I can't distinguish between literary and commercial fiction in a principled way

Like porn or art, I know literary fiction when I see it. Literary fiction is based on the MC's or supporting characters internal landscapes and conflicts. Those landscapes are rich and textural, they speak to the human condition and moral ambivalence of deeply thinking people. The external actions of the characters move the story along but don't "feel" like the fundamental basis of the story. Commercial fiction is philosophically much lighter fare. The action is the story. So Catch-22 is literary fiction and The Pelican Brief is commercial fiction.

The best literary fiction often becomes commercial; the best commercial fiction often becomes literary. However, most fiction tends to fall on one side of the fence or the other.

I think part of the confusion may arise from your attempt to look at older work as one or the other-- Tolstoy, Poe, Homer, etc. These I would classify as "classics" rather than commercial or literary fiction, because the distinctions as such did not really exist at the point these things were written. They've been around for so long and read for so long that they have risen "above" genre classifications. So when you try to see the difference, look at current fiction.

I've been stuck in the same question. I recently bumped an older thread in the mainstream/literary/commercial genre section. Let me try to link it for you.

http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=11768&page=3

Hope this helps.

Homer said:

This distiction seems arbitrary to me.

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It is.

caw

The line sometimes is rather blurry, especially when something crosses over. When is literary fiction mainstream, and when is it "commercial." When it sells a boatload, of course. And does that mean "literary" fiction by default doesn't sell?

But I do think there some fundamental differences between what is considered "literary" and what not. Whether we can just generalize everything -- I don't know. But I think "commercial" fiction tends to more plot-oriented -- people read them for entertainment, to pass time, etc. They may be genre-specific (horror, SF, romance) or not (mainstream/general fiction). But the focus is "plot." It doesn't mean it can't have good writing or great characters, but the plot is very important.

Literary fiction has more flexibility and is probably more character-focused. It doesn't mean they doesn't have a plot, but I think the plot is often secondary to the structure, language, prose, and characterization. Their main goal is not to "entertain" but to say something profound or intimate or insightful about the human condition.

Michael Cunningham's The Hours is literary -- the focus is on the structure, language, and characters. The plot is actually rather thin. Whereas John Grisham's The Firm is commercial -- the focus is on the story/plot, and to entertain. There may be deeper thoughts and layers, but they are not essential or necessarily important.

JoNightshade said:

I think part of the confusion may arise from your attempt to look at older work as one or the other-- Tolstoy, Poe, Homer, etc. These I would classify as "classics" rather than commercial or literary fiction, because the distinctions as such did not really exist at the point these things were written. They've been around for so long and read for so long that they have risen "above" genre classifications. So when you try to see the difference, look at current fiction.

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I do think people are confused about "literature" vs. "literary" as a genre.

"Commercial" vs. "literary" is often a marketing issue.

Man, I hope I didn't write any literary fiction, but it sounds like I might have. Don't most agents and publishers basically treat literary fiction with extreme caution, as it's unlikely to turn much of a profit?

I don't know what the hell it is, now that I think of it. Sort of like Tom Robbins meets Kurt Vonnegut meets Catcher in the Rye. I hate all this genre stuff. I find it far too constricting.

Spiny Norman said:

Man, I hope I didn't write any literary fiction, but it sounds like I might have. Don't most agents and publishers basically treat literary fiction with extreme caution, as it's unlikely to turn much of a profit?

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Do you have a strong plot, a page-turner?

maestrowork said:

Do you have a strong plot, a page-turner?

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Nope. Well, geez, I HOPE it's a page-turner, that's sort of the point... But it's much, much more character-oriented than, say, airport lit. And it has its odd moments of profundity (man, I hate that word). It's semi-humorous, like Confederacy of Dunces.

Wait, don't great characters create plots naturally through their conflicting view points and ideals?

Most "literary" fiction I've read are not necessarily page-turners. There are exceptions, of course, but usually they're so commercially successful that people start calling them "mainstream."

Zoombie said:

Wait, don't great characters create plots naturally through their conflicting view points and ideals?

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Usually when I think of plot-oriented, "commercial" stuff, I think of, "There is a bomb in the building, and I need to access codes to disarm it!" or "The killer is in the room with you!" or "I have to find my father's killer!"

I guess my plot is, "I'm going home for the first time in ten years to see a wedding for people I don't even like and to make my dead father stop showing up at very inopportune moments. Also, everyone I knew seems to have gone crazy, and that goes double for me."

I should put a bomb or a serial killer in there, just for kicks.

Most "literary" fiction I've read are not necessarily page-turners. There are exceptions, of course, but usually they're so commercially successful that people start calling them "mainstream."

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Yeah, that's the thing. When I hear someone talking about "literary" novels to me they say, "This book is so smart absolutely no one will buy it! Hey, even I'm not going to buy it, because I wrote it!"

No, your plot sounds plenty compelling to me. You don't need bombs and guns to make an exciting story. Some of the most exciting stories had nary a bomb in them. Like the Great Gatsby. That's people standing around, talking and drinking and driving fancy cars.

Well...there is one gun.

So it's moderately commercial, then? That's what I was going to bill it under. It's sort of tough if there's no dragons or army guys in it and you weren't trying to out-Proust Proust or anything.

I've heard literary writing described as "performance writing"--essentially the style of the prose or the depth of character often becomes more important than the story. Basically, writers writing to impress other writers. That's a very cynical way to look at it, but I think there's a lot of truth to it.

If you'd asked me (not a wise move, as I know nothing about marketing), I'd have said something like this:

1. topic: mainstream (general interest) vs. genre (special interest)
2. style: commercial (general interest) vs. literary (special interest)

Put them into a grid, and you have four theoretical genres that make sense as long as you don't actually look at books.

agentquery confuses me, though. "Generic mainstream fiction" made me curious. I found this:

agentquery said:

Commercial fiction is not the same as "mainstream" fiction, which is an umbrella term that refers to genre fiction like science fiction, fantasy, romance, mystery, and some thrillers.

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Now I'm more confused than ever. "mainstream" is a blanket term for the various genres?

I'm definitely going to go with mainstream, if that's the case.

Homer said:

...commercial fiction maintains a strong narrative storyline as its central goal, rather than (in literary fiction) the development of enviable prose or internal character conflicts."

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If that's not a subjective definition, I don't know what is.

-Jason

I do know that literary versus commercial versus genre versus mainstream is mostly and peculiarly an American contrivance.
My UK publisher dispenses with that nonsense. So does my Dutch publisher.
There was a great article about this a few years back in the UK guardian.

JamieFord said:

I've heard literary writing described as "performance writing"--essentially the style of the prose or the depth of character often becomes more important than the story. Basically, writers writing to impress other writers. That's a very cynical way to look at it, but I think there's a lot of truth to it.

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That is pretty cynical.

Writers are turned on, and tormented, by different things. To assume that "literary" writers are obsessed with other people's opinions, or are writing merely for other writers' eyes, seems unfair. I can sit on a sentence for hours because it has to feel right to me. I imagine it's the same for many others.

Writers tell the stories they need to tell, with the talents they have. Period.

I love literary fiction, but I also like certain genre fiction; for the past couple of years, I've been writing what I'd guess you might call literary thrillers. So genres stretch . . . and they'd better, or I've been grossly mistaken.

For me, I don't think the distinction between commercial and literary necessarily comes down to sales, though it's no secret one's a lot easier to publish than the other.

Acknowledging that the definition may be personal, and one genre definitely doesn't fit all, I'll say this much off the top of my head. Good literary fiction, to me, is most noteworthy for its nuanced characterization and internal focus. By that, I don't mean that the characters spend a lot of time gazing at their navels. Rather, the motivation is never left merely to external fact, as I've seen in some commercial fiction I've read. (Fake example: MC's father was murdered by a religious fanatic, so MC is therefore an atheist.) Rather, though that external fact may still come into play, it's how the character processes it internally that matters more. So the character struggles to make sense of the father's death, maybe, or with how to feel about other people in his life who are religious, and the whole thing gets played out in several ways, on more than one level, with perhaps politics or marriage or career as arenas for the conflict.

What's more, I think good literary fiction gives the readers several, preferably many, well-rounded characters, all with internal lives. I also like literary fiction that never takes the easy road out, never resolves problems neatly, plays up the characters' uncertainty. But that's not a hard-and-fast rule, and there are commercial authors who do this.

To say that literary fiction has no plot is to sell it short. (One of my favorite literary novels, Morality Play, by Barry Unsworth, is exceptionally well plotted and is not only literary but historical and a mystery, in several senses of the word.) I think it would be more accurate to say that commercial fiction must be well plotted, whereas literary fiction need not be . . . though no doubt, there are exceptions.

A literary agent I spoke to recently who represents both categories said that people who love one and sneer at the other are making a mistake. There's good stuff and bad stuff on both sides of the line, he said.