Literary/Mainstream

Oh yeah, literary fiction is a different animal. Sometimes it is hard to separate literary from mainstream (both are relatively character-driven, etc.) One thing is: all things considered, a literary best seller probably sells 5000 copies; a mainstream best seller sells 100,000+.

I have a really hard time drawing the literary/ mainstream line with contemporary authors. Anyone have thoughts on what defines literary?

My own definition is that Literary (as opposed to "Literature") is more about the beauty of the language, imagineries, characters' internal world, etc. I read one literary book (well, didn't finish) which was nothing but a long internal monologue (no dialogue... everything was reported or summarized by the narrator). Of course, some have strong stories, too, but they're still more about structures, language, complexities, etc. (e.g. The Hours).

On the other hand, I consider something like Cold Mountain mainestream/historical even though it's really close to being literary. Or anything Michael Chabon or John Irving puts out...

That's what I think, anyway.

I agree.

My understanding is that literary is more about the writing itself - the skill and beauty of the author's manipulation of it.

Mainstream is more concerned with the story.

Gotcha. So we'd be calling Elizabeth Berg, Isabelle Allende, Margaret Atwood all mainstream. Can anyone think of any contemporary literary authors?

Literary?

Doesn't the literary world consider Margaret Atwood a literary writer? I think I've read articles by critics who write of her as a 'great literary writer'.

Isn't the theme one of the things about literary writing that makes it not popular fiction? I'm talking about theme as an idea, something that a writer feels strongly about and wishes to communicate to the reader. Literary writing is idea driven as well as wonderfully written.

Literary fiction also has depth and layers that make it an intellectually satisfying or stimulating read. Good literary fiction leaves a reader thinking!

Mainstream can have themes and can be deep and complex with layers and make the readers think... At least I think my book does.

I do think literary fiction is more concerned about characters and the use of language, structure, symbolism, imageries, and themes. Plot is secondary (it's not to say they don't have plot -- most stories have plots, even mundane ones).

I've split this off from the "What is mainstream?" thread because I think it deserves it's own space. This is honestly something I've never thought of -- mainstream vs. literary -- so I think it's quite interesting. I'll have something to add to it tomorrow when I can think again.

Maybe we could consider Barbara Kingsolver a modern day literary author. Her use of lanquage is magical.

I agree with PDR, that literary fiction is multilayered writing, heavy on theme and symbolism. I also agree with Ray, that there is an overlap and some mainstream works can have those qualities.

Maybe Contemporary/Mainstream is all the stuff that's not literary, and not genre?

I'd consider Margaret Atwood, Barbara Kingsolver, and Isabella Allende literary.

What about Tom Wolfe? Jodi Piccoult? John Irving? Are they mainstream or literary?

Geez, the more I think about it, the more confused I get. It would be nice to understand it, if only to know how to pitch a book to an agent. A beta reader described my writing style as 'vaguely literary,' and I'm still not sure what that meant.

John Irving or Tom Wolfe would be mainstream, I believe.

Literary, mainstream, contemporary?

When having this literary/mainstream/contemporary discussion with other writers or English Literature students I discovered that American universities teach a slightly different version on literary, mainstream or contemporary writing. Anyway if you care to think about these ideas from a non-American point of view, then I was taught, and I teach that contemporary and mainstream writing are very similar. That is why you see editors asking for mainstream/contemporary fiction as if they are the same thing. Fiction that is contemporary is written about the time we live in - our contemporary time. It is mainstream because it is of general interest, i.e. of interest to many readers - the mainstream of the population.

Certainly Ray, mainstream/contemporary writing may have a strong theme and be about ideas but literary writing is more. Why are so many new writers eager to be known as writers of literary fiction? Why is popular fiction regarded as less important writing? We are taught that literary fiction is the best type of fiction to write because it is not just a story, it's not just about characters, it's not just about the human condition, it's about a writer with consummate skills using her language to express through words, with her personal and honest interpretation, the important ideas of our time.

All very high faluting and for many writers somewhat like the quest for the Holy Grail. Personally I feel that literary writers tend to be born not made. That's mainly because I've taught writers for a long time and can just about tell from the first session with a new class who will tend to have a literary writing style and who wont. They don't set out to be 'literary'. They just are. Give a literary writer the task of writing a romance and they will write a literary book with a story centred around a romance! Give a non-literary writer the task of using symbols and a serious idea to create a layered and deeply meaningful story and they will write a simple entertaining tale!

Tom Wolfe and John Irving are mainstream/contemporary by my definition too, Ray.

Jana, whoever said 'vaguely literary' wasn't exactly crystal clear about literary writing were they? Don't try to force yourself to be literary. Just write and call your writing mainstream/contemporary!

I think my style of writing is literary. What you said hit the nail on the head. No matter what subject, I can't help myself from writing prose. I could never see myself writing an action thriller, the enjoyment I get from writing comes from trying to tell my story in the way I like to read them, delighting in the images and the authors take on humanity, of things the way I see them, to have the reader see those images too.

Mainstream/literary

To the publishing world, the boundary between literary and mainstream is most often one of money. If it doesn't sell well, it's literary; if it reaches the mainstream audience and puts up mainstream numbers, it's mainstream.

I changed my mind then!

Publishers and literary fiction

I don't think Maxwell Perkins, that editor of the 20thC American literary greats, would be happy with Mr Ritchie's comments about today's American publishers!

Thirty years ago our (non-American) publishers would have been looking for that 'great literary work' to publish because they believed that good literary fiction became the classic literature that endured. They wanted their publishing house to be associated with such works. American publishing has always been more money orientated so I can see that today, when money is a god, some editors would confuse mainstream and literary fiction. However some non-American publishers still say, in their writers' guidelines, that they only publish literary fiction and not mainstream or genre fiction. They do differentiate between the two.

The definition of literary writing is a difficult beast to pin down. Charles Dickens was so popular that the police had to handle the crowds when the new issue of his magazine with the next chapters of his newest novel came out. He was regarded as a popular novelist. Now he is regarded as a great writer, his works are called classics. I'm not personally sure he is a great literary writer but sometimes he was! Passages like the opening of 'Bleak House' where he starts off describing the fog and ends up in the mental fog of the Chancery courts take some beating.

Jane Austen - to choose another writer you will all have had thrust at you in school some time - is a great literary writer, her skill with words and her technique are superior to Dickens. But he had honest passion to fuel his writing, and strong feelings about certain ideas that he wrote about to make his readers aware of his society's injustices. Austen has an incredible understanding of human relationships and that wonderfully ironic touch to reveal her ideas to the intelligent reader.

Literary fiction is different from mainstream/contemporary but I can't work out a good definition for myself. I keep coming back to 'depth', to style, to a sense of being made to think about something in a new way, a mental stretching that mainstream does not. Maybe 'Captain Correlli's Mandolin' (spelling?)is an example of a modern literary work? If it were a mainstream work it would not have those odd, out of the plot chapters with different character's views and the story's ending would have been slightly different. As it stands now it has the feeling, for me, of a well written literary work.

Are we talking about "literary" or "literature"? To me, they are different. Dickens novels are literature, but I don't consider them "literary." Same with Jane Austen. I think they're very mainstream. You can't be more mainstream than Oliver Twist or Emma.

But Virgina Wolfe? Yeah, literary.

Literature and literary?

I think that most professors of English Literature regard most of the works they study and teach in the English Literature canon as literary writing. That's why it's 'English Literature'! And literary writing can and does deal with contemporary topics. Jane Austin, by your earlier definition of a literary writer being one who uses langauge well, is certainly a writer of literary fiction. Her subject matter at the time she wrote would not, I think, have been considered as mainstream writing for the general public.

I wonder, Ray, from your example of Virginia Wolfe, if you think that literary writing is actually that esoteric, arty farty, airy fairy, what-the-hell-am-I-reading stuff that goes by the name of 'cutting edge', experimental writing? It's the sort of fiction that gives most people mental indigestion and makes beginning writers furious that it gets published when their more traditional writing doesn't!!!!

Just to confuse us all even further James Joyce's 'Ulysses' was an experimental novel that is now regarded as a literary work. Sigh!!!

Maybe I am. Because, otherwise they would be "mainstream" because they sell in millions (such as John Irving's novels -- he uses the language with great skill and flair too, but he sells a lot of books). My definition of "literary" tend to be "it's way out there." An ex-teacher of mine writes arty-farty "literary" novels -- a book about six people sitting around talking about life and love and such, for example. His books don't really sell, but they may be studied in Lit classes.

For me, I still say literature is different than "literary." In lit classes, you have anything from Jane Austin to Joyce to Amy Tan to Michael Chabon (the last two I consider "mainstream" and I'm sure the first two might be considered "mainstream" in their times as well). It's kind of like music. Mozart's music was considered pop and even "vulgar" in his times. But now, it's "classical." And in a century or two, John William's movie scores will all be considered "classical."

For the sake of discussing what publishers TODAY regard as literary vs. mainstream, I think the arty-farty criterion might not be too far off...

Literary and mainstream

Ah me! I hoped we would have some of the other writers joining in, Ray. I don't like to appear to hog a topic. Come on, you other non-genre writers, we are only tentatively suggesting what the differences between mainstream/contemporary and literary writing might be to the two of us. Add your two penneth (cents) worth of comment. There are no rights or wrongs, just interesting, differing opinions.

Anyway the definition you are happy with, Ray - pretentious arty farty crap - (and a lot of my genre writing friends use that definition of literary writing too) does actually refer to 'experimental' or sometimes it's called 'cutting edge' writing in my non-American experience. It may be literary writing one day, (James Joyce, e e cummings) but right now it's experimental.

No, I am not confusing literature with literary writing. It's just that one expects the best literary writing to become 'English Literature' one day in the future. Most fiction studied at University is studied because it is regarded as the best writing that says something about the human condition.

John Irving wrote that book about Owen Meeny (sp?) and one about a most peculiar family with the bear and the incestuous relationship between brother narrator and one sister? If so I think he's mainstream and it wouldn't be polite for me to say what I think about his subject matter or his writing style. I remember reading a post you made raving about Ernest Hemingway, another writer I think is over praised, so our tastes are obviously widely different. I never could get into Michael Chabon either! Sorry about that.
I hope they aren't called literary writers in the USA.

Back to literary writing. How about a negative definition?

Literary writing isn't pretentious.
It doesn't use polysyllabic words for the sake of sounding grand.
It doesn't use long, complex and convoluted sentence structures to baffle the reader.
Literary writing doesn't just tell a story.
It doesn't aim to be the most beautiful writing ever written.
It doesn't aim at the highest I.Q.s only.
Literary writing doesn't confuse, or bore the reader.

On the positive side all I can say is that literary writing is serious, superbly written and leaves a reader thinking.

pdr said:

Back to literary writing. How about a negative definition?

Literary writing isn't pretentious.
It doesn't use polysyllabic words for the sake of sounding grand.
It doesn't use long, complex and convoluted sentence structures to baffle the reader.
Literary writing doesn't just tell a story.
It doesn't aim to be the most beautiful writing ever written.
It doesn't aim at the highest I.Q.s only.
Literary writing doesn't confuse, or bore the reader.

On the positive side all I can say is that literary writing is serious, superbly written and leaves a reader thinking.

Click to expand...

That's not a bad definition. I think we might be able to add that literary writing doesn't always stick to genre lines and perhaps that's why much of it (in my experience) is lumped in with mainstream.

(Sorry to be so late getting in on this. Sick family, catching up on work, and post-conference piddly stuff kept me out of it.)

The last word?

Talking to my students about literary writing it seems that perhaps we just have to accept that even editors have a hard time defining 'literary' although we all seem to recognize it when we read it. I feel strongly that it is not self-conscious or deliberate but rather the result of the writer's personal style, attitude to the theme and a more philosophical subject matter.

On the other hand there are writers of genre fiction, particularly crime fiction and historical fiction who make every effort to write a literary work of fiction. It seems, from reading critiques, that these writers have created 'literary historicals' and 'literary who-done-its'. From the authors' comments they have done so because they do not like the critical snobbery about genre fiction.

Where does that leave us? To answer the question about marketing, perhaps you could call your work 'mainstream/contemporary' and let the editors discover if it's 'literary'?