Writing Report May 29, 2021

The question gnawing away at me widdle bwain this week is actually several overlapping questions, some purely philosophical, some purely pragmatic.

To whit: 
Is genre fiction a better fit for self-publishing (and vice versa) than general fiction; and is mainstream publishing a better fit for general fiction?

It’s not an unimportant set of questions, but before we can even hope to answer it we need to define terms.

Literature means works meant primarily to be read or voiced aloud; it’s a fair debate to ask where graphic novels and comic books fall in this definition, but presumably there’s room for them.  Literature in its broadest sense covers all works of this kind, but in more common usage refers to work that has passed the test of time, that stays in the pool of still-read works (as to whether these works are good literature because their quality led to their longevity, or that their longevity alone now makes them good literature is a separate issue).

Genre fiction is sometimes used derisively, but strictly speaking it shouldn’t.  All genre fiction does as a term is define the particular bin a particular work of fiction best fits into.  

The Brothers Karamazov fits in the crime / mystery bin quite nicely.

So does Nancy Drew And The Secret Of The Old Clock.

I deny no one their pleasure, and readily acknowledge there are some for whom Nancy Drew is a far better choice of reading material than Fyodor Dostoevsky, but it illustrates genre fiction as a term is only useful as a descriptor of elements within a work, not an accurate summation of the work itself.

Literary fiction is a genre that shouldn’t be confused with the term literature.  Nothing prevents literary fiction from being literature, of course, but neither does being literary automatically bestow quality literature status on a work.

Literary fiction is often more focused on the style of expression as opposed to plot and incident and again, there’s nothing wrong with that.

Formula fiction is too often used interchangeably with genre fiction, and while there’s certainly some overlap, the two are not synonymous.

Compare The Brothers Karamazov and Nancy Drew And The Secret Of The Old Clock if you will.

The Nancy Drew novel is written to a specific formula, requiring a certain flow of events, a certain pacing, a certain degree of formula characters and settings and incidents. 

There’s an air of comfortable familiarity with it, even if you’re never read a Nancy Drew story before.

The Brothers Karamazov offers no such road map.

It’s going somewhere, but it’s hard to figure out where, and once the book comes to its conclusion the reader is left with unanswered questions and a nagging feeling that justice may not have been served.

But it isn’t a story about a falsely accused suspect.

For all we know as readers, they may have indeed bumped off old man Karamazov.

Who did it is not the point of the story.

Now, formula fiction can have good writing in it.  We’ve all read writers churning out pot boilers who nonetheless manage to turn an extraordinary phrase, make a profound insight, create unforgettable characters.

It ain’t impossible, folks.

But those who consciously set out to write a story set in a specific genre and following a specific formula have, in a very real way, cut themselves off from the larger landscape.

They follow a well worn path, and while their journey might be entertaining and insightful, it opens no new ground.

That’s not where I’m at anymore.

And certainly not where I’m going.

. . . 

I mentioned this is the year of my big project, one I’ve been planning for well over a decade.

The first draft is done, clocking in at over 100K words (not an impossible to sell length, but I think I can tighten the story up and get down to 80K).

The problem is, it’s not in any easily recognizable genre.

I supposed I could say it’s a social satire that starts in Norman Rockwell Americana but ends up somewhere else (not geographically but philosophically).

Doesn’t give me a handy box to put it in.

At first blush one might think it’s a Young Adult novel since the initial focal group of characters are all high school students, but it quickly spills out of that group to encompass their families, their town, and soon spreads beyond that as well.

There’s no obvious predictable plot line running through the work.

It seemingly meanders and twists and turns but it eventually gets to where it’s going and the first people I read it to, fellow members of a writers’ group, seemed both surprised and delighted at the way it turned out, not seeing the ending coming but realizing in retrospect I laid (and camouflaged) my track well.

(I’d like to claim that was all brilliant pre-planning on my part but it wasn’t.  I’d be writing a chapter and realize, “Oh, wait, if this was mentioned by that character five chapters ago…” and retrofitted my story accordingly.)

It used to be general fiction had its own recognizable sub-genres (“A Big!  Lusty!  Novel!  About Big!  Lusty!  Men!”) and too often it’s own formulas (every problem had to be ironed out and returned to normal, with everybody happily getting married or happily still married at the end).  Now, without the old markets for general fiction (I’d count women’s magazines and men’s magazines in that group even though both often carried genre fiction as well), there’s no longer any conveniently labeled boxes to drop my big project in.

So be it.

I’ll find a new one.

© Buzz Dixon