Genre help - novel based on a true story

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greendragon

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My first novel (probably my worst!) is about my parents' love story. It's set in the late 1960s, and is a novelization based on true events. Names of characters and certain cult-driven churches are changed to protect the innocent from libelous lawsuits:)

I don't think it's long ago enough to be classed as 'historical fiction.' There is some decently explicit sex scenes (maybe 3 on a scale of 10?) here and there, but not more than 2 or 3. It's romantic, and has a happy ending, but not until 30 years later. I wouldn't call it a classic romance by any stretch of the imagination. It is interspersed with the story of the daughter (me!) doing research to find her father, which takes 15 years.

General fiction? Women's stories? Mystery?? What do you think?
 

moonwatch178

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I'd probably go with women's fiction/chick lit, if it's a (non-romance) love story.
 

badducky

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If you can sell it as a Memoir, do it. They pay better. Memory is just the story we tell ourselves, and memoirs are just as much creative narrative as anything fictional.
 

Treehouseman

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I'd advise on selling it as Women's Fiction. Memoir is hard to sell traditionally unless there's something quite unusual.
 

MorganicMoon

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I would think a novel set in the late 1960s would be considered historical. An agent on twitter said that a novel set in the 1980s-1990s is considered historical.
 
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