The challenge here is to describe literary fiction without using the words ‘not’ or ‘isn’t’. It seems that most people can tell you what it isn’t but try and pin them down to a definitive sentence and suddenly they have editing to do.
After a fair bit of research and reading I found a great description courtesy of Nathan Bransford, literary agent.
In commercial fiction the plot tends to happen above the surface and in literary fiction the plot tends to happen beneath the surface.
Here's what I mean.
Most genre fiction involves a character propelling themselves through a world. The character is an active protagonist who goes out into a world, experiences the challenges of that world, and emerges either triumphant or defeated. Think about every genre novel you've ever read: sci-fi, westerns, romances chick lit, thrillers.... They are all about a character with a certain level of mastery over the world in which they are in bumping up against the challenges of that world and trying to achieve their goal. Sure, the character might have an inner struggle and be a richly rendered character, but for the most part genre novels are about the exterior -- they are about how a character navigates a unique world.
So the plot in a genre novel usually involves things happening -- action sequences, love sequences, chases, shootouts.... The best genre novels fold these action sequences with the inner life of a character, but make no mistake: genre novels are really about how a character interacts with the outer world. The things that happen are pretty much on the surface, and thus the reader can sit back and watch and see what happens.
Now consider literary fiction. In literary fiction the plot usually happens beneath the surface, in the minds and hearts of the characters. Things may happen on the surface, but what is really important are the thoughts, desires, and motivations of the characters as well as the underlying social and cultural threads that act upon them. The plot may be buried to such a degree (like GILEAD) that if you have to describe the book in a short sentence it seems plotless -- an old man writes a letter to his young son and reflects on his life. There doesn't seem to be a plot there. But there is a plot in GILEAD. It is about how the protagonist comes to terms with his life and how he reconciles his desire to leave something behind for his son with his impending mortality. GILEAD has all the ups and downs of a genre novel, but the plot points all relate to the inner mind, and the climaxes and nadirs are almost hidden in quiet moments and small-but-powerful revelations.
Even when the prose is straightforward, literary fiction is more challenging to read than genre fiction because it requires the reader to infer a great deal of the plot rather than simply sitting back and watching the plot unfold. It requires empathy to relate to characters as humans and to deduce the hidden motivations and desires that lurk beneath their actions. The reader has to recognize the small turning points and the low points and the high points based on what they know of the character and about human nature. And there's a reason very few literary novels end with a shootout (er, except for THE HOUSE OF SAND AND FOG) -- what happens out in the world isn't as important in literary novels as what happens within the minds of the characters, and thus the climax might be something as small as a decision or a new conviction.
What I have noticed is that literary fiction is one of the most abused labels available in creative writing. During my research I read a fair bit of so-called literary fiction that writers have posted or have free to download and to be honest, much of it was boring, vague contemplations on life. Some writers seem to think that being obscure is being artistic or even worse, clever. The truth is there’s a certain amount of ‘the emperor’s new clothes’ syndrome when it comes to literary fiction. People are too embarrassed to say they simply don’t get it for fear of looking stupid. I know I was like that for a while. I assumed that the failure to grasp what was written was due to the fact that I never went to college or studied literature like so many writers.
Luckily, the awesome folk at Scrawl encouraged me to voice my opinion when I didn’t understand because they aren’t interested in appearing clever. For them, literary fiction is an art to be perfected and to that end they support and critique each other with honesty.
I don’t know if I will ever be able to write great literary fiction but I do know that the pursuit of literary excellence is what I owe the reader.
No comments:
Post a Comment