origfic, genfic, fanfic, literature

[lobelia321]

I have at various times posed the question 'What is the difference between origfic and fanfic?' Mainly to find out why I seem to have lost all lust to write the former and would rather go to the lengths of learning an entire new fandom rather than depart into the arms of orig.

I'm starting to think that the question is possibly mis-posed. Because I have also asked the question 'What is the difference between genre fiction and literary fiction?' I still haven't completely gelled in my thinking about that one (and hope I never do!) but some things have crystallised into a sort of sense. And it's made me re-pose the first question.

I think the question is not 'What is the difference between origfic and fanfic?' but: 'What is the difference between literary fic and genre fic, incl. fanfic?' Because I'm starting to think there is actually no difference between fanfic and origfic if origfic is genre fic. Because fanfic is genre. I can't understand why I didn't see this before, seeing as I wrote an entire narratological analysis of fanfic which argued just that. Perhaps because I was a bit limited in my approach to fanfic, identifying it largely with rps. As I'm finding, fps is a whole 'nuther kettle o'fish.

So: What is the difference between literary fic and genre fic? Well, there is obviously not just one differences but many. But the ones that I find key are the ones involving rules and genre formation.

Genre has a set of rules. It works with reader expectations of these rules. The rules form a scaffold for the fic to hang itself on. They most often tend to involve a particular kind of world-creation, a particular style, certain generic conventional 'facts' that are entirely fanon (e.g. in sci-fi the existence of 'mother ships'; mother ships do not have to be explained to readers but they are a fact of fanon because they do not exist in the real world). In fanfic, the rules involve adherence to what is known as canon.

Genres also transcend their particular instances. The genre of the thriller, e.g., encompasses all thrillers. The reader who is most genre-competent is the one who has read most of the individual samples. The genre as a whole is changed with the appearance of every new example. In fanfic, this is, in effect, fanon formation. For want of a better word, I'm calling the phenomenon as a whole genre formation.

Literary fiction works differently in these two areas. There is no literature formation in the sense there is for genre. Each work stands much more on its own. It might be discussed in relation to other works (mostly other literary works but sometimes also to genres), 'influences' might be traced, and it is often discussed in relation to other works by the same author (auteur theory, as it is known in film studies). And I suppose, ideally, the competent reader knows her Homer, Dante and Mann by the time she gets to her Ann-Marie McDonald but that, I would argue, is not necessary. Each work can be read on its own. This is because of the different sets of rules that pertain.

Or rather, don't pertain. There are no rules for literary fiction. The world that is created is, for the most part, the real world we inhabit. The rules of the world are our rules, and if they are bent, they are bent in a unique way, not necessarily in a generic way.

Authors of literary fiction do play around with genres and draw on generic other-worlds, in a post-modern attitude of pastiche. Which, btw, I love, for it is not for nothing that Italo Calvino is one of my top five authors. But playing around and drawing on generic conventions does not make a work a genre. Calvino's If on a Winter's Night a Traveller is not genre fiction. It is literary fiction (unique, without rules) that plays around with generic rules. It plays around with these rules for literary effect. So I think that within literature there is also a strong formal current: attention to prose, words, sentences, grammar, language, the tools of writing is often great. And in Calvino, e.g., there is the sense that the worlds created and the stories told are primarily effects or functions of the words and sentences.

So, to return to my own difficulties with returning to origifc. Perhaps I ought to rephrase them: I find it difficult to return to literary fiction. I've not tried my hand at orig genre fic, so I don't know if I would find that as difficult. Rules are immensely comforting, helpful and enabling. It's like playing music: there is a system of conventional distances between notes, of rhythm, of tempo -- without this, you flounder. With it, you can do anything. It's the scaffolding that can be empowering. And I do like playing around with generic linguistic conventions a lot.

ETA: After tigging with Sartorias, I would now change my 'rules' to 'formulae' to avoid the implication that literary fiction has no rules. But literary fiction is not formula fiction; genre fiction is. See discussion in the comments.

Comments

[cupiscent.livejournal.com]

That's probably the only definition of the literary/genre divide I've ever read that made me even slightly want to subscribe to it. Or rather, it's the only definition that's been favourable to "literary" that I've ever wanted to subscribe to. *G*

But if you don't mind, I'm going to continue referring to literary fiction as "wank", and genre fiction as "story-telling". *G*

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Well, I do mind. Heh! And I will continue to chip away at your defenses. *gets out hatchet*

I myself do not like what you call wank and I call arty-farty. This is why I disliked The Life of Pi: would-be arty-farty bullshit. However, I do like me a good story. Take, for example, that topical cracker of a tale, the Iliad. I don't think anyone would quibble with me placing that in the 'literary fiction' camp and not in the 'genre' camp. Oh, hang on, Aristotle might quibble... After all, 'epic' is a genre.

Okay, I shall have to try again. Homer is perhaps too ancient and pre-this divide to make sense. I keep harping on about Ann-Marie McDonald but nobody's read her but her novels are absolute page turners, mysteries with twists and the solution not revealed until the final pages - yet they are not genre fiction. In my book, 'a good story' does not rule out 'a genre story', nor does 'a good story' rule out 'literary fiction'. They are not mutually exclusive.

This is why I was so keen to come up with at least some sort of working definition of 'literary' and 'genre' fiction that is not based upon differences in quality. Because the distinction has nothing to do with quality. There are rubbish genre fics, and there are rubbish literary fics. Bad!fic, alas, is evenly spread across the globe.

[cupiscent.livejournal.com]

Actually, a friend of mine did a talk recently on "spy fiction" and used the Iliad as one of her examples. *G* Genre fiction, baby.

My trash-talking of literary fiction has two real groundings:
1) The fact that I don't like it. I don't. Sorry. I've yet to find a "literary" novel that could actually hold my interest for anything other that reading-as-a-writer analytical dismembering, or having to read it for class. Anything literary that I've liked, I've liked for reasons other than its literariness.
2) A fantasy-writing friend who did her masters in creative writing in the US. She was told, more or less explicitly, that "plot" was a dirty word and something to be avoided. Both she and I were of the opinion that themes and concepts were all very nice, but they needed a vehicle upon which to make their grand parade.

And, y'know, I'm an anarchist, so probably 3) because genre is so reviled by highbrow literary crickets, I feel I absolutely must align myself with it.

I do like to eschew the traditional literary/genre divide. I'm not entirely sure it's helpful without serious questioning. There heaps of formulaic stuff in genre fiction that just conforms to the rules. But there's also beautiful storytelling that bends and breaks the rules - and those are my favourite authors. And I think there are rules to "literary" fiction as a genre, it's just that they're a little more ephemeral. There's also bad bad bad horrible awful nasty literary fiction.

Not sure where I'm going with this. Sorry. Pre-coffee rambling. Hope you can pick some sort of coherent thoughts out of here.

When I described something as "too literary for me", I mean it's gone too far, it's too wanky, too arty-farty, too art-for-art's-sake. That's it, actually. Eureka.

The amount of "art", the amount of "literary", that should be in a book should be, like everything else about storytelling, precisely the amount necessary for the telling of the story and no more.

Am I helping at all? I'm going to go and get that coffee.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

My trash-talking of literary fiction has two real groundings:
1) The fact that I don't like it.
But I'm afraid that is not a valid reason or 'real grounding'. It is a valid opinion; it is a valid predilection; it is a valid taste, kink, squick. But it is not a valid ground for an argument that goes beyond your personal response. Because it is not falsifiable. I cannot test it because I may not share that taste. This is why I wanted to get away from taste, quality and evaluation in my drawing up of the distinctions. Otherwise we would all chip in with entirely different lists of 'what I like' and 'what I don't like', and instead of thinking about fiction, I would be setting up a recs list. Which is fine but different from what I was trying to get at here.

I don't like historical romances. This does not mean, though, that they are trash. They may be trash but my disliking or liking them makes not an iota of difference to their trashiness. And I would still wish to be able to analyse the characteristics of historical romances, even if I hated them. I don't like the Blue Period paintings of Pablo Picasso very much but I would never say that therefore these paintings are trash. In fact, I often force myself in museums to look at pictures I hate and to try and find something interesting about them.

Also, I would never trash anything that I didn't know out of hand. All you can say about 'literary fiction', if you haven't read much, is that the works you have read weren't to your taste. I would want a larger sample than that. It's like non-fandom people trashing slash because they've read two beagle bad!fics by the spellingly-challenged.

because genre is so reviled by highbrow literary crickets,
But it isn't! Highbrow vs lowbrow went out with the 1960s and post-structuralism, anyway, and the real gurus of highbrow and Modernism (which possibly you mean by 'literary fiction', I don't know) were most vocal in the 1950s and earlier. Isn't Harold Bloom the last-bastion man here? The other pretentious literary critics all threw themselves at genre: Umberto Eco wrote about Ian Fleming, Roland Barthes about the detective novel and sword'n'sandals films, Janice Radaway wrote about women's romances, and every recent anthology I have read on narrative (and I have read about 30, published between 1980 and 2003) includes chapters on genre. I'm not sure what you base your claim on but my research doesn't bear that out at all and I was very much astounded to read you say it.

But there's also beautiful storytelling that bends and breaks the rules
As we know ourselves from writing slash: you've got to know the rules in order to bend the rules. If there are no rules, you can also not bend them. That's where the fun comes from: knowing the rules and twisting them. For both readers and writers.

[brightest-blue.livejournal.com]

I can't believe I didn't realize this before, either. I've occasionally thought about writing genre fiction and dismissed it because of all of the rules. I did make a try as a teenager and botched it horribly because I couldn't come to terms with the fact that the "formula" could be enjoyable for both me and the readers (my best friend and my English teacher *g*). I wanted it to be a Literary Gothic Romance, dammit!

But by the same token, the rules are what make both fanfiction and genre writing comfortably familiar, and the works that are better than average stretch and bend those rules just enough to give us the unexpected. Some of those do it well and often enough that they are almost as much literary as they are genre.

But playing around and drawing on generic conventions does not make a work a genre.

Absolutely not. And in fact, such playing around can perhaps even add to the literary cache of a work, although I suppose the pitfall of pretentiousness always lurks nearby. But doesn't it always in literary fiction? And maybe that's part of the stigma that's attached to fanfic. It really can be fundamentally categorized with genre fic that the literary types will turn their noses up at.

Oh, why do you always start such interesting convos at 5 am when I have just taken a heavy dose of narcotics? Will go back to bed & let this gel, although I can't not guarantee erotic dreams intermingling with Brad Pitt during. Although I'm sure you won't mind. :)

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Some of those do it well and often enough that they are almost as much literary as they are genre.
Yes! We've both noted this, I know. Although I still want to cling on to the notion that this 'almost as much literary' does not equate to 'almost good'. It simply means that this piece of writing is veering towards a different category.

And in fact, such playing around can perhaps even add to the literary cache of a work, although I suppose the pitfall of pretentiousness always lurks nearby.
Pftt, *snort*, does it ever? Now this is an interesting mental experiment: we all know that there is arty-farty bullshit literary fiction but is there also arty-farty bullshit genre fiction? I'm wondering.

It [fanfic] really can be fundamentally categorized with genre fic that the literary types will turn their noses up at.
Yes, absolutely, the proof in the pudding.

Oh, why do you always start such interesting convos at 5 am when I have just taken a heavy dose of narcotics?
Why are you up at 5 am, you insane woman???

[brightest-blue.livejournal.com]

Although I still want to cling on to the notion that this 'almost as much literary' does not equate to 'almost good'. It simply means that this piece of writing is veering towards a different category.

Absolutely. There is plenty of literary fiction that is every bit as much crap as crap genre fiction. "Literary" does not equal "good." It's just a different way of writing fiction, one that's more likely to catch the attention of snobbish critics, and who really wants that anyway? :)

but is there also arty-farty bullshit genre fiction?

I'm sure there must be. I'm just too snobbish to read enough genre to know. *g*

Why are you up at 5 am, you insane woman???

The answer is in your question, grasshopper. Although actually, I just needed a snack.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

I've got to think about what you say here (I did have trouble trying to figure out what rp and fp are). I agree pretty much, though it seems to me that literature also follows rules, or most literature follows the kind of metarule that bounds what's published: authors experiment in given "hot" forms, and literate editors will opt for poststructural or pomo over wild-ass experimentalism; certain voices are de rigueur. In a hundred years, I suspect academics will look at our time and see strict cultural boundaries for literature, just as we see them in early Victorian or in 17th C, but those people at the time really felt they were experimenting, reinventing the rules.

Great literature, yeah, it transcends the rules, turns them end-over, and people inspired by it reassemble them again to allow for this new set of ideas.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

rp and fp: Sorry, using jargon here. Still not used to the fact that some people who are not in the Lotrps fandom are reading my LJ, *g*. Rps is real person slash, fps is fictional person slash. Hope you'd worked that out already, though!

In a hundred years, I suspect academics will look at our time and see strict cultural boundaries for literature
I can see absolutely what you're getting at, and I had some misgivings about making 'rules' into the difference between genre and literary fiction but I will stand by that now. I think what you call 'cultural boundaries' is a different thing, and the rules you are talking about vis-a-vis literature are different from the kind of generic conventions and formulae that I mean when I refer to generic rules. Perhaps I shouldn't call them rules but 'formulae'. Genre fiction is formula fiction. Literary fiction does not operate according to any formula.

Great literature, yeah, it transcends the rules
Again, I want to take the debate away from great. I want to discover some distinctions that work for both 'great' and 'crap' literary fiction, and for both 'great' and 'crap' genre fiction.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Formulae--kaching! Now your argument snaps into better focus, and yes, I can see where the thrust is.

I want to discover some distinctions that work for both 'great' and 'crap' literary fiction, and for both 'great' and 'crap' genre fiction.

Yes! I want to too. I think about that fairly often, and have been about as successful at any internal definition as the lass who is bailing her sinking boat with a spaghetti strainer.

(re rps/fps, I figured out the slash, but I couldn't quite parse the rp.fp. Real person, fiction person--doh! Homer Simpson smack on the forehead.)

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

I have ETA'ed the post in the wake of your tigging!

And the rp and fp go even further: there's also rpf (real person fiction) and fpf (fictional person fiction), to distinguish it from slash. My husband, of course, loves fps but he thinks it means 'first person shooter'. Hah!

I want to discover some distinctions that work for both 'great' and 'crap' literary fiction, and for both 'great' and 'crap' genre fiction.
Yes! I want to too. I think about that fairly often, and have been about as successful at any internal definition as the lass who is bailing her sinking boat with a spaghetti strainer.
Actually, I think it's easier. It is easier to define categorical differences than to define qualitative differences because the latter involve such a lot of subjective evaluation and that *really* opens the can o' worms.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Okay, one more definition for the Bozo at the back of the bus:

I know tigging is tapping your weapon against your allies'--but what is it in this context? Discussion, or discussion with queries?

[getting ready to smack my forehead again...]

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Oh, sorry, another completely incestuous lotr rps expression that puzzled me for weeks before I found out what it was. A tig is a comment in response to someone's post. I believe it goes back to the game of tig-tog invented by Dominic Monaghan and other hobbit actors during the filming of Lord of the Rings (and discussed by them on the extended DVD).

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Ah, thanks! (I have not had a chance yet to view the Extended TT--but I mean to, this summer.)

[msilverstar]

I think "mainstream" is just another genre, and "literary" is one of those know-it-when-you-see-it attributes. Whenever someone gets all radical and changes the mainstream, they build their own little (or big) genre that follows in their wake. Think of all the pathetic Hemingway and Pynchon imitators.

Maybe some examples of literary fiction would be a good thing here? What do you see as fitting in that category?

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure I agree that 'mainstream' is a genre. 'Mainstream' does not have any particular formulaic conventions you could point to. There are mainstream romances, mainstream thrillers, mainstream Booker-prize-winning 'literary' novels. It seems to me that mainstream is shorthand for market forces and 'bestseller'-type evaluations of commercial success. It is a different category from genres and so forth.

Maybe some examples of literary fiction would be a good thing here? What do you see as fitting in that category?
Hemingway and Pynchon and their pathetic imitators, *g*.

Also: Jane Austen, Italo Calvino, Vikram Seth, David Mitchell, Ann-Marie McDonald, Thomas Hardy, Virginia Woolf, Peter Carey, um, can't think of any others now.

Genre writers: Elmore Leonard, Janet Evanovich, Isaac Asimov, Ursula K. LeGuin, Barbara Cartland, Dashiel Hammett, and everyone writing slash.