Yes, I have to say the simpler outlines of the literary/commercial/genre debate (fight?) are not my preferred topic.

The ending of Susan Hill's second Simon Serrailler novel is very interesting: a killer is caught and various other threads are tied up, but the original crime that's the mainspring of the plot isn't one of his, and another (arguably mercy-) crime that's committed goes unpunished, and that original crime is never solved, though the reader knows a little bit more about it than any of the characters. Subtle stuff.

Emma

"Rosy, coming back to you... How subtle would you say the rest of your book is?"

Deb, your question made me giggle! Not the sort of thing it's easy to answre about your own book, I'd say!!!

Thinking back to my previous books, I find I tend to have one or possibly even two or three very big emotional and/or comic set piece scenes as the 'main' ending (usually, the penultimate chapter), and then a short section/chapter made up of much smaller tying-up scenes: some lighter, some poignant, some, I hope, suggesting that things are ongoing....

I think this is how I like books to end when I'm reading, too. Ending with the Big Bang I find dissatsifying, as it puts too many questions into my head about all the fallout from that Big Event. And example would be Gaskell's 'North and South' which is one of my top-three-books-of-all-time, but I find the ending leaves me unsatisfied. But too long a final chapter of what-happened-later and thre thing tails off and you lose the resonating impact of the Big Bang, which ought to be what mainly stays with you as you close the final page. Pride and Prejudice (another of my Top Three) slightly does this, I think - the only thing I find imperfect about the book.

Rosy

That sounds interesting, Emma. I think crime novels are particularly relevant to any debate about endings because the ending/solving or otherwise of the crime is so key to the whole book and the whole genre - makes different ways of doing it hugely significant and say something in themselves. Also, crime is such a universal fear. I went through a bit of a Patricia Cornwell phase and found the world view presented very chilling and open to the extent I was fascinated and hooked in but couldn't stand it also. That's another thing though, how you get used to the kinds of endings particular writers use and how they can surprise and change them without it being out of keeping with the rest of their work.

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What's your third from your top three, Rosy?

I like a good big final set-piece too. But again I want something quieter after, but not for too long. We sound similar on this.

is the category "literary fiction" more style than genre

As a generalisation I would say yes.

Snowy, re. HHGTTG, I disagree that I sidestepped your argument. I approached it head-on and suggested that (from what I know of the book, not having read it, as I did say!) it was not very subtle but was clever. I then questioned whether cleverness was the same as subtlety - and while subtlety is usually clever, I don't think clever is always subtle.

Yes, I think HHGTTG probably did begin a genre or sub-genre.

I agree about crime/thrillers in that there are lots of subtle ones as well as the most predictable. I did allude in my msg to the fact that I was talking about style (commercial style v literary style) rather than genre fiction v the genre called literary. And I did say that many genre books are written in a more literary style.

I don't want a literary/genre debate. I didn't bring that into the discussion - I think you'll find that Rosy first mentioned that and I just answered with my opinion. I find it very interesting to consider the differences between style, and how they're described, and am still getting to grips with how I feel about genres and styles and how best to describe and categorise these things...

However, I was not saying one was better, and I have no interest in a bunfight where one or the other is disparaged!

I find it really sad, actually, if we can't touch on the subject without people getting touchy and 'oh we've done this to death' etc etc. I've only been here for 6 months and I still find it interesting to discuss. If no-one else joins in then I guess the conversation will peter out, so I don't know why people feel the need to sound critical of someone simply for mentioning literary/genre/commercial!!!!!!

Emma, I'm not sure what you mean about 'the simpler outlines' of that debate. Do you mean you don't like making generalisations about any of them? Obviously that's your decision, but may I ask why? It's wrong to generalise when it's done for the wrong reasons or with condemnation, perhaps, but otherwise isn't it just a way of trying to understand things?

It's like... everyone is an individual, yes. And every book is different. But surely that doesn't mean we can't draw any comparisons?

Deb

Rosy, what you suggest for how to end your novel sounds very sensible. And since you've no doubt used your instincts and personal preferences when writing the rest of the novel, it seems entirely reasonable to use your instincts and preferences for the ending too. So if you like novels which end like that, then end yours like that...

Sorry if that sounds pat and unhelpful, but I think our instincts often give the best answer, and your instincts are telling you something very reasonable.

It's all back to that thing about not writing something you wouldn't like yourself.

Deb

Whooooooaaaa! Deb.

Come back, come back. I think you misread me. Not at all touchy. Not at all. Not trying to be critical either.

I admit I am wary of getting into that area because there have been so many wretched fights about it in the past (and I am not at all suggesting for a second that you are going to start a fight - but you know how certain topics people'll wade in and it'll get nasty.) I am sorry if I am being a bit anticipatory there. And I'm really sorry you took that the wrong way. Hand on heart I didn't mean it sound as you took it at all. And I know you won't have experienced all the bunfights either so you are probably slightly fresher in the fray of this particular area than I am.

Truce? Debs? Please?





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Just to clarify about the actual argument - personally speaking I don't like the defining of literary and genre that much. I don't think it fits in well with the way I think. I've probably said my fill about it in the past. I like the term Fiction, for example. But, you know, horses for courses, I recognise other people find it helpful to try and find a definition and distinguish between "literary" "commercial". Just seems to me that bookshops didn't use it in the past, why use it now? And the whole marketing thing...etc etc. But, as I said, I've outlined what i think before and don't want to risk boring anyone to death (or myself for that matter) by going into it again. I wasn't being disparaging, I just wanted to explain why I wasn't engaging with that side of the debate that much. Not at all saying you can't have it.

Hey Snowy, I'm not cross with you. I was a little sad about what you said, admittedly, but not cross at all!

I guess I was being touchy too because the subject of 'what makes writing literary or less literary or non-literary' is something I am very interested in, and I am sad that whenever it seems to come up on here there is a bit of a funny atmosphere - as if I've just told you all I used to fuck my grandfather...

I say let's not have the funny atmosphere before it turns nasty... and if it does then we can try to calm it, or leave it, or deal with it somehow.

I guess it's the very fact that style (of writing, and of the story) is so hard to pin down which makes it so fascinating for me. For instance, we were talking about what's expected in a genre, and then how style can be a separate issue to that, and then there's how booksellers define books (which is presumably more to do with marketing than style or merit).

So no need for a truce...

Deb

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My msg crossed with your added bit. Yes, I do know what you mean. However, although every book is 'an individual', like every American is an individual, there are parallels which can be drawn between some books, and other book pairs which share very little. And maybe I'm being naive, but I think that means we can categorise and discuss on that basis, and that it adds to understanding, because different books are trying to do different things.

For instance, pick any Mills & Boon and tell me what it has in common with Salman Rushdie's writing. Very little, I'd have said.

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BTW Snowy, if you don't like discussing it that's fine - I didn't really mean I expected you to answer my question - just rhetorical.

I knew what I said would cause trouble !

What worries me about the genre debate is that for writers when they're writing (rather than when they're pitching their book) thinking in terms of genre is terribly reductive, more often than not. Constraints can be liberating in writing, as whoever wrote a novel without the letter 'e' in it presumably found (easier in French, which it was), and sonnet-writers know.

But much of the time these discussion reduces analysis and understanding of process, as well as product, to a series of tick-boxes: does it fit or not? There is a postmodern playing with genre constraints which is fun and occasionally enlightening, and the great genre exponents have always done it. But it worries me when the first thing people ask a writer is 'what's your genre?' rather than 'what do you write'? As any author who's recently had a cover-fight with their publisher, and they'll tell you that it's not as simple as that!

I do understand why beginner-writers, searching for signs and guidance in the mysterious jungle they've entered, cast around desperately for a path through it. But it's not as simple as that, and they'll never write the book they're capable of writing unless they sharpen their machete, practice on the first trailing fronds that they see, and learn to carve their own path.

As for the literary-commercial debate (and though 'commercial' and 'genre' are often used synonymously, they're not synonyms) there is an interesting one to be had, but it's so bound up with literary and social snobbery - either the conventional way up, or inverted - that I've given up. I know how I define the two for my own purposes, I've said it on WW more than once, and I find that the debate degenerates into which is 'better' so quickly that it rarely has any interest.

Emma

Oh good. Well, I'm sure we all have a good excuse to feel a little paranoid and over-sensitive (that's just me) with all that's gone on lately. Be nice if things were mellow for a bit...

Hmm. I find the idea of a "style" becoming a genre very very problematic - particularly in litfic, which should, if it is doing anything be about a multitude of styles. You see, that is probably one of the main reasons that I don't like the term. Plus, if you ever mention sometime doing really interesting within a genre people will invariably go "but that's literary detective, not detective" or something which rather skews everything to one side of the debate and doesn't seem very fair on genre stuff. Marketing terms make sense to market books perhaps, but not to write them in the first place. That's what I think anyway. But then, as I keep saying, I write comedy so...

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Sorry crossed with you, Emma. Yes, snobbery a huge problem in that discussion, I agree. And the better thing...always happens. As does the fight thing...;)



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And, of course, you can't expect me to take that one on the chin, Deb ;). I NEVER said the end of HHGTTG was subtle, I just said it was brilliant: unpredictable and bold and right for the book and all those other waffly things that I can't remember what I said now.

But, back to the point. I'm still not sure I'd agree. I'm not sure the end of "100 years of Solitude" is subtle. And there are plenty of bold writers who would be classed as litfic, surely? And noone would argue that's not literary. Do you think maybe you are talking of a certain sort of realism rather than literary fiction? Or a certain style of litfic for that matter?

And as far as the trade's concerned I write books which stand on both sides of three different divides. My own work is actually me nailing my colours to the mast that these things, to quote A S Byatt, aren't either-or, they're both-and.

Emma

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Crossed with you, Snowy.

"Marketing terms make sense to market books perhaps, but not to write them in the first place. "

We're saying the same thing.

Thanks for that full explanation of your view, Emma, which is really interesting and entirely reasonable.

I guess one reason I'm so interested in this issue is that I do write what I write, and I don't try to put myself in a genre, but I am struggling to understand where I naturally fit, and what different effects can be created by different writing styles.

And yes, discussing by tick-box is probably dumbing down. I think of it more as a rolling sea of generalisation - everything you say can be contradicted by examples, but that doesn't mean it's not a general rule.

The literary snobbery, whether inverted or not, is simply a real shame and inhibits a good discussion. Surely it's horses for courses - we each have our own preferences, which is cool. Different types of fiction fulfill different roles in our lives - some of us want only one type, and some of us want different types on different occasions.

Deb

Deb, I hugely sympathise with not knowing where you fit when you're doing your own thing, and I think it's one reason for querying very widely, as Miss Snark would say, because it makes it doubly impossible to second-guess who will like your work. And even when you think you've got it all worked out, there's nowt so queer as folk, even in the book trade: by all the usual considerations Headline Review, arguably, don't publish books like TMOL, and there are agents who might well not have sent it there. Only my agent did, and Headline have, and a very nice job they're making of it!

Emma

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Now girls...

If you held a gun to my head and asked me to define LitFic as a genre I'd say that MORE aspects of it (writing, plot, character, structure, ideas) are original than in genre fiction, which by definition has some aspects which conform to expectations of that genre. That definition doesn't preclude bold or subtle or anything else. Just original.

I find the idea of a "style" becoming a genre very very problematic

IKWYM. I think the categorisations are a huge mess.

If you ignored marketing and market forces, then we should have genres which define the type of story - detective, thriller, romance, historical, scifi - and we should have style of writing, which could be commercial or literary or somewhere between. So each genre could contain some of each style. And then we'd need a genre called 'general' or 'misc' which didn't fit into any of the others, and within that we'd have some 'commercial' and some 'literary' and some in between.

Of course, each genre does already contain some of each style, but in some genres it's rare to have the literary type ones, and in some common.

And 'style' can mean more than one thing too, can't it? If I'm saying (maybe no-one agrees?) that literary is a style when compared to very commercial fiction, then yes, of course I agree Snowy that there are many many different styles of literary writing, and probably many different styles of 'commercial' fiction writing.

And then the term 'commercial' is problematic, since, taken literally, it implies other types of fiction won't sell, which is clearly rubbish. Some 'commercial' writers don't sell very well, and some less 'commercial' writers sell like hot cakes. So that term needs changing too.

It's no wonder hackles rise when we're trying to discuss things using these poorly devised categories, since it's not always clear what people are really saying.

Personally, I would still like to try to discuss these things, despite that.

Deb

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'I NEVER said the end of HHGTTG was subtle'

I know, Snowy. You didn't, and neither did I. I was talking about 'subtlety' and suggesting that was related to literariness (is that a word??), though of course you could be literary without being subtle at all - so maybe I'm wrong.

You then brought 'clever' into the mix. Can a book be clever without being subtle or literary? Yes, I'd say definitely. It can probably be any of the 3 without being necessarily the others. Oh god... I'm beginning to see why you didn't want to discuss this... ;)

Well just to quickly link those two last posts - my problem with litfic is that I think it is defined as a style - which therefore makes originality more difficult, so I would argue with Emma there.

If, however, Litfic creams off the "best" (whatever that may be) of the rest of the genres then it may be more original. But then that is winning by cheating. Because genres can also be original - by the same token.

See how ridiculous this is?

As soon as something is defined through style it is the death of originality in my view. That is not to say there aren't great literary masterpieces of originality out there. But I would just say they were great literary masterpieces of originality. Or good books. In other words.

So, to me this discussion actually turns into a tautology somewhere along the line, every time.

Ok. I'm out of here now. Lovely chatting, people. And I expect this issue to be well thrashed out upon my return.

x

Emma, you make some very good points. I will think about that when I am finally ready to submit, but I'm a long way off yet.

As for literary being primarily to do with originality, that sounds very plausible.

At risk of starting the scary bunfight, how do you relate all these genres/descriptions to the simple distinction between writing which is beautifully constructed, with fresh imagery etc, and writing which is a bit 'lazy' and hackneyed and full of cliche?

Deb