Tell Me About You

Hi there,

I love reading literary fiction, but when I decided to write my own novel, I didn't even consider lit writing. I figured I was just not a good enough writer (yet) to be able to write anything decent. So I decided to write a romance novel instead. My thought was that I would feel less pressure in that genre, and that it would help me to focus if I could rely on a tried and true formula. Well, I got about 30,000 words into my novel--historical romance--and realized I was more interested in my secondary characters and their inner lives than in my main characters and their romance. I've shelved it for now and am working on a contemporary romance instead. I hope to return to my historical later with the aim of allowing myself to go off on tangents and really explore the world and the secondary characters. Maybe I'll end up with a hybrid, a lit-lite bit of historical fiction with a strong central romance.

Even my contemporary wants to go off on non-romantic tangents, but luckily I found a hook that is forcing my mains together and demands that the story is mostly about them.

By the way, I saw some of your writing in syw and thought it looked really promising and interesting.

Good luck!

In the lifetime of years I spent thinking about “Being a Writer”, I never questioned what I wanted to write; it was always literature. I love the words themselves, the process of weaving feelings into lyrical sentences as beautiful, as devastating, as the experience one is recording. What finally haunted me into putting fingers to keys (doesn't sound as good as “pen to paper”, does it?) was the one character who wouldn't go away, whose voice stayed in my head, whose story had to be told.

I never questioned Literature vs ___________ (other genre) until I finished and had to write a damn query letter. Then I obsessed for weeks. That's a lie- I'm STILL obsessing! Putting that label on the book had so many implications to me, and one of them was definitely what storygirl mentioned in her post- I'm not “good enough” to call this literature.

When I started writing the second novel and figured out all the places I went wrong in the first, I shelved it and realized this:
I didn't have the fiction-writing experience to carry off literature. I thought I was a panster and had no idea how to get the novel I envisioned in my heart into page after cohesive page of print. I was able to write the phrases, the scenes, but not to wind them together into a story as meaningful as it is for the MC. I still don't have the necessary experience, but I'm getting there. As compelled-impelled-obsessed as I am with her story, I've deliberately avoided the feet-first approach I desperately desire, while continuing to complete other pieces. I think I need one more novel “under my belt” before I'll be ready to do the character justice.

Since I decided to self-pub the second, labeling the genre became less important to me, and the second novel was what I call “contemporary lit-fic”, not pure literature. (Genre labeling was actually a motivating factor in choosing self-pub- I wrote a post about it on my blog.)

I think it may be easier to get published if your piece fits neatly into one category, or if you can sell it as though it does. I also think it's an easier piece to write if you can define your audience prior to writing anything, but sometimes the story has a mind of its own. When that happens, you go with it, and worry about the rest of it later. I have to believe that good writing will always find a home.

I love the fact that the same story (lit masterpiece or otherwise) looks different in every person's mind. Characters, scenes and motivations can be read a thousand different ways by a thousand different people.

I wanted to be the next J.D or Steinbeck but when I started writing in earnest I realised how naïve that was and just focused on telling a good story.

Many different things motivate and inspire people. Inside one of your shorts may be the key to saving someone's marriage or giving them the courage to leave one that is broken. To that person, what you have written will be a masterpiece regardless of fancy prose and a lack of iambic pentameter. I say write what feels comfortable for now, submit it and grow. You could maybe use a pseudonym until that day you realise how far you've come on the path to true literary mastery. That's what I'm doing anyway, head in the clouds but a foot on a ground.

Go get 'em

I started writing poetry. When I first began to write novels, I never considered writing anything that would not be considered literature. I like the lyric quality, the expression of thoughts that have the power to endure. It is a form of aesthetic beauty and I like that.
Although I admire many examples of writing, to me trying to write something that would not be considered literature is like telling a long joke. non-fiction is like journalism. It does not hold my interest, and is not so much of a challenge, for me. I also like the challenge, because it is very difficult.