Writing Different Genres With AI
Apply AI-assisted writing techniques to specific genres: fantasy, mystery, literary fiction, romance, horror, sci-fi, and poetry.
Every Genre Has a Contract
In the previous lesson, we explored dialogue, voice, and style. Now let’s build on that foundation. When someone picks up a mystery, they’re signing an invisible contract: “I’ll invest my time if you give me a puzzle worth solving and a solution that’s fair.” When someone opens a romance, the contract says: “Give me a love story that earns its happy ending.”
Genre conventions aren’t restrictions. They’re the foundation of reader trust. The best genre writers honor the core contract while bringing something fresh to the form.
AI can help you understand, fulfill, and creatively subvert genre conventions, no matter what you write.
Fantasy and Science Fiction
The Worldbuilding Advantage
Fantasy and sci-fi demand the most worldbuilding of any genre. Magic systems, alien cultures, future technologies, alternate histories. Each detail affects everything else.
AI’s tireless consistency checking is invaluable here:
My fantasy world has these rules:
- [Magic system rules]
- [Social structure]
- [Key technology or supernatural elements]
Act as a world consistency auditor:
1. What logical consequences do these rules create
that I might have missed?
2. How would ordinary people adapt to these rules?
(Transportation, commerce, medicine, warfare)
3. Who would benefit and who would suffer from this system?
4. What would criminals, rebels, or innovators do to
exploit loopholes?
Magic System Design
The best magic systems have clear rules, meaningful costs, and interesting limitations:
I need a magic system for my fantasy story.
Theme: [the feeling or metaphor magic represents]
Setting: [brief world description]
Design a magic system with:
- How magic works (the mechanism)
- What it costs (nothing is free)
- What it can't do (limitations create story tension)
- How society has organized around it
- Three ways this system could be abused or exploited
- One devastating consequence nobody anticipated
Sci-Fi Technology
For science fiction, AI helps think through technological implications:
My story features this technology: [describe it]
Era: [when it's set]
Think through the ripple effects:
- How would this change daily life for ordinary people?
- What new crimes, jobs, or social classes would emerge?
- What ethical debates would society be having?
- What's the unintended consequence nobody predicted?
- How would people resist, hack, or misuse this technology?
Mystery and Thriller
Engineering Backward
Mysteries are built in reverse. You need to know the answer before you can design the puzzle.
I'm writing a mystery. Here's my concept:
- The crime: [what happened]
- The victim: [who and why they matter]
- The actual perpetrator: [who and their motive]
Help me engineer the puzzle:
1. Five clues the detective (and reader) can discover
that point to the real perpetrator
2. Three pieces of misdirection that seem to point to
the wrong suspect
3. Two red herrings that aren't about suspects at all
4. The key moment where all clues click together
5. How each clue could be hidden in plain sight
Building Suspense
Thriller pacing is its own art:
In my story, the tension should peak at [climactic scene].
Currently the reader knows: [what they know]
The character knows: [what the protagonist knows]
The danger is: [the threat]
Design 5 scenes leading to the climax, each building tension:
- What information is revealed?
- What new danger emerges?
- How does the time pressure increase?
- What does the character sacrifice or risk?
The classic suspense technique: the reader knows there’s a bomb under the table. The characters don’t. Every pleasant conversation becomes unbearable. AI can help you plant these dramatic irony opportunities throughout your story.
Literary Fiction
Character as Plot
In literary fiction, external events matter less than internal transformation. The “plot” is often a character reckoning with a truth about themselves.
My literary fiction explores: [theme]
My protagonist is: [character description]
Their central illusion (the lie they believe): [what they
tell themselves]
Design a story arc where:
- The opening shows the illusion in full operation
- Three events gradually crack the illusion
- Each crack reveals something the character has been
avoiding
- The climax forces a choice between the comforting
illusion and painful truth
- The ending sits in the ambiguity of that choice
Prose Style in Literary Fiction
Literary fiction demands the strongest prose. AI can help you elevate your language:
Here's a passage I'm working on: [paste]
**Quick check:** Before moving on, can you recall the key concept we just covered? Try to explain it in your own words before continuing.
This is literary fiction. Help me elevate the prose:
1. Where could I replace telling with showing?
2. Where could metaphor deepen the meaning?
3. Which sentences have the strongest rhythm, and which
are flat?
4. Where am I being generic when I could be specific?
5. Is there an image or motif I could thread through
for cohesion?
Romance
The Emotional Arc
Romance lives or dies on the emotional journey between two characters. The external plot serves the internal arc.
My romance features:
Character A: [description, emotional wound]
Character B: [description, emotional wound]
How they meet: [the meet-cute or initial situation]
Design the emotional arc:
1. Initial attraction and the specific quality each finds
compelling in the other
2. The first moment of connection (when attraction
becomes something deeper)
3. Three obstacles—at least one internal (their own
fears/wounds)
4. The "black moment" where it seems impossible
(and why it's tied to their wounds)
5. The resolution that shows both characters have grown
enough to love fully
Chemistry on the Page
My two characters are [brief descriptions].
Their dynamic is: [push-pull description]
Write a scene where they have an everyday interaction
(picking up groceries, waiting for a bus, a work meeting)
that crackles with underlying chemistry. Show the
attraction entirely through:
- What they notice about each other
- What they DON'T say
- Physical awareness (not attraction described,
but the small physical details they track)
Horror
What Scares the Reader
Horror works through vulnerability. The reader needs to feel that what’s threatening the character could threaten them.
My horror story's core fear is: [what it exploits]
The setting is: [where]
The threat is: [what's dangerous]
Design the escalation:
1. Normalcy—make the reader comfortable
2. First wrongness—something small that's off
3. Rationalization—the character explains it away
4. Escalation—more things go wrong, harder to explain
5. Revelation—the nature of the threat becomes clear
6. No escape—every exit is blocked
7. The confrontation with the thing itself
For each stage, suggest a specific sensory detail that
creates unease.
Poetry
AI as Poetry Companion
Poetry and AI have a surprising synergy. AI can generate variations, suggest formal structures, and help you find the precise word you’re reaching for.
I'm working on a poem about: [subject/feeling]
Form: [free verse / sonnet / haiku / etc., or "surprise me"]
Tone: [meditative, angry, tender, etc.]
Give me:
1. Five possible opening lines, each with a different
rhythm and approach
2. Three images or metaphors connected to this subject
that avoid cliché
3. Two unexpected word choices that could add texture
4. A suggested structure (where to break stanzas,
where the poem turns)
For poets, AI is most useful as a thesaurus on steroids and a pattern generator. The emotional truth of a poem must come from you.
Genre-Blending
Some of the most exciting fiction crosses genre boundaries. Literary horror. Sci-fi romance. Fantasy mystery.
I want to blend [Genre A] and [Genre B].
Identify:
1. Where these genres naturally complement each other
2. Where their conventions conflict (and how to resolve it)
3. What reader expectations from each genre I MUST honor
4. What fresh territory the combination opens up
5. Three published examples of this blend that worked
(so I can study them)
Exercise: Genre Deep Dive
Pick one genre you’d like to write in (or are currently writing in).
- Use AI to identify the ten most important conventions of that genre
- Decide which conventions you’ll honor, which you’ll subvert, and which you’ll ignore
- Write a one-page scene in that genre, using the genre-specific AI techniques from this lesson
- Ask AI to evaluate whether the scene fulfills the genre’s core contract
Key Takeaways
- Every genre has a contract with the reader: core conventions you should honor and secondary ones you can subvert
- Fantasy/sci-fi: AI excels at consistency checking and thinking through systemic implications
- Mystery: work backward from the solution, using AI to plant clues and misdirection
- Literary fiction: focus on internal transformation and prose elevation
- Romance: the emotional arc between characters is the plot
- Horror: escalate through vulnerability, normalcy disrupted, and no escape
- Poetry: AI helps with variations, word choice, and structure while you provide emotional truth
- Genre-blending opens fresh territory when you honor core contracts from each genre
Next lesson: editing, revision, and polishing. How to use AI to transform a rough draft into your best work.
Knowledge Check
Complete the quiz above first
Lesson completed!