What different/various types, kinds and categories of writing are there?

Question

Other than if not including:
fiction, non fiction and poetry.

Answer 1

It is in a book called "The book of forms." By: Lewis Turco and/or "Literary Terms and Literary theory By: J.A. Cuddon

There are far too many to list here and I don't have that kind of time!

Answer 2

This question is huge! I guess the first thing I would do to answer it is to set up a hierarchy. Probably to start I would divide writing into the two categories you mention, Fiction and Non-Fiction. Under Non-Fiction you could start with categories like Sciences, Soft Sciences,Technical and Humanities. There are books written about how to write in each of those fields, including their sub-categories.

You can just keep dividing out under each of those headings into other groups, for instance under the Humanities you would have History and its sub-categories (which can include Biography and Autobiography, technical and non-technical descriptions of battles, etc.), Political Science, Philosophy, etc. Under the Sciences you would have the obvious categories like Biology and Chemistry, and under each of those, categories like the history of the science, text books, and popular writing. Under each category there are Critiques, which engage the people in each field in dialogues about their work.

There are other complications here, as well, for instance, there is science and there is math that is written as fiction and poetry. Examples would be Flatland and some of the books of Lillian and Hugh Lieber.

I suspect that what you are asking is really concerned with the category in the Humanities called Literature. This can also include non-fiction, such as Biography and Auto-biography (the question of how much fiction there isin history is too much to deal with here). Under Fiction there are so many categories that the mind boggles. I guess you could start with poetry and prose.

In poetry there are the classical categories of Epic, Romance, Georgics, and Pastoral. Each one has its own set of requirements and characteristics. A favorite category in the 18th century was Mock Epic, as in Byron, Dryden and Pope. These are all what would be considered "narrative" poetry. There is also "lyric" poetry, which would include various short forms, such as sonnets. This could go on forever, but you get the idea. Drama is another entire category with categories such as "Tragedy," "Comedy," "Romance," and "Satire." Each of these categories can include musicals.

I feel daunted at the prospect of setting out the prose forms of fiction. Sometimes fiction is divided into "Mainstream" and "Genre" fiction. Mainstream would be novels like those of Thomas Hardy, Faulkner, Fitzgerald, ad infinitum. Genre fiction would include Horror, Detective, Mystery, Sword and Sorcery, SciFi, etc. Under mainstream there are sub-genres such as adventures, sagas, romances (which can also be genre fiction), and sub-categories under each of those. There is also Satire, which would include writers like Swift and Vonnegut.

Each kind of writing has its rules and characteristics, and if you want to write in that genre, there are books that tell you how to do it and what is required. It gets even more confusing and interesting when you realize how much crossing over there is between genres.

One of my favorite examples is the Clan of the Cave Bear series. Auel tells how she began writing with a type of writing that generally falls into the "Technical" category: process narrative. This is a running account of each step in the process of doing something--in Auel's case things like making an arrowhead from flint. She says she then went back after writing an entire book of process narratives and filled in the artistic details.

This isn't anything like a complete answer--I don't have time to write a book! Besides, minds better than mine have already done it, for instance, Northrop Frye. But the question is very important, because I believe, along with some other literary theorists, that understanding what the genre or type of writing is that you are reading allows you to appreciate and enjoy it more. If you watch a soccer game without knowing what the rules are, it is a lot more difficult to enjoy it than if you understand the game. It is possible to watch long enough and figure out the rules, but it is a lot easier to have someone tell you first. There are books on writing that will tell you a lot of this stuff. I guess the best way to start is to Google the book or poem or whatever you are reading and see if you can find something in Wikipedia or elsewhere that will tell you what kind of writing it is. Then look that up. A reference librarian can also be very helpful.

Hope the suggestion of categories helps and perhaps some other people will read it and think of other things. I'm not sure why you are asking, so I'm not sure exactly how to be of help to you.

Good luck!

Answer 3

Two major forms of writing: Poetry and prose.

Poetry can be divided into about a dozen different styles including free verse (unstructured) and structured.

Prose can be divided into FICTION and NONFICTION. Each branch of prose can be subdivided into whole trees of possibilities. Far too many to go into here. You'll have to get a lot more specific.