In the Old Testament (OT) there are 3 major genre categories with subcategories totaling 10 genres. The major categories are prose, prophecy and poetry. Prose consists of law (1), narrative (2) and history (3). Prophecy consists of oracles of salvation (4), announcements of judgment (5) and apocalyptic (6). Poetry is divided into Psalms and Wisdom literature. The Psalms are mostly laments (7) or praise (8). Wisdom literature is composed of proverbs (9) and other (10) books such as Ecclesiastes, Job and Song of Solomon.
Law, also known as Torah or the Pentateuch, is the first five books of the O.T (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy). Narrative is composed of scene, plot, characterization, dialogue, setting, etc. The books of Joshua, Judges, Ruth, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther and Lamentations are examples of this genre. The history books are 1-2 Samuel, 1-2 Kings, and 1-2 Chronicles.
The Major Prophets (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel) and Minor Prophets (Daniel-Malachi) have all three genres mentioned above interspersed. Most of these prophetic books have oracles of salvation and announcements of judgment alongside one another. The apocalyptic books are mostly Daniel (chapters 7-12), Ezekiel (chapters 38-39), and select passages in Joel, Isaiah, Zechariah, and Malachi.
The Psalms contains about seventy percent laments and most of the rest praise psalms. Proverbs is unique among the wisdom literature and it can be divided into two parts: discourses from father to son and ‘Woman wisdom’ in the first nine chapters, and more random short pithy proverbs from chapters 10-31. The books of Ecclesiastes and Job present with major sections of ‘anti-wisdom’ and must be interpreted accordingly.