16^th Annual Killer Nashville
Silver Falchion Award

Categories

• Best Action Adventure

  Action adventure is a thriller, mystery, and suspense genre wherein fast-paced action is the primary component, outshining even characters and setting. This genre also usually includes a secondary element such as a murder investigation or a quest, but the main focus is always on fast-forward action. Subgenres of action adventure include crime action & adventure, fantasy, men’s adventure, mystery, organized crime thrillers, romantic suspense, science fiction, sea adventures, suspense, terrorism, thriller, war & military, and women’s adventures.

• Best Comedy (includes comedic P.I. and crime caper)

  This category requires little explanation (like any good joke). Comedies are designed to make your audience laugh and evoke feelings of merriment. 

• Best Cozy

  The cozy mystery genre is a suspense story in which a protagonist solves a crime or puzzle, though very little graphic or gory detail of the crime is included. Subgenres of the cozy mystery include amateur sleuths, standard British detectives, and women sleuths in a cozy non-professional context.

• Best Historical

  A historical novel is one that has as its setting a period of history and that attempts to convey the spirit, manners, and social conditions of a past age with realistic detail and historical fact. Historical revisionist works are also welcome.

   

• Best Investigator (includes procedural, serious P.I., detective, and noir)

  The procedural mystery genre is a thriller and suspense story in which a professional protagonist (detective, journalist, attorney, physician) solves a crime, usually gruesome and with graphic detail. Subgenres of the procedural mystery include hard-boiled, historical, international, police procedural, private investigator.

• Best Juvenile / YA

  The young adult genre we are interested in involves mystery, thriller and suspense elements. The target for this award is a young adult; however, if you have an entry that would appeal to adults, as well (the Harry Potter franchise, for example), you can also choose to enter it in that genre category rather than generically here.

• Best Mystery (includes crime fiction)

  The mystery genre can be broken down into a seemingly endless list of subgenres. In general, a mystery is any novel in which a protagonist is trying to unravel unexplained or unexplainable events and get to the truth. 

• Best Nonfiction (includes true crime, forensics, law enforcement, biography, publicity/marketing, academic, reference, and criticism)

  The nonfiction genre is exactly that…not fiction. This can range from true crime to cookbooks to an accounting of a historical event or figure.

• Best Sci-fi / Fantasy

  Sci-fi and fantasy are genres set in a fictional or real universe universe. Mystical and magical creatures or scientific monstrosities are common in both.

• Best Short Story Collection / Anthology (awarded to individual author or collection editor)

  Includes any collection of short stories by one author or several in the categories of action adventure, fantasy, horror, humor, cozy and procedural mysteries, romantic suspense, science fiction, and thriller. In the case of several authors, the honor and physical award will be given to the editor.

• Best Southern Gothic

  Southern Gothic is a subgenre of Gothic Literature that takes place in the American South. Southern Gothic novels tend to be a bit dark and feature grotesque characters, dark humor, isolation, violence, the supernatural, etc.

• Best Supernatural (includes horror, gothic, and paranormal)

  Supernatural works focus on, well, the supernatural. This can include ghosts, witchcraft, divine entities, werewolves, goblins, ghouls, monsters, etc.

• Best Suspense (includes romantic suspense and psychological)

  Suspense is closely aligned to mystery and thriller but, in general, it should create a sense of anticipation in your reader. While the genre also contains many elements of mystery/thriller (conflict, red herrings, fast pacing, etc.) there is a sense of foreboding throughout. Often, the reader will be aware of things the protagonist is not aware of.

• Best Thriller (includes spy, espionage, political, legal, medical)

  The thriller genre is a mystery or suspense category that covers a broad spectrum, probably overlapping numerous genres, but defined mainly by the moods it produces using techniques of anticipation and surprise. The thriller should keep the reader unbalanced in terms of what might happen next. Normally a thriller centers on the pursuit of (or prevention of) a single goal.