Wise words from The Writers’ Studio on genre ‘Each genre has a different structural form designed to take a character and reader on a particular journey.’ When I was working on my first thriller, I commissioned an editor to do a structural edit of my work. I wanted it to be the best it possibly could be, before I pitched it to a literary agent. Unfortunately for me, the editor sent me off in the wrong direction because, I discovered later, she didn’t know what readers and publishers expected of the thriller genre. So I wasted 6 months correcting the ensuing mistakes. Lesson learned.