I've never really heard of formula fiction. Genre fiction and literary fiction have an ever-changing definition, but the best way to think about them is that genre fiction is plot-driven entertainment while literary fiction is written to "teach" you something. Some people even consider literary fiction a genre.
What is "genre fiction" specifically?
This might be a stupid question.
I never paid much mind to the terms "genre writing" and "genre fiction" until I stumbled upon this forum and their apparent popularity. I've looked around through blogs and wikis and still don't totally understand the difference (nor whether it's a good or bad thing). Could someone explain how writing for a popular genre is any different from writing that happens to fit in a (popular) genre, and how can readers tell the difference? Won't even the most literary work fit into some category at the end of the day? (And if not, wouldn't any traction it gained just make way for a new genre to categorize it as?)
Wiki says "genre fiction" is the opposite to "literary fiction", but literary fiction clearly has more elaborate implications than just not being categorical. And how does "genre fiction" compare to "formula fiction"? It seems like every other site has a different definition for these terms.
I never paid much mind to the terms "genre writing" and "genre fiction" until I stumbled upon this forum and their apparent popularity. I've looked around through blogs and wikis and still don't totally understand the difference (nor whether it's a good or bad thing). Could someone explain how writing for a popular genre is any different from writing that happens to fit in a (popular) genre, and how can readers tell the difference? Won't even the most literary work fit into some category at the end of the day? (And if not, wouldn't any traction it gained just make way for a new genre to categorize it as?)
Wiki says "genre fiction" is the opposite to "literary fiction", but literary fiction clearly has more elaborate implications than just not being categorical. And how does "genre fiction" compare to "formula fiction"? It seems like every other site has a different definition for these terms.
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On the one hand, literary fiction teaches the reader something. I like that definition. It is written with a message in mind, a moral.
On the other hand, genre fiction meets specific reader expectations. It is written to sell, and it is read purely for entertainment.
On the other hand, genre fiction meets specific reader expectations. It is written to sell, and it is read purely for entertainment.
One of my past publishers says my writing is horror with a literary bend. Mystery. horror, romance, thrillers are genre. Literary to me is more the way the words flow, more descriptions than genre. I've never looked at literary as teaching anybody anything. I read literary such as Hemingway, Gardner, Justin Cronin (horror literary - The Passage) Tom Perrotta - (Futuristic literary - The Leftovers). Here's a site you might like to read. http://www.themillions.com/2011/09/why-are-so-many-literary-writers-shifting-into-genre.html
As I said in the OP, I already referred to the wiki page. It has a lot of conflicting information (especially between the related pages).
I'm mainly asking to see if there is at least some general consensus of its meaning amongst the indie community. Even if the wiki did stick to one definition, a term's implications often change from one industry to another, so I believe it's best to ask the people using it in the context I'm most concerned about.
Edited to remove quoted post that has been deleted. --Betsy
I'm mainly asking to see if there is at least some general consensus of its meaning amongst the indie community. Even if the wiki did stick to one definition, a term's implications often change from one industry to another, so I believe it's best to ask the people using it in the context I'm most concerned about.
Edited to remove quoted post that has been deleted. --Betsy
This is my personal take on it....
Genre fiction is the stuff that neatly fits into specific categories. Mysteries, Thrillers, Horror, Sci-fi, Fantasy, etc.
Literary fiction, to me, has always meant the rest of the stuff that is overly detailed with lots of big words because the author owns a thesaurus and thinks they're better than everyone else.
I really don't think "teaching something" has anything to do with it. Teachable lessons are a common thing in all fiction, it's what drives a plot. How someone tackles a problem and learns (or fails) from that experience is what the reader is being taught.
Hell, just take a look at Science Fiction, isn't the whole point of stories set in the future just a way to explore how technology and advancement is going to change our society and hopefully we don't end up making some of the dystopian futures some people write about a reality?
Genre fiction is the stuff that neatly fits into specific categories. Mysteries, Thrillers, Horror, Sci-fi, Fantasy, etc.
Literary fiction, to me, has always meant the rest of the stuff that is overly detailed with lots of big words because the author owns a thesaurus and thinks they're better than everyone else.
I really don't think "teaching something" has anything to do with it. Teachable lessons are a common thing in all fiction, it's what drives a plot. How someone tackles a problem and learns (or fails) from that experience is what the reader is being taught.
Hell, just take a look at Science Fiction, isn't the whole point of stories set in the future just a way to explore how technology and advancement is going to change our society and hopefully we don't end up making some of the dystopian futures some people write about a reality?
Where would the line be drawn in a work with both a moral message and entertainment value, though?Cherise Kelley said:On the one hand, literary fiction teaches the reader something. I like that definition. It is written with a message in mind, a moral.
On the other hand, genre fiction meets specific reader expectations. It is written to sell, and it is read purely for entertainment.
Thanks for the link. My process has always aligned more with Leavitt's (in that I write a story and concern myself with labeling it a genre afterwards for marketing), which is why I'm a bit surprised to hear of writing specifically to fit the rules of a genre or to follow a commercial process. I'm not against it, just curious to learn more.Douglas E Wright said:Here's a site you might like to read. http://www.themillions.com/2011/09/why-are-so-many-literary-writers-shifting-into-genre.html
Douglas E Wright said:Literary to me is more the way the words flow, more descriptions than genre. I've never looked at literary as teaching anybody anything.
Yup, that's what I've always considered literary fiction - something poetically written with more depth in the language. This is the first I've heard of it referring to work that's non-commercial or with a moral message.AshRonin said:Literary fiction, to me, has always meant the rest of the stuff that is overly detailed with lots of big wordsbecause the author owns a thesaurus and thinks they're better than everyone else.
I really don't think "teaching something" has anything to do with it. Teachable lessons are a common thing in all fiction, it's what drives a plot. How someone tackles a problem and learns (or fails) from that experience is what the reader is being taught.
Ha! Sorry if I came off as a dick that you wanted to --- out part of that. I'm butt hurt because we had a few, "literary types" invade a writing group at my college (which, because it's on campus, we have to be inclusive to everyone) and they utterly demolished the atmosphere of the group.Holland d'Haas said:Yup, that's what I've always considered literary fiction - something poetically written with more depth in the language. This is the first I've heard of it referring to work that's non-commercial or with a moral message.
AshRonin has given you the prejudiced-against-literary-fiction response. The prejudiced-against-genre-fiction response would be that genre fiction is shallow, formulaic entertainment produced without much attention to quality for readers who can't be bothered to grapple with ambiguity or nuance, whereas as literary fiction is a highly varied body of art produced for thoughtful, sophisticated readers who enjoy being intellectually challenged.
As you can see, defining one category from inside the other isn't terribly helpful. Either way, you end up belittling whichever category you personally don't like.
There's no completely clear way to define genre fiction vs. literary fiction. Every novel gets put into one category or the other. Most works slide right into place because they either fit neatly into one of the established genre-fiction groupings (thriller, fantasy, romance, etc.) or they don't fit into any of them. But there's definitely stuff that doesn't fit easily into one category or the other, and sometimes books shift over time.
I actually don't agree with the idea that literary fiction is about teaching you something. Most of the literary fiction writers I know would see pursuing a central underlying message as a good way to write a bad book.
As you can see, defining one category from inside the other isn't terribly helpful. Either way, you end up belittling whichever category you personally don't like.
There's no completely clear way to define genre fiction vs. literary fiction. Every novel gets put into one category or the other. Most works slide right into place because they either fit neatly into one of the established genre-fiction groupings (thriller, fantasy, romance, etc.) or they don't fit into any of them. But there's definitely stuff that doesn't fit easily into one category or the other, and sometimes books shift over time.
I actually don't agree with the idea that literary fiction is about teaching you something. Most of the literary fiction writers I know would see pursuing a central underlying message as a good way to write a bad book.
I'm no expert but it seems like in genre fiction, Stuff generally Happens. It's plot-driven, with characters sometimes an afterthought (I'm attempting to write science fiction and it seems like a lot of sci-fi, even good sci-fi, has flat characters whose sole purpose in existing is to reveal the nifty concepts that the author has dreamed up and to move the plot along). And the writing always serves the story.
Literary fiction is more likely to be about the small and large moments from everyday life, and the writing is frequently for its own sake - the turns of phrase are ends in themselves.
(I like stuff to actually happen in my stories, and I want the writing to elucidate the narrative, and not simply demonstrate how clever a wordsmith the author is.)
Literary fiction is more likely to be about the small and large moments from everyday life, and the writing is frequently for its own sake - the turns of phrase are ends in themselves.
(I like stuff to actually happen in my stories, and I want the writing to elucidate the narrative, and not simply demonstrate how clever a wordsmith the author is.)
I just wanted to make it clear I wasn't referring to that part without taking the sentence out of context haha.AshRonin said:Ha! Sorry if I came off as a dick that you wanted to --- out part of that. I'm butt hurt because we had a few, "literary types" invade a writing group at my college (which, because it's on campus, we have to be inclusive to everyone) and they utterly demolished the atmosphere of the group.
Nah, I get what you mean. There are a lot of snobs out there, and they often leave a bad taste in your mouth regarding whatever they were on about.
That makes sense enough. So there aren't really any hard-and-fast rules about it, rather, the label changes depending on what the current audience perceives the story to be?Becca Mills said:There's no completely clear way to define genre fiction vs. literary fiction. Every novel gets put into one category or the other. Most works slide right into place because they either fit neatly into one of the established genre-fiction groupings (thriller, fantasy, romance, etc.) or they don't fit into any of them. But there's definitely stuff that doesn't fit easily into one category or the other, and sometimes books shift over time.
This is something else I'm concerned about. I lean towards writing serials that follow characters from Point A to Point B (often death), which lets me tell their stories without using them as devices for one specific plot per se. So by some definitions, my work would be literary regardless of language, but that seems weird since the environment usually fits clearly in a genre.Meatwad said:I'm no expert but it seems like in genre fiction, Stuff generally Happens. It's plot-driven, with characters sometimes an afterthought (I'm attempting to write science fiction and it seems like a lot of sci-fi, even good sci-fi, has flat characters whose sole purpose in existing is to reveal the nifty concepts that the author has dreamed up and to move the plot along). And the writing always serves the story.
Literary fiction is more likely to be about the small and large moments from everyday life, and the writing is frequently for its own sake - the turns of phrase are ends in themselves.
This is funny. I write character-driven romance, and people who don't like my stuff often complain that not enough "happens." As someone says, I write about everyday life. I think one of the benefits of indie publishing is that it's enabling writers to blur those boundaries. You can still write entertaining fiction that has something real to say about the human condition, and many writers are doing just that. Perhaps it just says it more entertainingly, which in my mind is a GOOD thing! I know that Michael Chabon is a big believer in this.
Not just indies, either. What was P.D. James? Hard to argue that her work wasn't literary. What was Jane Austen? Hard to argue that her work wasn't romance.
(I am not comparing myself to either of these ladies, to be clear! But good genre fiction often makes me think and makes me look at the world and relationships differently.)
Not just indies, either. What was P.D. James? Hard to argue that her work wasn't literary. What was Jane Austen? Hard to argue that her work wasn't romance.
(I am not comparing myself to either of these ladies, to be clear! But good genre fiction often makes me think and makes me look at the world and relationships differently.)
The dictionary says that literature is works of superior or lasting artistic merit. But who determines artistic merit? It's so subjective.
Yeah, and according to how tastes and fashions change. Rosalind mentioned P&P, which is about as canonical a piece of fiction as you can get. And yet it clearly fits central romance tropes. It generated the genre, but it isn't thought of as genre fiction. Vonnegut is sci-fi, but some of his work gets treated as literary fiction. Plenty of literary fiction is influenced by genre fiction, like the sci-fi elements in Cloud Atlas. It's a moving target.Holland d'Haas said:That makes sense enough. So there aren't really any hard-and-fast rules about it, rather, the label changes depending on what the current audience perceives the story to be?
I agree with Meatwad - in genre fiction stuff happens, in literary fiction there are reflections of life. One way to do it is to look at the bad books in each category. With bad genre stories I often think "well, that was just a string of random plot points, and the characters did NOT behave according to their personalities". With bad literary stories I often think "What? What? Nothing happened! Is that it? Literally, nothing happened. Fifty pages of nothing happening." With good stories you don't really care whether it's genre or literary, you just sit back and go "aah...".
Exactly. When I'm feeling snarky, I say that genre fiction is written to entertain, while literary fiction is written to impress. As for 'works of lasting merit' - if you look at the older books that are still remembered today, they were the potboilers of their own day, while the books that were considered 'literary' by their contemporaries are now mostly forgotten.Perry Constantine said:The dictionary says that literature is works of superior or lasting artistic merit. But who determines artistic merit? It's so subjective.
I don't think that writers can really decide to give their works 'lasting merit' (though plenty of them TRY). The best writers write to entertain their audience. If they happen to be great writers, their audience's grandchildren will also be reading them.
A few years ago, long before I got into writing, I met someone who had had a novel published. Obviously this was very exciting and I asked him what the book was about. He replied "Oh, literary fiction - you know, Booker Prize sort of stuff," which I thought was pretty confident of him.joyceharmon said:When I'm feeling snarky, I say that genre fiction is written to entertain, while literary fiction is written to impress.
(I do actually enjoy literary fiction once in a while.)
I read both, and agree with this. Man, so much bitter baggage here. Makes me sad. You're missing out on some good books cutting either half out of your reading diet. There are good and bad examples of each, that's just Sturgeon's Law.Meatwad said:I'm no expert but it seems like in genre fiction, Stuff generally Happens. It's plot-driven, with characters sometimes an afterthought (I'm attempting to write science fiction and it seems like a lot of sci-fi, even good sci-fi, has flat characters whose sole purpose in existing is to reveal the nifty concepts that the author has dreamed up and to move the plot along). And the writing always serves the story.
Literary fiction is more likely to be about the small and large moments from everyday life, and the writing is frequently for its own sake - the turns of phrase are ends in themselves.
(I like stuff to actually happen in my stories, and I want the writing to elucidate the narrative, and not simply demonstrate how clever a wordsmith the author is.)
My husband says literary fiction is a writer saying "look how well I can write" and genre fiction is "look at this interesting story". Literary fiction doesn't necessarily have a plot, genre fiction always has a plot.
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