3 posts tagged “lit fic”
"For a first novel, what do you have other than the cover? No one has heard of me," [Melanie Abrams] said two days later over coffee at a shop near her childhood home in Woodland Hills. Eight months pregnant, Abrams wore a demure wrap dress and thick-knit sweater and donned a soft brown bob, looking nothing like the writer of a bondage-spiked book.
And so Abrams was worried that, as a first-time novelist, she'd be seen as a "sex writer," with the reader's lone gratification as her primary purpose. She tried to strike a balance, she said, by focusing on Josie's complexities and avoiding pornographic cue words of the four-letter kind, aiming to "give pleasure in a couple ways" -- literary and sensual.
"We don't go into reading a literary novel with hopes of being titillated," she said. "It's unfortunate, because books are supposed to be read for pleasure."
"You can't determine what you're going to write," she said. "Maybe you're repelled by it, maybe you're attracted by it. For whatever reason, it's yours."
"I don't know if you can write literary fiction these days and pretend sex doesn't exist," [Susie] Bright said.
Susannah Breslin, ReverseCowgirlblog.blogspot.com blogger and author of the short-story collection "You're a Bad Man, Aren't You?," compared the highbrow publishing world to "the frigid girl at the party who's not sure if she wants to jump into the orgy."
She cited the difficulty of writing sex well as one reason that racy literary fiction doesn't always make it past publishers. "Sex is so not about language. It's the body, it's primal, it's passion," Breslin said.
The problems of language may be why the divide between literary sex and erotica is so stark -- beautiful or intellectual language may not be titillating language, and if climax is the goal, even the best writers' words can't compete with an amateur's quivering camera.
All that can make erotica writers sound defensive. "Americans don't like their sex and their art mixed together," said D.L. King, editor of the review site EroticaRevealed.com and a writer of BDSM fiction (it encompasses bondage, discipline, dominance, submission, sadism and masochism). "Erotica writers are still treated like the bottom of the barrel."
However, Simmons says that great writing, on its own, isn't a selling point for publishers. "You can sell a good story, but you can't sell great writing," he says. "It's the kiss of death to put the label 'literary' on something."
As the lit fic writers in the world begin to say "Did I say 'lit fic?' I meant 'mainstream.' Yeah, that's it."
I found this info at Agent Query:
Commercial fiction:
Commercial fiction uses high-concept hooks and compelling plots to give it a wide, mainstream appeal. Commercial fiction often has the “ouuuh” factor: summarize what happens in your novel is a single, succinct sentence, and you invariably get, “ouhhh, that sounds interesting!” Plot (the events) and story (the overall tale) are first and foremost; characters’ choices and actions create heightened drama that propels the reader forward with urgency.
Like literary fiction, the writing style in commercial fiction is elevated beyond generic mainstream fiction; but unlike literary fiction, commercial fiction maintains a strong narrative storyline as its central goal, rather than the development of enviable prose or internal character conflicts. Commercial fiction often incorporates other genre types under its umbrella such as women’s fiction, thriller, suspense, adventure, family saga, chick lit, etc. Commercial fiction is not the same as "mainstream" fiction, which is an umbrella term that refers to genre fiction like science fiction, fantasy, romance, mystery, and some thrillers.
...versus...
Literary Fiction:
If you marvel at the quality of writing in your novel above all else, then you’ve probably written a work of literary fiction. Literary fiction explores inherent conflicts of the human condition through stellar writing. Pacing, plot, and commercial appeal are secondary to the development of story through first-class prose.
Multi-layered themes, descriptive narration, and three-dimensional characterization distinguish this genre from all others. Literary fiction often experiments with traditional structure, narrative voice, and storylines to achieve an elevated sense of artistry. Literary fiction often merges with other fiction types to create hybrid genres such as literary thrillers, mysteries, historicals, epics, and family sagas.
I'm leaning more toward lit fic. RFM is character driven (so is WS), not plot driven. These stories couldn't happen to just anyone. It's b/c of who the narrators are and their choices that these are their stories.
The thing holding me back from calling it lit fic is the emphasis on the brilliance of the prose, the "elevated sense of artistry." First of all, that sounds pompous. Second, I don't know that RFM (or WS) is chock full of brilliant prose. I didn't sit back after a session, look at the writing and marvel at my brilliance. Not to say I'm not confident in the quality of what I produced but is it a staggering work of literary genius? Probably not.
When it comes down to it, I'd less like it to be labeled "commercial" not b/c I have some kind of artist's attitude toward selling my work (hell, that's what I want to do) but b/c I think of shiny covers with the author's name in a bigger font than the title, embossed in gold. That's not RFM. That's not WS. That's not me.
I'll probably query agents who represent both but I have to pick one for the query. If they ask for it & say "this isn't lit fic," then I'll know.
