORROR
• Real situations (crime scenes, divorce, inequality, drugs etc)
• Antagonist provokes the fear, anger, or tension
• Many times ‘ending’ is unresolved (heightens the fear
factor)
• Unexpected events
• Dark, dismal, eerie, gruesome
REALISTIC FICTION
• Set in modern/current times
• Realistic characters
• Real world settings
• Every day language
• Themes dealing with basic truths or human nature
• Events are not true, but could really happen
FANTASY
• Elements that are not real (unicorn, talking animals,
characters with magical powers)
• Conflict between good and evil
FANTASY
• Alternative World
• Teaches a lesson or moral of a story
• Magic
• Medieval setting