What is literary fiction? A valid question. People often make distinctions between genre and literary fiction although the division is not always as clear as it might seem at first glance. Perhaps the best definition of literary fiction is this:
Literary fiction is fiction that concerns itself with subtleties and complexities of language, theme and symbolism and tends to be character-driven rather than plot driven. Often, literary fiction makes more demands on its readers than genre fiction in that it requires a higher level of engagement with and reflection on the text and its social or political and/or historical context, as well as the text’s relation to works by other authors.
However, in many ways, this is an unsatisfying definition. For one thing, the notion of ‘literary’ fiction is largely an invention of the twentieth century; prior to that time, novels were generally considered somewhat suspect and not very edifying. Many books now taught as English ‘classics’ in schools (such as Charles Dickens’ novels) were extremely popular with many different types of people in their day and were once serialised in magazines just as many people watch television shows today.
What complicates matters is that some genre fiction also concerns itself with elements such as language and is sometimes not particularly plot-driven. Examples of writers who write or wrote genre fiction but whose work is often seen as literary include Ursula K. Le Guin, J.G. Ballard, Patricia Highsmith, John le Carre and Neil Gaiman.
Literary writers have also dabbled in literary-genre hybrids. Several of Margaret Atwood’s books explore science fictional themes as did Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go. Graham Greene famously alternated between literary fiction and thrillers while the Scottish literary writer Iain Banks published science fiction novels as Iain M. Banks. Some literary writers such as Donna Tartt and Sarah Waters draw on the techniques of thrillers. Hilary Mantel won two Booker prizes for her works of historical fiction, Wolf Hall and Bringing Up the Bodies.
The lines are also blurred as genre fiction increasingly becomes a subject for academic study. Students may now take courses in mystery or science fiction by professors who have a specialty in those fields. This says something of how academic interest in a novel might influence whether it is perceived as literary or not.
Literary fiction is also arguably defined by a kind of elitism. Although literary novelists may come from any number of backgrounds, literary fiction is often written and read by a privileged class. When the Man Booker short list is drawn up or the magazines The New Yorker or Granta announce their lists of best young novelists, these are sometimes people who have made the right connections in the publishing industry. By and large, literary fiction is seen as work that is created and read by an educated middle and upper class while genre fiction, with its populist roots, is often seen as more working class.
The fact is that many genre writers work just as hard at their craft as literary fiction writers do.
Still, literary fiction has a great deal to offer. Genre fiction has been enhanced by literary technique, and literary fiction can teach genre writers to use language more adeptly, to avoid over-reliance on plot as a mechanism to move the story along and engage the writer, and to work to develop deeper meaning in their books so that they speak to readers on multiple levels.
Whether your focus is primarily genre or literary fiction, here are some of the ways that you can develop your own literary style:
Avoid genre clichés
Heroines are beautiful, and heroes are brave. The detective always solves the crime. People live happily ever after, and good prevails over evil. Bad guys are bad through and through. Genre fiction is rife with clichés both in general and those that are specific to each genre. Literary fiction often turns these clichés on their heads. What happens if a crime is never solved? What if two people move mountains to be together and then discover they don’t actually like one another very much? What if there is very little difference other than personal ideology between the good guy and the bad guy?
In writing literary fiction, it is important to avoid these types of clichés, but genre writers can subvert reader expectations by doing so as well, and many do. The bleak, violent, morally ambiguous world of George R.R. Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire is a far cry from high fantasy fiction in which good prevails. Patricia Highsmith’s Ripley crime novels are not about a detective catching a criminal but instead are narrated by a sociopath.
Not all genre readers appreciate having those expectations subverted, so it is important for genre writers to decide what type of writer they want to be. On the other hand, literary writers fall into cliché at great peril.
Read literary writers
It’s universal advice, but it can’t be said often enough. You need to read the kind of fiction you want to write. Answering the question ‘what is literary fiction?’ is easier the more you read. Make an effort to read some of the classic writers (such as Virginia Woolf, Chinua Achebe and William Faulkner, for example) as well as contemporary writers. Magazines such as The New Yorker, The Paris Review and Granta publish short fiction by the top literary writers of today. Prizes such as the Booker and the Nobel Prize for Literature can point you in the direction of the most important literary novels, and most countries have at least one major literary award as well.
As you read, notice the many different types of literary writers and how writers like Michael Chabon or Helen Oyeyemi experiment with incorporating genre elements. Chabon maintains a more straightforward narrative style while Oyeyemi’s approach is more challenging for the reader. On the other hand, writers such as Alice Munro and Jonathan Franzen work in a more traditional literary vein.
Reading literary fiction can give you a sense of its scope and what it is capable of, and to begin with imitation might help you assimilate some aspects of style:
Try copying
Copying out the sentences of other writers whether in longhand or using a computer gives you a deeper understanding of the language and how the writers construct sentences. In addition to copying passages word for word from the writers you admire, you might also try to write some passages of your own or even an entire story mimicking the author’s style. Of course, these types of exercises would not be meant for publication, but they will help you internalise lessons about style that you will then begin to incorporate into your own unique voice.
Don’t feel bound by narrative convention
One thing you’ll notice as you read literary fiction is how freely literary writers dispense with narrative convention altogether. This is nothing new; many consider the 18th Century novel Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne an early forerunner of 20th Century postmodern playfulness. In the early 20th Century, modernist writers like James Joyce and Virginia Woolf set out to play with language and abandon traditional narratives altogether. Decades later, David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest told much of its story via footnotes. Literary fiction tells us that we do not have to be bound necessarily by traditional ideas about storytelling or even words.
Genre has its experimental writers as well such as science fiction Samuel Delany. Mark Z. Danielewski, while not necessarily a horror writer, wrote a haunted house novel, The House of Leaves, that upsets both narrative and typographical expectations.
Dig deep for meaning
In order to write literary fiction, you must have something to say, and this may be the most important aspect in defining literary fiction. There are plenty of well-written thrillers, romance and science fiction novels with developed characters and page-turning plots, but in the end, the primary purpose of those books is to entertain the reader. They may have a message as well, but the message is usually secondary or is not particularly difficult to grapple with or tease out.
Literary fiction makes substantial demands on its readers. The epiphanies and revelations in literary fiction may be more subtle and require more work on the part of the reader to recognise. Literary fiction often presents more difficult or complex truths than genre fiction. It may offer few answers but instead simply make observations about human nature. Its purpose is never escapism but engagement, and that engagement may mean forcing readers to consider questions and possibilities that make them uncomfortable.
Writers of literary fiction must seek to surprise their readers. When we sit down to read a detective novel, most of the time, we expect to be surprised by the solution, but we do not expect to have our worldview shaken or to consider the nature of our existence. We have a certain set of expectations about how the story will unfold. Literary fiction often defies those expectations and strives for novel effects.
Many of the techniques of literary fiction can be practised by genre writers as well, and the two types of writers can learn from one another. Careful attention to language and meaning are important aspects of developing a literary style and voice. You can train yourself to write in a more literary way by reading literary writers, practising their style as a means for developing your own, and by challenging yourself and your readers.
What do you think is the best answer to ‘what is literary fiction’?
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