I said last week that I would have some thoughts and reflections on getting a couple of my stories accepted into the Genre Wars anthology.
The two stories that were accepted were, "The Best Medicine" and "Death, Be Not Me." This is food for thought. Both of those stories are experimental and essentially literary. They are certainly not genre fiction. Previously, my biggest formal success has been with another piece of experimental, literary fiction, "November / Thanksgiving," and a short, untitled poem with a very similar feel to it. Similarly, my biggest informal success has probably been with a stack of experimental, literary stories that reduced my roommate to tears on the floor and a series of science fiction stories that were lauded by my peers in a writing class -- which were really literary and only sci fi because they ostensibly took place on another planet.
Here's the rub. I bill myself as an author of psychological suspense, and my novel-length WIP's all fall to some degree under that banner. They are anything but literary. The bulk of my heretofore unpublished fiction is all genre. Since my last literature class in college, I have picked up only a handful of literary works. I spend my time in genre.
Now, with more recent success that's along more literary lines, I am given reason to think about that. There are a number of possible reasons I've had more success with literary works:
- I'm submitting to folks with literary tastes.
- Coincidentally, a few of my literary works happen to showcase some of my best writing.
- The stuff I happened to submit to folks who have evaluated my writing style favorable has happened to be literary.
- I'm just better at writing experimental, literary fiction than I am at writing genre fiction.
That's a lot to think about. There's no doubt in my mind that Options 1 -- 3 all come into play to some extent. Option 4 is more provocative. There are reasons it might be the case:
- Personally, I have an easier time identifying with characters in the abstract than in the concrete.
- Technically, I am strongest at conveying emotion and idea and weakest at point-by-point plotting.
- Mentally, I'm a deductive thinker (big to little), I am spatially incompetent, and I (honestly!) get sea sick from too much linearity or repetition.
- Philosophically, the most important part of anything I write is that the reader comes face to face with an idea that I am grappling with through the text.
I'm not certain that those qualities imply a lack of proficiency at genre fiction, but they are not strengths that are naturally favored by genre, which typically requires more structure and form.
I'm also not sure yet what this implies for my writing or for my WIP's. It may be a matter of conversion, or it may be a matter of playing around a little more and trying to see if I can better incorporate those elements into my genre fiction. I don't know. But I'm thinking now.
.Nevets.
And thinking is always good. It simply might be the audience, like you said.
ReplyDeleteCongrats again on the entries making it into the anthology.
:)
Thanks, Elana. :)
ReplyDeleteAnd, yah, that would be the simplest answer, but at the same time I've targetted plenty of genre fiction mags with my genre fiction shorts -- but that's over time, and I know my writing has matured since I last tested some of those waters.
I do like to overthink. lol
Interesting thoughts here! I was confused, actually, that you put Death, Be Not Me in Experimental. I would have pegged it as Literary. I think what we label our fiction, and where we send it, does matter. I also think that it's sometimes extremely difficult to figure out what we're writing and where it fits - because oftentimes good writing doesn't fit into any labeling niche.
ReplyDeleteI would hesitate to step away from the psychological nametag. While I remember your shorts as intelligent and philosophically active, I also remember them as dark and suspensey.
ReplyDeleteAll writing is literature, and therefore literary. Literary Fiction is a phrase without meaning. Write what you like and what you're good at.
Quite a bit of classic literature is horror or adventure or fantasy or travelogue or . . .
Great thoughts, Michelle and B. The challenge for me is two-fold. I fully accept that it's not simple to pigeonhole a piece of writing, but (a) it sure helps for marketting and submitting if you know what to call it and therefore where to send it, and (b) I am by nature taxonomically inclined. I categorize the crap out of everything. And, yes, I know taxonomy is inductive, and I just said I'm deductive. It gives me more fits than you might believe.
ReplyDeleteAs for "DBNM," Michelle, I called it experimental, because it's told in a bit of an an in-an-out way with the action carried almost entirely by snips of dialogue with no tags and the plot really unfolding behind the the thoughts. Maybe it's not too experimental, but I wasn't sure it was purely literary because of the structure.
Ugh. If if were just a matter of writing whatever and sending it to whoever and getting published as long as it was good-for-something this wouldn't be too terribly important.
Though, it goes to the question, B., of "what I'm good at." And because of my taxonomic hangup... Again, ugh.
I can see why you put the story in Experimental, but it could go the other way, too. Darn categories. :D
ReplyDeleteVery interesting post! I think the deeper question here is why you want to write what you do. If you are writing genre fiction because it's more fun for you, then carry on. If, the genre is forcing you to write something you don't actually want to write, then maybe you should consider your writing genre-less or a hybrid. I guess you already do to some extent, but maybe you can do it more. Your talent, hopefully, will develop in whatever style you prefer to write in. I hope that's my case as well, because I find that writing in first person is something that always garnered more compliments, but writing in an omniscient POV is something I really want to do.
ReplyDeleteDarn categories is right, Michelle. This is why I love spending horus upon hours (ask my wife, I do not exaggerate) tinkering with my iTunes library, but music lets me refine genre way more than writing does. lol
ReplyDeleteDavin, it's weird but since I write from the idea, rather than from the details, I can enjoy writing a story almost any way. I have another story that will hopefully someday see publication, that I once re-wrote in five or six different genres just to see, and I had a blast with all of them. The important things to me were the characters and the ideas.