Author Topic: Literary vs Genre Fiction  (Read 13072 times)

DDog

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on: January 28, 2009, 09:00:43 PM
I'm taking a 200-level English course at university this semester called "Introduction to Creative Writing - Fiction." We had our first class meeting on Monday, and the professor handed out the syllabus and explained how the format of the class was going to work. Basically, it's a workshop. Each week six members of the class submit a story, everyone else critiques them for homework, and then we have a class discussion of the stories where the author is not allowed to speak. Eventually everyone will have written three stories.

Which is cool. It's been awhile since I've done a writing workshop and it should be good for me and help me stick to my guns. But. I give you an excerpt of the syllabus (emphasis the professor's):

Quote
...this is a literary workshop, which is to say we will not be writing genre fiction: no fantasy or romance or elves or wizards or detectives named Private Malone. This is not to say you cannot have couples in love or elements of science fiction or mystery involved, but simply that they must not be the dominant driving force; the story must be about the people, not the fantasy. This is sometimes a hard thing to differentiate, but if you want an idea of what I mean, take a look at some of Ray Bradbury's short stories or Kurt Vonnegut's works (literary) vs. something like Mickey Spillane's stories or Star Trek (genre).

In preparing this post I realized this might come down to another "what is sci fi" discussion, but I hope there might be a subtle distinction. I wrote a rather impassioned response to this circumscription in the first meta-assignment (due in ten minutes, in fact, so I don't have a response to post), and I'm wondering what other people who are fans of at least some genera might have to say about the matter.

Does it make sense to outlaw genre fiction in a class whose course description and title do not call for "literary fiction" explicitly? Are the professor's illustrative examples valid? Where do you draw the line between "literary" and "genre"? Does genre that is "good enough" or "notable enough" cease to be genre and become literary? Do we lose as role models some of the best writers in these fields when they become part of the "canon"? Do writers classed as "genre" have to work harder than those classed as "literary" to get the same recognition because of the negative associations of "genre"?

Those questions are kind of leading and probably betray my bias. Unfortunately, I can't help seeing a lot of parallels to other systems of structural privilege and invisibility, some of which we have discussed before on these fora, so that may be coloring my response. For reference, this is what I wrote:

Quote from: DDog
To be frank, I am a fan of so-called genre fiction and I am disappointed that the guidelines for this class preclude any kind of “genre” writing. I believe this kind of ghettoization of fiction based on whether it contains detectives, elves, sex, or aliens damages the medium by setting arbitrary standards that categorically exclude swathes of otherwise worthy literature. Writers who use “genre elements” but can still “pass” as literary, such as Ray Bradbury and Kurt Vonnegut, are distanced from the writers who make use of similar elements but are not of their caliber, are defined out of the “genre” these other writers are presumed to share, and are redefined into “literature” (as if literature is genre-less). Descriptors such as “science fiction,” “romance,” “mystery,” and “fantasy” become pejoratives, as all work in these genera is not held to the standard of its best writers (of whom those that are palatable to the literary gatekeepers are filtered out) but its worst; whereas all literature is by definition acceptable, even though canon literature is at worst racist, colonialist, imperialist, sexist, classist, and heterosexist.

Ray Bradbury does not simply use “elements” of genre. The Martian Chronicles and The Illustrated Man cannot be stripped of their spaceships, aliens, or carnivorous playrooms; Fahrenheit 451 is speculative fiction at its best; and Something Wicked This Way Comes is inherently magical. There is no fundamental difference between the works of Bradbury, Vonnegut, Tolkien, and the worst of wish-fulfillment plot hole-ridden cardboard-character genre fiction besides caliber. The presence or absence of time travel, wizards, intimacy, or murders cannot alone determine quality. There are better ways to advise students against lazy plots and poor characterization than to claim all genre fiction is about the fantasy instead of the people, and furthermore that stories that do possess this characteristic are automatically subpar.

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Heradel

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Reply #1 on: January 28, 2009, 09:32:38 PM
I think it's ok to make students focus on relationships rather than technomancy of the week, since it seems like the professor will be ok as long as you can prove it's more about the people than the technomancy.

For example: If the professor thinks 1984 is about Winston Smith's relationship and subsequent persecution it'll fly, but if they think 1984 is about the oppressive totalitarian state and Winston Smith is merely our window into it than it won't.


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DKT

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Reply #2 on: January 28, 2009, 09:38:41 PM
Yeah, this is a tough one. Mostly in this kind of scenario, I think it's best for you to kind of try to look past all the labels (especially literary and genre) and write the best story you can, with your focus on the characterization, as that seems to be what your prof. is looking for. Characterization is an important thing to work at.

(Because genre books can obviously be character driven.)  If they are genre works, what will the fall-out be? Will your prof. mark you down for it? How much?

If Ray Bradbury doesn't fly with your prof as someone who is literary enough, you can always point to Michael Chabon (Pulitzer Prize winner), Cormac McCarthy (Pulitzer Prize winner), Jonathen Lethem (National Book Critics Circle Award winner), Margaret Atwood (winner of a shitload of awards), and Alice Sebold.

I'm sure someone else like Rachel can add to this list.

Honestly, I think this debate is dying in the "Literary" world for the most part, but there are still some old-hands holding on. I mean, when people when the Pulitzer Prize for writing about comic books and golems or a post-apocalyptic event, it seems kind of silly to consider genre a ghetto. But maybe that's my optimism showing. (That said, it doesn't help when people act like McCarthy invented the post-apocalyptic novel.) There's not one type of story that's better or more pure to write than all others.

Also, as a caveat, when I was in college I took a creative writing class when I was much less well-versed in genre literature and the instructor made similar points. And I tried to write three stories that were outside of genre and feel like I did a pretty decent job of it with one of them. All in all, it was a good exercise for me. I really think it made me stretch a little as a writer.


CammoBlammo

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Reply #3 on: January 29, 2009, 11:54:04 PM
I suppose lit classes have this argument at the beginning of every semester, but I'm trying to work out how 'literary fiction' isn't a genre in itself. Is genre simply defined by the presence of certain tropes?

Here in Australia it used to be common to call Greeks, Italians, Turks, Slavs, Kurds, Macedonians, Dutch etc 'ethnics.' The implication was that they were ethnic---or had ethnicity---whereas we Aussies didn't.

I guess that's what you mean by 'parallels to other systems of structural privilege and invisibility.'



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Reply #4 on: January 30, 2009, 12:11:21 PM
Generally, what my professors thought was:

literary fiction = stuff that would appear in the "Fiction" section of a bookstore

genre fiction = stuff that would appear on the popular shelves of a bookstore, such as "Mystery", "Sci-Fi/Fantasy", "Horror", "Romance", et al.

In the late 90s, my experience was that professors looked down upon genre fiction. We had one professor who taught sci-fi writing -- this guy -- and it was impossible to get into his class because he was the ONLY professor who actually allowed sci-fi writing.

I worked in the English department for three years, though I was never actually IN the English program, and the grad students I worked with seemed to concentrate more on feminist literature and theory because that's what the professors thought was the New Hotness at the time. Maybe things are different now.

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Reply #5 on: February 03, 2009, 12:13:23 AM
This isn't a black and white topic by any means.  As opposed to most others, I see it the other way around.  I've lived most of my life with the "ivory tower intellectuals are keepin' us down, man!" argument, and bought into it for a pretty long time (you usually hear it sometime around the age of 12, just after a teacher has taken away a comic book or pulp novel).  I don't buy it anymore.  I stopped when I began reading the lit classics more broadly and realized that the majority of popular genre fiction was all about using colorful toys and writing soap-operas and most of it had next to nothing to say about the human experience, even when it was intending to, because it was so far removed from the human experience.  There was lots of imagination, lots of melodrama, but very little depth or complexity (please note, all these statements are qualified).

There are "literary" writers that hack it out, hitting the marks that "lit" readers expect, to be sure.  But on the flip side of the coin, a lot, a LOT, of genre fiction is pandering and juvenile, giving the audience exactly what they expect.

It sounds like, from the syllabus, that your Professor is actually being pretty open.  If you wrote a story set on mars, or that was thoughtful about how some advance in technology that currently exists effected people, I'm sure he wouldn't consider it the type of genre he's barring (I mean, DKT is incorrect, your Prof is pro-Bradbury, as well he should be).  It would still *be* genre, of course, but worrying about exact definitions in an inexact world is a whole 'nother kettle of fish.  If you write a story that exists simply for a twist ending, or is more about a neato-keen idea you had for a cool zap gun, then he'd probably reject it.  It's all about focus, control, scope and intent.

DKT has it right about his old class.  Writing within the parameters of normal human beings and the world they live in is a great discipline for early writers, removing the crutches that genre offers and making you walk on your own.  It's the equivalent of learning to paint still life and human anatomy before doing whatever crazy visual thing you wanted to do as a painter.  There are a lot of writers who NEVER took the time and they hack out book after book, month after month, clogging shelves. They sure know (because they have to) what a highly sensitive, super-secret spy trained by the ninja insects of dimension Vlaaar feels and thinks like. Too bad I don't.

One way of approaching this is to sample some short fiction from classic writers (Raymond Carver, Flannery O'Conner, Conrad, Fitzgerald) and then see if you could adopt their stylistic approach while incorporating some genre element.  Just don't make the element the point of the story, make the people and their interactions the point of the story (I don't say characterization because that term itself has become something of a "learn writing and make big bucks"-genre crutch, turning out series of books that are soap-operaesque explorations of the mind of a single character.  And, again, what Suzy Demonslayer feels about having slept with Gulath the Spiky for the *second* time - oh won't she learn her lesson! - speaks very little to me).

Good luck, though.  I'm sure you'll do great.  The fact that you wanted to discuss the friction and not just pitch a tent in one camp is a good sign.



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Reply #6 on: February 03, 2009, 12:06:19 PM
If you think about it, a lot of YA lit is SF/Fantasy in nature. At least, in my memory, the stuff that sells best is. "The Secret of Nimh", after all, is about talking mice/rats/shrews/crows/owls who use technology, and that's SF to me. Ralph S. Mouse and that continuum of Cleary books are totally fantasy -- what mouse would ride a motorcycle?

I can't think of much other "classic" YA because when I was 10 I started reading adult fiction (Crichton, Star Trek novels, etc), but I'm sure a lot of it is SF/F.

And what about the Mystery genre? The "genre vs literary" argument, I think, often skips right over mystery fiction, but kids love to figure stuff out. Encyclopedia Brown, for one, was totally genre fiction, and it even got made into a TV show.

Most cartoons are genre as well -- talking animals, superheroes, aliens, and so on.

Maybe the "getting it taken away around the age of 12" thing is the unofficial "growing up" point of literature. But if you think about it...

genre in Shakespeare:

The Tempest == storm created to wreck a passing ship == "Lost"
Macbeth == main character sees ghosts; also, there are witches
Hamlet == more ghosts
A Midsummer Night's Dream == faeries, changing-of-people's-shapes

I read all of those plays in High School.

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DKT

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Reply #7 on: February 03, 2009, 04:46:15 PM
And what about the Mystery genre? The "genre vs literary" argument, I think, often skips right over mystery fiction, but kids love to figure stuff out. Encyclopedia Brown, for one, was totally genre fiction, and it even got made into a TV show.

No, mysteries get the same genre rap as SF/F/Horror and Romance. Hardboiled detectives, dangerous dames, all plot and no character development. (That's the insinuation from the literary side, I'm not saying it's accurate.) DDog's prof actually said detectives = genre. Which is why I mentioned Lethem's Motherless Brooklyn. What's not to love about a detective with Tourette's? Especially when it's an award winning book? (I suppose the same could be said of Chabon's The Yiddish Policeman's Union, but I haven't read that one yet...)

But I think you're right about genre permeating our mainstream. Genre is our pop culture, and it's been that way for a while. Why that's all of a sudden become a bad thing over the last 50 years is anyone's guess, especially when we're reading Shakespeare in school. 


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Reply #8 on: February 09, 2009, 09:48:55 PM
I just thought of a great distinction for this discussion:

At it's best, literature says something about the human condition.

At it's best, science fiction says something about the condition of humanity.



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Reply #9 on: April 10, 2009, 11:55:28 AM
I think DDog's reply to the professor is spot on: my list of examples that make for weak and lazy writing, lack of characterization, sensationalist popularizing bullshit would all be drawn from "high literature".

No borderline alcoholic estranged father gradually losing touch with his children unless something about him surprises you, you can see him change, his complexity confounds and confuses you, you can feel his pain. No immigrant coming to terms with culture clash and his own prejudice unless the contrast between the positive and the negative elements of his character are new and unexpected and sometimes the other way around than you might like. No abuse-victim gradually learning to trust and love again through her relationship with a pathological misanthrope unless the reader is seriously challenged by her behaviour, both shocked and maybe even taken in by her self-blame, frustrated by set-backs and failures of both characters, genuinely concerned that this isn't going to work out. I don't care how noble the cause, how mainstream the subject matter, you still have to mess with my head to get me to read it.

I was in a writing class taught by Matthew Sweeney once, and he only had one rule: No Cliché. ("Anyone who uses a cliché in this class has to buy me a bottle of Bud, cold as a gravedigger's ass.") Once people understand what that means, it should be enough.
« Last Edit: April 10, 2009, 03:26:18 PM by Djibril »

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Sgarre1

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Reply #10 on: July 10, 2009, 01:30:23 PM
So, how did the class go?



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Reply #11 on: August 18, 2009, 08:19:39 PM
I think DDog's reply to the professor is spot on: my list of examples that make for weak and lazy writing, lack of characterization, sensationalist popularizing bullshit would all be drawn from "high literature".

I agree completely!



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Reply #12 on: August 28, 2009, 07:12:08 AM
I had a lot of clashes with my creative writing teachers when I was in college.  Most of them were of the opinion that "genre fiction" was inherently inferior.  I spent most of my time subverting that in various ways.  My "triumph" of sorts was writing, as a final project, a heartfelt quasi-romance that centered around a fanfic-writing Trekker and his romantic aspirations.  My teacher (who was also my advisor at that point) let me know that she knew exactly what I'd been doing with the piece throughout the time we'd worked on it and that she approved, even as she still shook her head over my "strange obsession" with the genre stuff.

To address Sgarre's comments, I've always felt that fantasy and science fiction are some of the best ways to really examine a particular aspect of the human condition for the very reason that they ARE so very removed from reality.  By isolating and examining some specific trait in detail, you can sometimes come to a broader understanding.  Likewise, I'm a huge fan of symbolism and strong themes, which you can find a lot more in "genre fiction."

The bottom line is that there is good writing and bad writing.  Good writing can have magic.  Bad writing can be utterly mundane.  Anyone who dismisses something because it's "genre fiction" (or a genre fan who refuses to read a non-genre book because "real life is boring") is just being willfully ignorant and cheapening both themselves and their preferred genre.



Rachel Swirsky

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Reply #13 on: September 04, 2009, 05:51:24 PM
As someone who's taught genre fiction for college courses --

Bad genre fiction is bad in a different way than bad literary fiction. The lit-prepped teacher is usually equipped to help people tell stories with character and detail. When you're starting out with bad genre fic, those things not only don't exist in the story, but the author will refuse to see the need for them. The solution to this is to tell them to calm down and write a different kind of genre fic before they write their Halo reenactment, but that gets translated into "write lit fic!"

The central problems facing genre writers can also be different. I was recently in a graduate level course where a number of extremely accomplished lit writers attempted to write science fiction. Their ideas were good. Their execution was poor -- they didn't know how to release information in a way that suits a story where you must not only exposit relationships and characters, but also worlds and technology.

I was in a position where I could sit and tell them where they'd gone wrong -- but where other people, just as accomplished as I was, and some of them much better writers, would not be able to identify the problems due to unfamiliarity.

A teacher who gives a blanket "no" to genre fiction is irritating -- she's cutting out the Ray Bradburys, and she doesn't mean to. Almost universally (though I have met some exceptions), teachers are happy to see high-quality genre fic make its appearance in class, as long as it genuinely is high quality.

But what she's trying to express with the prohibition does actually reflect real problems that happen in the classroom. A teacher and a workshop that are primarily set up for lit probably can't address a bad Halo rewrite. They probably can address someone who aspires to be Octavia Butler, or Margaret Atwood, or Jeffrey Ford, or Nancy Kress.

And sometimes teachers make prohibitions because they're not expecting the classroom to be the testing ground for your eventual breakout novel, or the short story that's shining in your soul -- but because they want the workshop to test material that isn't close to your heart, but will help you develop faster as a writer. I knew several teachers in Iowa who banned frat boys, sorority girls, drinking, drugs, and sex from their stories. There are great stories that can be assembled with those elements, but students leaned too heavily on their cliches. Sometimes a beginning writing course can achieve greater effect by limiting what the students are working on, and just attempting to improve the elements of story, rather than workshopping more advanced projects.



Rachel Swirsky

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Reply #14 on: September 04, 2009, 05:55:42 PM
Also -- in my opinion, it's good for genre writers to spend time in lit workshops, even if the environment is sometimes prickly. For instance, in lit workshops, you'll sometimes hear people say "slow the pacing down here, everything is happening too fast." This is extremely rare criticism in high-level spec fic workshops (though it appears in low-level ones where the writers are still making elementary mistakes and have written a novel in 3 pages).

In general, I think writers benefit greatly from being exposed to the rules of as many genres as they can get exposed to. Playwriting, poetry, memoir -- all those viewpoints on writing are extremely useful. The more tools you can get for working on stories the better.

(Even if it means writing drawing room drama for a semester.)



Sgarre1

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Reply #15 on: September 04, 2009, 06:44:10 PM
Quote
Sometimes a beginning writing course can achieve greater effect by limiting what the students are working on, and just attempting to improve the elements of story, rather than workshopping more advanced projects.

Thank you.  You put it much more clearly than I was able to.  I'm re-reading a lot of Raymond Carver right now in an attempt to quantify some of what I expect out of flash fiction (don't get me started on drabbling...).

I still want to know how the class that started this thread turned out!



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Reply #16 on: September 09, 2009, 04:19:12 PM
I dislike using the labels "literary" and "genre", as both labels only cheapen their intended contents.  I think the professor's asking for something worthwhile here in that he is asking for character-driven stories, but I think he would be better served to just say that directly instead of taking a kidney shot at "genre".

I tend to like speculative fiction I needn't be limited by boundaries.  I guess I never grew out of it, and I'm glad of that.  By breaking the external limits of what we can write about, this also breaks internal limits on what we can write about, and in the hands of a master wordsmith this can really accomplish something amazing. 

For anyone who's interested, I wrote up a blog post a while back on "What is literary?", and said the following:

Classic science fiction and fantasy is generally classified as literature also–I've  seen The Time Machine, A Clockwork Orange, 1984, and other classics in there, despite aspects that are clearly speculative in nature. Is Speculative fiction like a fine wine, somehow gaining quality as it ages? If we’d been alive to taste of The Time Machine shortly after it was written, would it have ruined the experience because it wasn’t old enough? Maybe if I take a George R. R. Martin novel and put it in the book cellar, and pull it out again in several generations, it will have become literary, perfectly aged and fetching a handsome price from literature connoisseurs who will riffle the pages, sniff the binding, and read only a paragraph at a time so as not to be overwhelmed by the power of the prose between the covers.
http://www.diabolicalplots.com/?p=155



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Reply #17 on: September 09, 2009, 04:24:55 PM
To me, "literary" means  that it is written, which means that everything in text form at the bookstore is by definition "literary".

But the label has served some purpose for me.  I've sampled a few short story magazines that classify themselves primarily as "literary" magazines, and have not cared for a single story within them, while magazines that do not self-describe themselves as "literary" I tend to like some of the stories.  I don't refuse to read anything "literary" but if someone describes their own publication as literary, that will make me wary of spending money on it (perhaps sampling it in a Barnes & Noble instead), until I come across an example that publishes stories that I can enjoy on some level.