Part I — Epic Mystery
There is a quiet moment every writer faces—the moment you scan the genre lists and realize that more than one could apply, yet none quite name what you have written. So what do you do now?
I am in the process of querying, which means facing the strange ritual of the query letter. And like many of us, I hit the same inevitable conundrum. What genre could possibly define what I’ve actually written? My first attempt was Upmarket, Speculative History Adventure Mystery. That single label consumed half my query letter… looked at how readers, writers, agents, and publishers categorize genres — and discovered they don’t agree with each other at all.
Genres are defined by age group, setting, theme, trope, emotional tone, narrative technique, character archetype, cultural trend, and—thank God—occasionally by primary narrative engine. Wikipedia lists 23 different genre classification methods. No shared definitions. No consensus. So how are we supposed to choose which label to pitch under?
And in that confusion, a quiet moment of reflection.
As writers, how do we reclaim this?
The first step is to decide which element of a novel should drive classification. What we have now is a patchwork—some genres painfully narrow, others so broad they lose all meaning. We need a shared system, so readers, writers, agents, and publishers are finally speaking the same language.
I’ll keep this at a 20,000-foot view—just enough to reframe the system and introduce a genre that has been long overdue. So how do we approach it?
So let’s start with three questions that should be asked of every book:
- Is it fiction or non-fiction? (I’ll leave non-fiction genres to their own champions.)
- If fiction, is it upmarket or commercial? In other words—does it carry multiple thematic layers, or is it built simply to tell a story? (And yes, these terms deserve better definitions too.)
- What is the primary narrative engine? This is the most critical question. It’s where the tire meets the road. Engines stay constant when everything else shifts. Each engine deserves definition.
Everything else—the setting, era, tone, even sub-genre—is clothing. The engine is the soul.
As I’ve said, I write speculative history adventure mysteries that lean upmarket. I want a genre label that communicates clearly—to readers and to agents—and aligns with a consistent framework built on the narrative engine.
We already have a strong example of engine-based genre naming: Epic Fantasy. It communicates at a glance—Epic meaning layered, mythic, upmarket in depth; Fantasy meaning a world where myth becomes tangible reality. Its primary narrative engine is myth made flesh.
Tolkien is its clearest exemplar with his legendarium. Curiously, so is Frank Herbert. Dune wears science fiction clothing, but its engine is prophecy, bloodline, and mythic destiny. The setting is futuristic—but the narrative engine is Epic Fantasy.
Under that same precedent, I propose a new genre: Epic Mystery.
Epic not because of length, but because of layered consequence.
Mystery not as crime or clue sequence, but as an enigma so compelling, so unsettling or awe-inducing, that it demands to be solved.
The setting does not define it. My work shifts through thriller, history, ancient lore, speculative science—but the engine remains constant: the compulsion to solve a mystery.
And that demand does more than generate a plot—it generates change. It reshapes character, memory, lineage, even perception of reality. In Epic Mystery, the act of solving transforms as deeply as the solution itself.
This is not procedural forensic mystery.
It is not fantasy-as-escape.
It is something older—something closer to Epic Mystery.
What Epic Truly Means
Epic is often mistaken for size—or for a story that spans multiple volumes.
Publishers point to word count. Readers assume “big world, long journey.”
But Epic is not defined by length. Epic is defined by depth.
Epic: a journey on the surface, with multiple journeys beneath it.
The surface may be physical—across deserts, ruins, archives, dynasties.
Beneath that run parallel journeys:
- A moral journey — values tested, beliefs shifted.
- A character journey — identity unmade and remade.
- A thematic journey — history, memory, or legacy confronted and reinterpreted.
- A cultural journey — civilization reexamined through a single act of pursuit.
This is what agents call upmarket—genre fiction with literary layering.
This is what Epic truly signals: not just a thrill, but consequence.
Genre Should Be Defined by Its Primary Narrative Engine — Not Its Setting
Publishing sorts stories by setting:
- Elves and swords? Fantasy.
- Spaceships? Science Fiction.
- A crime riddle? Mystery.
- A specific era? Historical.
- A corpse? Crime or Thriller.
But writers do not write by setting.
We write by engine—the force that drives the story forward and gives it meaning.
Setting is clothing. The engine is the soul.
This is how we must classify if genre names are to have meaning again.
Let us test this lens on the giants.
Genre by Engine — Tolkien, Herbert, Clarke
- Tolkien wrote Epic Fantasy, not because of elves, but because his narrative engine was mythic cosmology—a world that lives and breathes on its own terms. His legendarium.
- Herbert wrote Epic Fantasy in science fiction clothing—Dune is driven by prophecy, blood order, and mythic destiny. The technology is an aesthetic; the engine is myth.
- Clarke, by contrast, wrote Epic Science Fiction—his engine was not myth or mystery, but science reshaping human destiny.
The structure becomes obvious:
Epic Fantasy is myth made flesh.
Epic Science Fiction is science as destiny.
Epic Mystery is enigma as catalyst — the compulsion to solve reshaping our world.
Epic Mystery — A Restoration of Its True Form
Mystery has been reduced to “crime and resolution.” But Mystery, in its oldest literary form, meant something else — something primal.
It was not the hunt for a culprit.
It was the hunt to solve an enigma.
Something unsettling, radiant, or forbidden appears — an artifact, a letter, a disappearance, a name that should not exist. It is a problem so compelling, so threatening or awe-inspiring, that it must be solved.
That is the original engine of Mystery.
And that pursuit creates the Epic — not because the world is vast, but because its meaning becomes vast.
Stories like The Historian, Shadow of the Wind, The Club Dumas, and works like my own are not mysteries in the modern marketing sense—they are Epic Mysteries, where the act of solving rewrites perception, history, or maybe even destiny itself.
⚜ The Epic Mystery Creed
Just as Tolkien argued that fantasy was not escape but recovery—a restoration of what had been dulled or forgotten, Epic Mystery seeks to recover Mystery itself. Not as crime and resolution, but as the moment an enigma changes the way we perceive the world around us.
So let us test your observation skills — beginning with something everyone knows…
How would you classify Harry Potter?
Reply to either this blog or my social media posts on X or BlueSky.
In Part II, you’ll find the answer and a whole lot more in the Sorting Ceremony. Which House do you belong in?
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