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I just read this quote over in the Basic Writing Questions board:
I'm sorry for lifting out a particular person, but the attitude annoys me to no end. I love literary fiction. It's the kind of fiction that can make me forget the world around me and have me jump back into the real world at four am in the morning and realize that I've been reading for six hours straight.
I see the same attitude toward genre fiction as well, from literary writers. The high brow literary magazines are full of snobs snorting in derision at genre writers. It annoys me as much. I remember reading books like Wilson Tucker's "The Long loud silence" or Arthur C Clarke's "The City and the Star", or even just "The Star". I felt the same as when I read literary fiction.
I'm not going to comment on what literary fiction is supposed to be, but in my experience as a reader, literary ficiton is when you're reading something and you're constantly yanked out of the story by the overly fanciful language, whether it's to shake your head and how convoluted the writing is or to read a sentence or two again to enjoy how beautifuly poetic it is.
In either case, this is not my idea of good storytelling.
Again, this is my opinion as a reader. In general, I can't stand literary fiction and won't go anywhere near it. There are exceptions.
I'm sorry for lifting out a particular person, but the attitude annoys me to no end. I love literary fiction. It's the kind of fiction that can make me forget the world around me and have me jump back into the real world at four am in the morning and realize that I've been reading for six hours straight.
I see the same attitude toward genre fiction as well, from literary writers. The high brow literary magazines are full of snobs snorting in derision at genre writers. It annoys me as much. I remember reading books like Wilson Tucker's "The Long loud silence" or Arthur C Clarke's "The City and the Star", or even just "The Star". I felt the same as when I read literary fiction.