Greentown, the difference between yourself and Terry is that he makes thoughtful and considered comments. They may not always be comments people agreed with, but they never reduced to personal attacks. Your comments are quite spiteful, small-minded and vindictive.

Now Sharley, I may not be as sophisticated, thoughtful and considerate as you and Terry, but I could be prepared to acknowledge my shortcomings in this respect however, and I'm sure you've read all of the posts that Terry and I have made before you decided to make your contribution, and with that in mind I really have difficulty understanding how you can't see that your post might be a case of the pot calling the kettle black.

However, if you were prepared to illustrate your thoughts further with relevant examples, I'll be happy to re-examine my position on that.

What with all this bother, I thought I'd look back over this thread and see if I was justified in blowing my top.

After all, although democracy often amounts to nothing more than the rule of the most idiots, when everybody seems to be disagreeing with you it's always a good idea to have a big look at yourself in the mirror and check whether your thought process is functioning okay.

So this is the first post I made, which in essence was a working up of a thought expressed by John Banville on the radio. I didn't feel the ideas expressed, by him or me, were particularly controversial.

I caught a snippet of John Banville on the radio this morning - talking mainly about sex in fiction. Most book industry/publishing folks would probably categorise John Banville as a writer of mid-brow literary fiction which has achieved commercial success i.e. sold a lot. He was chatting away with Rachel Johnston and the host about the differences between sex in genre fiction (erotic fiction) and sex in his book (literary fiction) and the point of erotic fiction being to get the reader off. He brought up the issue of being asked what a novel is about and his view that a novel is not about 'anything' - it is about 'everything'. I think this describes exactly the difference between genre fiction and literary fiction on a fundamental level - i.e a crime novel is about a crime, it is not about 'everything'. Erotic fiction works when the reader gets off - it is not about 'everything'. Many will of course argue that some genre fiction has come on from my simple definition, and that you can have literary detective/crime novels or literary erotic fiction. And while of course there is some truth in this, I think it would be difficult to make the argument that these novels are genuinely literary in the sense of say, Infinite Jest or Ulysses or The Corrections. Literary/Crossover novels are first and foremost commercial genre fiction which is written in such a way that may appeal to the non-genre reader. For example, Camus' The Outsider features a crime but it is not crime fiction nor commercial fiction and it is not 'about' a crime. It is most definitely about 'everything'. On the other hand, Louise Welsh's The Cutting Room, is a crime novel with a literary tone/quality. That is to say, the nature and significance of the plot over the character, make it a commercial/genre novel rather than a literary novel. It is most definitely about 'something' rather than being about 'everything'. So, to finally conclude I would say that the average reader will be able to tell you what a genre/commercial book is 'about' because it's about something specific and describable, whereas nobody will be able to tell you what a literary novel is 'about' - because it's about 'everything'. <Added> Rachel Johnson

So far, so fair enough. In fact, I thought it was quite a 'light' contribution, or as light as anything attempting to explain the difference between literary and commercial fiction in a few paragraphs could be.

So then, Terry replied to my post. Now, people may think I've misread Terry's judgement here - I don't know - you decide! Again!

This is Terry's entire reply to me:

So, to finally conclude I would say that the average reader will be able to tell you what a genre/commercial book is 'about' because it's about something specific and describable, whereas nobody will be able to tell you what a literary novel is 'about' - because it's about 'everything'. I can see the attraction in this but I feel a strong urge to resist its over-simplification. For a start, I can't see that all literary novels are about 'everything', including Ulysses. Likewise, I'm not sure genre fiction is always just about 'something'. It could in fact be argued the other way around: that the best genre fiction transcends its necessary limitations to encompass 'everything', whereas a lot of literary fiction, in attempting to be about 'everything', ends up being about bugger-all. Thinking about this some more, the problem - at least as it appears to genre writers - is that those who prefer literary fiction tend to slide their preference smoothly across into the strong implication that literary writers are more intelligent, more 'everything' than genre writers. They can't help it: they have the backing of the literary establishment; the Melvyns and the Mariela's who think they know what they and anyone else who's in the know should like, even if it's often as much fun as a pube wax. And while of course there is some truth in this, I think it would be difficult to make the argument that these novels are genuinely literary in the sense of say, Infinite Jest or Ulysses or The Corrections. This kind of statement is honestly meaningless to me. The best genre novels may not be 'literary' in the sense that they're of the literary genre. But then I suspect you don't mean that; I think you mean they aren't as insightful, as deep, as intelligent as the 'genuinely literary'. But for me, there is far more insight, more 'everything', in SF novels like The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin, More Than Human by Theodore Sturgeon, Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes, The Disappearance by Philip Wylie, than the admittedly confusing but let's face it mental bollocks of most of James Joyce. I got tired of the same kind of snotty argument Banford puts forward when I was in school. Yes, it has a general point - that much of literary fiction is about something serious, whereas much of genre fiction isn't. But for me, literary fiction tends to fall down on going the whole hog of 'serious', hide-bound mostly by its self-obsession (Joyce again). Whereas the best genre writers seem to understand better how to use their tools to really open up the big human questions. Terry

Just so people really know what set me off, what made me feel poked at, this bit irked me:

I got tired of the same kind of snotty argument Banford puts forward when I was in school.

Terry is saying my argument is SNOTTY and worthy only of comparison with something he was annoyed by and disregarded when he was at school - so my point is then SNOTTY, out of date and something to be scorned - probably by children.


Does anybody see how that could be taken badly by me?


Another bit that I took personally was this bit about James Joyce. Now Terry of course, wouldn't know this, but I hold James Joyce in the highest regard, particularly for Dubliners, rather than exclusively the more famous works of Ulysses and Finnegans Wake. A genuine literary hero to me and I think rightly respected by many all over the world.

But for me, there is far more insight, more 'everything', in SF novels like The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin, More Than Human by Theodore Sturgeon, Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes, The Disappearance by Philip Wylie, than the admittedly confusing but let's face it mental bollocks of most of James Joyce.

Now, of course, some issues are just a matter of taste. Amis over Bellow, Joyce over Beckett and so on and on.
But I actually find it offensive for anyone to denigrate the work of one of the world's greatest writers - up there with Shakespeare - and I can't bring myself to condone that.

To me that's like when The Sun brings a Rent a Chav to White Cube or the Whitechapel gallery and dismisses Tracey Emin or Damien Hirst as something their 5 year old daughter could do.

I think it's genuinely offensive and shouldn't go unchallenged on a 'writing' website.

So, there we are, without further going sentence by sentence, because it really does boil my blood, that's what really wound me up and I don't think it's unjustified.

There's one extremely personal attack on my intellect and one extremely personal attack on the literature I hold dear.

Have a vote then, and if everyone says, that my response was unjustified and that they still think I'm inconsiderate, aggressive, ugly, rude, trollish and whatever other insults were thrown my way - then I'll rethink my position.

A tip for Terry: It's best not to reply to character attacks at all, unless you want to sue, then you'd need to seek legal definition of 'pig-headed determination' (I think I've got that - is it a good quality for a writer to have?)

Anyway, back to the discussion. Please allow me to lower the tone of the debate as I'm really interested in the commercial rewards - I want to retire early and I don't care who the "stupid tears" belonged to - the narrator or the character? And I certainly don't want to read a whole chapter of a creative writing book to find out.

What sells best? The story told in a way as described in Emma's summary; fast moving, easy to digest, reliable narrators calling a shovel a shovel etc, or the same story told in an acclaimed literary style? (With hand held earth and spoil-moving devices).

I have several endings for my novel and I'd like to get opinions on what generally 'sells' best: (1) a sad ending with nothing good resulting from it, and with serious concern for the future of the mc (2) a sad ending, (eg mc dies) but with the problem solved & goal achieved, or (3) a feel-good ending, problem solved and characters are content.
Cheers
Michael

I read somewhere that the ending must be 'unexpected yet inevitable' - personally I'd favour a sad ending but where everything is tied up. Less predictable than a happy ending

Stand back and don flak-jackets...

LOL Emma.

Blimey - sorry - just read back through this whole thing and didn't realise how unpleasant it had become.

Has anyone reported this thread?