Enlightenment Vs Entertainment: Which Do You Value More as A Fiction Writer?

If you’re going for the Nobel, write literary fiction. If you’re going for the masses, stick to the genre.

Finding your own distinctive voice is probably the most important phase of a writer’s journey. You start with “writing all the bad stuff out” — as Neil Gaiman puts it in his Masterclass — until one day the words you so thoroughly put down sound more like you than your favorite writers. It is a painstakingly tiresome process, no doubt about that. But, to me, that’s what makes it so special… Anyway, in this process, we might or might not think about the direction and style we want to master, but that doesn’t make it any less important. I’m not talking about the topics and specific subgenres here, I’m asking you this:

As you write, do you focus more on philosophical themes or on the otherworldly experiences?

When it comes to fiction literature, we know there are many — countless even— directions, genres, and so forth. Still, in the broadest of ways imaginable, everything comes down to two main categories: literary fiction and genre fiction.

• Genre fiction is more concerned with reader entertainment. Horror, romance, sci-fi, thriller, fantasy— all of these are the subcategories of genre fiction;
• Most of the Literary fiction happens under the covers. Its main focus is on exploring different heavy topics and it’s not that clearly divided into subcategories. We mostly talk about them in terms of directions or the time of writing: modern, postmodern, classic prose, and so forth.

Obviously, the line between the two is very, very blurry in some cases, but most of the time they can be well-defined.

Examples of literary fiction:

• Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and The Sea;
• Kafka’s Metamorphosis;
• F. Scott Fitzgerald’s This Side of Paradise.

Examples of genre fiction:

• Neil Gaiman's Stardust;
• J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter Series;
• Arthur C. Clarke’s The City and The Stars.

Sometimes though, a criss-cross takes place. This happens mostly when a work of genre fiction explores philosophical or socio-political topics like in the case of, say, Tolkien’s The Lord of The Rings. Another case would be Jane Austin’s Pride and Prejudice:

When she wrote the book, it was meant to be a comedy romance with the goal of gaining profits. Today, the book is considered a work of literary fiction. This shows that the distinction is often in our heads and can be quite subjective.

What do you value more?

To help you better identify your place in the two opposing camps of literary and genre fiction writers, let’s look closer at the main characteristics each of them has shown. Don’t take these criteria as a checklist. Rather, use it to understand which of these you focus on more as you shape your characters and the plot.

Main characteristics of Genre Fiction

• The story is driven by the plot and is heavily action-based;
• More commonly it is quite straightforward with few hidden messages that can be easily decoded by the reader;
• The story falls easily into sub-genres like Sci-fi, Horror, Thriller, Romance, etc.
• Most of the time, the story structure follows well-practiced formulas and character arcs;
• The main goal of the story is to entertain the reader and provide the means for escaping reality, have the reader lost in otherworldly experiences.

Main characteristics of Literary Fiction

• The characters, and the exploration of their inner worlds and struggles, is what drives the story — not the plot;
• Metaphors, allegories, and/or symbolism are essential parts of the story;
• Word choice is also very important. Literary fiction writer focuses a lot more on style and melody of the story than genre writer;
• In oppose to the characters’ inner worlds, the plot may not be well defined. Even the ending is sometimes covered in mist and it is up to the reader to draw conclusions;
• Exploration of socio-cultural issues and large philosophical themes may be seen as the core of the story and its sole mission;
• Most of the time, the narration doesn’t follow a fixed structure or formula. It is more flexible and is more dependent on the characters.

You can see that most of the characteristics are mutually exclusive and going for a criss-cross is not that easy at all. I have a gut feeling you are planning to go for the blurry line between the two, so here’s an advice: Don’t dive straight with your head into the cold cold ocean. Identify your field of interest and main concerns first. Practice practice practice. Master each field separately, then go for the hard ride if that’s still what you wanna do.

The battle between the two opposing camps

I didn’t want to say anything about this before, but by now you probably found your spot in one camp or the other, and have taken your stories with you.

Now, it’s time to go on the battlefield.

Literary and genre fiction, as we saw above, don’t quite get along. The same goes for the readers, critiques, and, well, the writers themselves too. Anyway, the main argument goes something like this:

Because literary fiction focuses more on the human condition, the meaning of life, socio-political struggles, etc. it poses a higher value then genre fiction, which is mostly concerned with entertainment rather than enlightenment.

Although genre fiction is read by the masses, the work’s appeal tends to be rather short-term compared to that of literary fiction. This is because it has no internal value other than entertainment and once we’ve seen how fast a rollercoaster goes, we don’t give much of a damn about it anymore.

In contrast, literary fiction touches your heart and sticks into your head longer. It shakes you in ways in which only a few genre fiction works can (and those mostly fall into our criss-cross category above). And, because of its characteristic ambiguity and layered structure, every time you read a work of lit fic (yep, that’s how we write it now, apparently) it reads differently and can be understood in various ways. Not to mention its resistance against time. Scholars spend years studying works of literary fiction because it is simply that hard to unbundle.

And the award goes to…

Well, not to Dracula for sure.

Most prestigious literary awards are more concerned with the works of literary fiction. They value the meaning and style of a story more than the number of plot twists and action points. While there are many awards for genre fiction as well, most famous critiques simply don’t acknowledge such stories.

But, does it matter?

Obviously, no.

Then again, the goal of a Thriller Romance Sci-fi story is not to be deliberately investigated upon and argued about, but to be read and amused by. That is why such stories, even though neglected by critiques, are adored and heavily consumed by the masses. Genre fiction is also known as commercial fiction in that it is a lot easier to sell and make a profit with.

So, then again and again,

As it is in any case, both have their major advantages over the other. And, it’s all up to you and your preferences. Now that you have so many criteria to identify the main concern of your work, you can work better in practicing and improving upon them.