Friday, March 18, 2016

Literary Fiction vs. Commercial Fiction


Ran across this on one of my fave podcast sites, Books on the Nightstand, and had to share:

We tackle the difficult task of trying to define literary fiction and commercial fiction. Before getting into those subjects, we define genre fiction which is the term used to describe romance, mystery, and science fiction & fantasy.

 Throughout our discussion we mention several times that the defining characteristics of these fiction types are generalizations and they can easily apply to both fiction categories. Also, none of these properties are meant to imply that one of these categories is better than the other.
Commercial Fiction
  • A heavy reliance on plot
  • Less interior character development
  • Page-turner
Literary Fiction
  • Much of the action comes from internal character development (“Nothing happens.”)
  • More ups and downs from emotions than events
  • More complex writing needed to imply emotional states

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