A thought on issues in lit fic

Good thought. The question is not "What am I going to write about," it's "What am I going to write?"

Actually, I'd argue that good Literary Fiction actually focuses on style first, character second, and plot not at all. If you aren't focused on the 'style' of your prose, if the prose itself isn't a main focus of the work, it's not Literary Fiction it's Mainstream Fiction (that is to say it is simply 'fiction' lacking any kind of particular sub-genre, 'Mainstream Fiction' being, of course, a marketing term). Issues, of course, come up, but 'plot' is not a concern of Literary Fiction. A book like Joan Didion's Play It As It Lays is good not because of strong characters, they're vague and shallow, or a strong plot, it simply doesn't have one, but entirely because of the way it is written, the actual words on the page which are deft and beautiful.

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"I kill where I please because it is all mine."
------------------------------------------Ted Hughes

I think I'm in the wrong place then. I'm going over to mainstream and taking my filthy 'plot' with me. ;-)

I wouldn't say literary fiction is completely plot-less...to me, it's just not the most important thing. I care about the sound of the words, the flow -- the allegories, metaphors, and how 'circular' it all is.

Like abstract singing versus concrete storytelling...when someone sings in a beautiful voice, who cares what the song's really about?

...

Junkfoodmonkey: I'm sure your plot's not filthy. :)

Ah, plot! Where? Get it out!

It's not? Damn, I'd better add some filth in right now! :D

Okay, so this whole plot thing. Is it actually possible to have a whole novel with no plot? After all a plot doesn't have to be a cliffhanger-filled thrill ride, it's just events happening, the characters moving through time. Even if they spend the entire book sitting in the coffe house talking about how much life sucks, well at some point, someone has to get up and get refils or go to the toilet or something. (And then what do the others say behind that person's back? Mmm, plot!)

Tell me some novels that are entirely without a plot. I'm sure they exist, but I haven't read any.

I'm not sure you can even write a whole novel without focussing on characters and plot at *some* point. I truly don't believe anything would, you know, come out, without at least one ok character who can do some interesting things to move an at least ok plot forward. And then, if the style is absolutely gorgeous and delicate and innovative and brilliant and profound, then that's literary fiction.

Example: "Lolita" - no one would call it mainstream, right? But it's got the most delightfully juicy characters and the most fantastically lurid plot, and I frankly doubt Nabokov sat down and said "I'm going to write a ton of brilliant sentences and hauntingly beautiful descriptions of... something." More probably he thought "oh, I'm going to write a story about this middle aged man who's sexually obsessed with prepubescent girls, and then he meets this one girl and her mother and..." The brilliant style just happens because he's, you know, a genius.

2007: Untitled Novel About Poetry-Quoting Ninja-Girl and Anguished Catholic Detective - FAIL (but it was still a cool idea)

It's completely possible to have really good character and explorations of issues. Whether one is exploring issues as part of character developement or using characters to explore issues, good writing is good writing.

I like saying anything that happens is plot.

Halifax Regional Municipality, Nova Scotia, Canada.

50 Stories; 1,000 words each... will I survive?

Current story:

Lit fic is also about the issues- definitely moreso than any other genre. I happen to like dealing with complex social issues, thank you very much. Look at Ayn Rand's work, for example (not saying that I agree with her views- I don't, not at all, but it's the first example that comes to mind). It's far more about the ideas than about the characters and plot. 1984 is, argueably, more about the issues than plot or characters, too. I'd definitely call it lit fic.

Liberal Feminist Hippie

I disagree. 'The brilliant style' of Nabokov did not 'just happen', and as much as the focus of the novel is the character of Humbert Humbert, Nabokov very obviously gave his prose, the actual words he put on the page, as much, if not more, attention than the characters. He had to work very hard over a number of years to create his style, and it is this focus on style as a part of the novel which makes it Literary Fiction. If you took the characters and plot of Lolita and divorced it of the style of Nabokov and told it simply and plainly with 'conventional prose', if you will, the story would be bland, uninteresting, and, quite probably, offensive. As it is, the work is a masterpiece. (For an even better example of the primacy of style, read Invitation to a Beheading, which is what it is because of the way he writes it, not what he actually writes.)

Plot, by the way, people, is not 'simply what happens in the story'. That definition is useless. When a story is described as not focusing on plot or not 'having a plot' it is using a definition of plot which is actually useful: plot is the causally linked actions which provide an overarching direction to the work, generally goal-oriented. I'm not saying that nothing happens in something like Lolita. I'm simply saying that the forward motion of those actions is not what makes the story interesting, it is, very specifically, the way the story is told that makes a Literary novel interesting. Divorce Proust, for example, from his style and what do you have? Absolutely nothing.

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"I kill where I please because it is all mine."
------------------------------------------Ted Hughes

Whooooa, now. It's one thing to say that plot-focused works that are devoid of character development or themes are mainstream; it's quite another to allege that just because your story doesn't focus on stylistic choices that means it can't be literary. Obviously this is all opinion, but that's pretty polarizing.

I mean ... ack. Perhaps this is me reacting to have read far too many stories or novels where it felt like nothing but prose-wank -- that is, "look at my new/strange/quirky/existential prose style! what? nothing happens? then you are a PHILISTINE". It feels like an offshoot of the assertion that if you can understand what's happening, it's not literary. *facepalm*

I think attention to character voice is very important, and if a story doesn't have that, I have trouble reading it. But I wouldn't go so far as to say that without a specific prose style, a literary piece has nothing.

Definitions are, uh, by definition polarizing. Green cannot be blue because, by definition, green is not blue. To be 'literary' and to be 'Literary Fiction' are two very, very different things. This is the problem with genre and genre identification and discussing modern literature in general because the capitalization of a letter can mean quite a bit. The latest Dan Brown novel might be literature but it definitely isn't Literature, for example.

Literary Fiction, in the sense that we are discussing it, as a 'genre' to market in, is a specific kind of contemporary novel which places style in the forefront. To be 'Literary' in terms of genre is to emphasize style. A novel, set in a contemporary setting, dealing with contemporary characters, focusing on the characterization of the characters rather than plot, but which does not focus on style is not, in terms of genre, Literary Fiction. It is simply fiction, referred to most often as 'Mainstream Fiction'.

This is why Literary Fiction is polarizing. This is what Literary Fiction is.

This has absolutely nothing to do with literary merit. There is a large amount of bad literary fiction out there. There is a large amount of bad literary fiction out there written by good authors. Salman Rushdie's first novel kind of blew. His second novel is considered one of the greatest novels of the 20th century. Both are 'Literary Fiction'.

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"I kill where I please because it is all mine."
------------------------------------------Ted Hughes

hey, who wants to talk about emo next?

"the difference between the almost right word & the right word is really a large matter--it's the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning."
- mark twain

http://noweekwillbewasted.proboards.com/

lolol ilu<3

A literature professor I had in college taught us probably the one thing that's stuck with me from my college experience: Literature explores what it means to be human. For me, this is what separates "literary" from "mainstream" fiction. Mainstream fiction is meant to be devoured. It's entertainment. Literary fiction makes the reader think, perhaps about societal issues, but mainly about humanity in general. It's meant to be slowly sipped, for each word and phrase to move along the tongue and slide slowly down the back of the throat. Mainstream fiction is fast food that you can find anywhere. Literary fiction is a special dinner you're still remembering weeks later.

I agree.. Mainstream fiction is entertainment, which allows escape from your life for a few hours. Literary Fiction is thought provoking, and although it is also an escape it should be so much more.

I think that style in much more important because you are not telling a "He said"/"She said" sort of novel. The plot needs to be strong and the charcters strong enough to handle it. It is a book not to tell a story, but to tell the Characters story. Hugh difference.

I think in light of TV/VIdeo games/ 2 hour movies/ and all the stock put on "Action" packed thrillers very few people care about literary fiction anymore.

I dont know how to put this I guess.... We live in a world where a vote for president is based on a 30sec T.V. ad.Why would we expect people to want to read anything that they have to think about, or to even know it is out there?

Here's a thought:

You're all right.

Literary fiction is like pornography. No one can define it, but we all know it when we read it.

Sometimes, an author's treatment of character is enough to earn him a spot in the pretentious pantheon of "Books You Will Read In High School," even if his style is overly wordy (see also: Charles Dickens). No one could argue that Dickens isn't literary fiction. However, the fact that his characterization shines through a long winded, erudite style and sometimes-repetitive plots and themes (how many orphans are there in Dickensian London?) speaks to the man's observational genius, his ability to capture every day life.

Other times, style is at the fore. Hemingway or Joyce, for example. e e cummings is another example. And sometimes themes and plots are the big thing; as in Orwell, Harriet Beecher Stowe, etc.

If you focus on style to the exclusion of all else, you'll likely write some insanely well-crafted sentences. But at what cost to the characters and theme? It then becomes an exercise in verbiage. There's a reason people complain about reading Joyce.

What you're looking to do is to combine these elements in a way that captures a common element of the human experience. The best lit fiction does this in a timeless fashion, so that when Sydney Carton stands on the gallows, his nobility resonates.

It would be easier, I guess, if we could all guarantee that if we all wrote as neatly-crafted sentences as we could, we would all earn our literary metal and our place among the stars. But it's more elusive than that, and thus infinitely more precious.

Cheers,
B.

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Wicked monkey. It plots.

Lit. Fic. is an outgrowth of Modernism. Charles Dickens wrote, well, Victorian Novels. I don't know any other way to describe it, personally, although I'm sure there's a better term for it. One couldn't write 'Literary Fiction' when Charles Dickens was writing because the very idea of it didn't exist. You may be able to say that in his treatment of character he prefigures in many ways the movement towards the Lit. Fic. genre, but he didn't write Literary Fiction either.

Now, I think I'd have a much harder time attempting to arguing against the inclusion of figures like Joyce and Hemingway and Faulkner and the like from that era. I don't think it's impossible to argue, because I think, on some level, there is a fundamental difference between Modernism and Literary Fiction, inasmuch that Post-Modern literature is, I think, far more emblematic of Literary Fiction, implying that Lit. Fic. is an outgrowth of Modernism, while, at the same time, I'd say it would be very hard to exclude someone like Faulkner from the Lit. Fic. category, and I've yet to come across anything that really comes down to this kind of specific division, so maybe it's just me thinking about it.

And, again, I think people are misinterpreting me here: Literary Fiction is not 'just style'. I've never said that. I am not saying it. I never will say it. But, again, in Literary Fiction it is style that is of a primary concern. How one tells the story is as important as, if not more important than, the story itself. One also never forgets the actual words on the page and their effect (which is why I personally tend to associate Lit. Fic. more with Post-Modern literature, because of the idea of the meta-narrative and the understanding of the words on the page themselves as device). I'm not saying that good prose is *all* you need to write a good novel, but I am saying that you need to be concerned with your prose and your style to be considered Literary Fiction. That is, again, just what Lit. Fic. is.

Also, and I've said this before, I think in another thread: the idea that we are all right or that Lit. Fic. is something that you just 'know when you read it' is completely and utterly useless. In a similar vein: pornography has a definition. It is a definition that is exclusive and inclusive, it is defined as much by what it is as by what it isn't, and the definition does change based on whim. In the same vein, Lit. Fic. doesn't change just because people want to say they are writing Lit. Fic. Definitions need to be a standard and they need to exclude things, otherwise they are useless.

And, by the way, there may be a reason people complain about Joyce, but there is also a reason he's still being published and taught in schools all over the country.

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"I kill where I please because it is all mine."
------------------------------------------Ted Hughes

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"I kill where I please because it is all mine."
------------------------------------------Ted Hughes

That argument depends very much on your perception of literary fiction as a cohesive genre, rather than as a collection of works that contain literary merit.

The (I feel, dangerous) side-effect of that perception would be that you would exclude the next revolutionary idea from ongoing intellectual dialogue because it doesn't meet the constraints of what a certain cadre of intellectuals ascribe to be literary. It would also have to view literature as a by-product of a particular tradition with a cohesive step-by-step progression. In reality, literary fiction is a by-product of thousands of different traditions that interbreed and collide to produce a fantastic melange of ideas.

By the proposed exclusionary definition, literary fiction would be a clockwork orange. So it's basically useless, too.

And I'm not certain you could even get all of the world's great authors to agree as to what constitutes "literary fiction," or for that matter what constitutes post-modern literature. Is magical realism post-modern? What about surrealism? Fabulism? There are a thousand other contemporary -isms that I, as someone who was educated in the cheap little plastic field of journalism could probably not come up with.

And yes, you're right, we ought to be concerned with prose. However, we should be more concerned that your prose fits the mode and method of the particular story you're trying to tell, not with whether it fits into a proscribed literary progression. In some cases, that'll be reflective of a modernist style. In other cases, you can only tell the story flamboyantly and exuberantly.

Also, definitions needn't necessarily exclude things. Liberty can only ever be defined negatively, as in "the absence of constraint." There simply isn't a positive definition for liberty. So any number of things could be viewed as liberty, even some things you and I would find abhorrent or repulsive. That's what the supreme court justice who said "I can't define pornography, but I know it when I see it." was getting at. It's what makes the First Amendment so explosively entertaining.

Still, as a fellow American, I think that definition but forth by John Locke, whose understanding of the rights of human kind under-girds most of the foundations of our constitution, would probably be of great concern to someone who regards definitions as necessarily exclusionary. As in "life, liberty and pursuit of happiness."

And if almost everyone who reads a certain work of fiction agrees that it has literary merit, than its by definition literary. Regardless of style, subject matter, historical era. That's what constitutes literary fiction.

I didn't mean that as a knock on Joyce. He's one of my favorites. However, by approaching psychological realism in the way that he did, he alienated some people in the cheap seats. Same thing for Faulkner, though not Hemingway (also educated in the cheap little plastic field of journalism).

And the best fiction ought to be accessible to all, or else what good is it?

Keep in mind I'm not saying we ought to annihilate our high-concept ideals. I'm just saying it's not as easy to pigeonhole literary fiction. That's why we're the ironic genre, and the one genre where we legitimately argue (and legitimately disagree) over what the hell it is exactly we think we're doing.

Cheers,
B.

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Wicked monkey. It plots.

I agree with what most of everyone's saying above me.

I'd just like to add that the whole "Good Lit Fic = No Plot" is more of an in-joke for us NaNo Lit-Fic'ers anyway. I once came across a friend who I hadn't seen for years typing away at a laptop in a cafe. After the pleasantries, we had this exchange:

Me: "So what're you working on?"
"I'm writing a novel."
"Ooh, that's awesome. So what're you writing about?"
"It's an exploration of a son growing up without a father and..." (cue about a paragraph's worth of theme descriptions).
"Oh? So what goes on in the story?"
"Well, I'm exploring..." (cue another ramble about themes, without a single mention of plot points at all).
"So it's a Lit Fic, huh."
"A what now?"

Exchanges like this are ones that we Lit Fic-lovers deal with... the plot-less rambles serve almost as a form of identity, as well as our greatest form of self-referential humor. But that's not to say that plots aren't important. For all I know, my friend might have been following a strict rigid plot. It just wasn't his focus. A "bad" Lit Fic novel would truly be plot-less... the best Lit Fic examples have quite strong, memorable plots, not just for the sake of having causal events, but as a way to better serve the twin goddesses of Style and Character.

My favorite Lit Fic author would be Vonnegut. Anyone taking a cursory glance at novels like Slaughterhouse Five, Timequake, or Breakfast of Champions would see an almost random jumble of events. But a true read-through reveals the utmost care Vonnegut uses to create his stories: all events come in a carefully constructed tapestry, in heavily constructed plots without which his themes would flounder and die. Telling a story chronologically is too weak-sauce for Vonnegut, but he still tells a story. A damn good one, too.

In good Lit Fic, a good plot must exist, though slaved it must to Style and Character. It's just fun to say otherwise :)

LIT FIC.
SRS BIZNS.

Oh, I love Kurt Vonnegut to death. I'm just reading through Slaughterhouse-Five for a first time, and I'm thoroughly enjoying reading it, despite the fact that it doesn't make complete sense to me just yet. It doesn't need to make sense for me to know it's brilliant; he puts words together in the most compelling ways. I read when he described a woman as "a wonderful invitation to make babies" or something like that, and lost it. He's so sophisticated that he can get away with it without sounding dirty.