When starting an Open Screenplay, you will need to choose a Main Genre, which will define the primary entertainment of the project. All of the genres that you are familiar with are listed:  Action, Comedy, Drama… and many more.  When choosing, remember that the Main Genre will identify the central way in which others will think of your story and the kind of entertainment they will expect to see and contribute to. 

If you’d like to get more specific, you can then choose up to three Sub-Genres.  A Sub-Genre is another level of identifying your project to create other, more specific expectations for the audience.  A few examples of Sub-Genres are: Gangster, Historical, and Paranormal. Each of these creates a different set of ideas of what the story will be about.  When you consider each of these sub-genres, think about the different kind of moments you expect to see.  

Note that in Open Screenplay, the Sub-Genre will be listed before (pre-fixed to) the Main Genre in the screenplay’s description. A Drama with Historical as a Sub-Genre will be listed as a “Historical Drama”.

A good way to think of Sub-Genres is that they can be paired with nearly any Main Genre.  You can have a Historical Comedy, Historical Drama, Historical Thriller, and so on.

If you feel that your story has two Main Genres of equal weight, you can choose “Blended Genre”, where you can select two Main Genres. When choosing this option, be sure that your story fulfills each genre equally. The most common blended genres are Action Adventure and Romantic Comedy.

In Open Screenplay, after choosing your genre on the Start Page, your genre cannot be changed later. Changing genre at any point after Starting your Open Screenplay will change the entertainment approach which could significantly impact all material contributed and voted on prior to the change.