1. I've read that literary fiction is fiction that cares more about exploring character than about tight plotting, and tends toward more ambiguous, less predictable resolutions. That makes sense to me, but it also implies there is a continuum between literary and commercial fiction, and that both categories exist across all genres (in principle, if not necessarily among the most popular examples of each genre).

2. I've also read that literary fiction is the opposite of genre fiction; the two are mutually exclusive.

3. I've also seen the term used as a kind of shorthand for fiction that is well written, or where the stylistic quality of the writing is what the piece is valued for.

Is one of these points an actual definition, with the others being generalizations, or are we to somehow integrate all these things into a consistent understanding of the term?

Wikipedia was strangely unhelpful.

Other times Literary Fiction seems to come from how the work is recieved, Authors like Toni Morrison are studied at universities as contemporary greats on the same level as Faulkner or Twain. This value judgment doesn't seem to be restricted to character driven stories (though often times this is the stuff of "great" literature). I think it does apply more to the style of the writing and how well the author handles complex emotions, concepts and even plots.

Schemes and tropes commonly occur in both macro and micro syntatical constructions. Cormac McCarthy's dystopian The Road and other of his work, exemplifies a punctuation scheme derivative of grammatical vice that arguably rises to a rhetorical virtue. [edit]Jules Verne's[/edit] H.G. Wells' Time Machine portrays a futureward look from the relative certitude of historical perspective, an overarching trope.

At the micro sytnax level, metaphor, simile, idiom, synecdoche, metonymy, and so on, are fairly common in literary fiction, not necessarily less common in fantastical genres, but a distinction is figurative versus literal comparison. There's not a lot of tolerance for figurative meaning in the fantastical genres.

Here is a previous link to further explore this issue.

There's no consensus on a definition of what literary fiction is. It's more an elite club, whose rules are defined by whomever happens to be at the bar at the time. Literary friction would be a more appropriate term, methinks.

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There's not a lot of tolerance for figurative meaning in the fantastical genres.

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Hm. If I'm reading you correctly on this point, extrinsic (I might not be), I have to disagree. I find that the genre fiction I read -- and maybe this just runs to my particular taste -- is rife and rich with figurative meaning. I can easily imagine someone teaching classes somewhere on the various meanings of the appearances of animals in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?; on the theme of addiction and powerlessness in Wyrms; on the layers of meaning hidden within the Gene Wolfe novel of your choice. And doesn't some part of the fun of reading Ender's Game come from peeling the mental onion as Ender moves from one game to the next to the next to the next to the next to the next? And say, what is Harry Potter really about, anyway?

I don't think speculative fiction audiences are intolerant of figurative meaning. It's there. Just like in literary fiction. And the stuff gets read.

When the world of literature co-opts genre classics and starts calling them literature -- when they teach Philip K. Dick in university courses, or Raymond Chandler, or Stephen King -- they haven't injected the stuff of literary fiction into them. The books are the same as they were before. It's just that the big literature boys didn't know, until years later, that they were any good. But once they know, they teach it the same way they teach James Joyce. They teach the depths, the subtext, the figurative meanings.

These writers. They knew what they were doing. They knew what they meant when it rained.

Some say that literary is the highest aspiration of writers, the goal to aspire to, with layers of meaning. Others say that literary is written with maximal effort at incomprehensibility and obscuration of the point with no effort at plot.

Like most genres, I love some works that are classified as literary, and hate others. It's more about the individual work for me.

Let me take a stab at a way of thinking about this. Fiction (or any art form) can engage us on different levels.

On a very simple level, we can just enjoy the experiencing of it as we read: the pleasure of imagining a interesting place, interesting people doing interesting things, the vicarious excitement of identifying with a character facing challenges.

Then, we can also be engaged outside or beyond the reading experience itself. The story may excite philosophical or moral reflection, we may appreciate the writer's artistry with words, and we may analyze the symbolism we find in the story and gain a richer understanding of it.

If the appeal of a story is mostly the simple enjoyment of experiencing the events it describes, of being transported into a fictional world for a time, we can describe the fiction as entertainment. (I'd prefer not to use the term "commercial fiction" because it seems to imply that people who buy books are only looking for entertainment.)

If the appeal of a story derives largely from the "meta-level" processes of interpretation and appreciation of the writer's craft, we can say the story is literary fiction.

There is tremendous overlap, because obviously one work can be appreciated on different levels and in different ways at the same time. It may appeal to some readers in one way, and to others in a different way. And, it often seems to me, the category depends as much on how we choose to approach a work as it does on the work itself.

Thinking of it this way, what is the basis for contrasting genre fiction and literary fiction? There is nothing that would seem to make the two mutually exclusive. I think the impulse to make this contrast comes from the fact that the elements that characterize the various genres clearly have a strong entertainment value. The murder to be solved, the scientific discovery, the use of magic, the horrifying monster, the wild, frontier milieu of a western - all these elements pull readers out of their ordinary experience and contribute to those vicarious pleasures that characterize entertainment.

Perhaps among those whose focus is literary, the various genre contrivances and conventions seem either unnecessary distractions or even markers that the work is meant primarily to entertain.

I can see where it might be difficult in many cases to craft a story that is both excellent entertainment and excellent in the literary sense. The two aims can tug in different directions, and place different demands on a writer's skills and imagination. But I resist the idea that this should be an inevitable dichotomy, a choice between mutual exclusive goals.

As a reader, I like stories that engagingly transport me into a fictional world, but also offer opportunity for reflection and analysis after I finish reading.

[This message has been edited by Starweaver (edited February 20, 2009).]

[This message has been edited by Starweaver (edited February 20, 2009).]

The dilemma of the ages, the Versus Syndrome, has plagued writers since perhaps the inception of storytelling. Popular appeal versus artistic appeal. I'm in the It-doesn't-matter camp, because the writer writes what the writer wants. Any conversation the story creates with an audience is where whatever decision is made, art or popular, more often both than exclusively one or the other.

In a society that values free speech, everyone gets a say, a consensus might evolve, but dissention is part of the conversation. Whether dissention contributes or detracts from the conversation is a matter or opinion, but, again, it's someone's say on the matter at hand.

I'm especially grateful and satisfied that this thread hasn't devolved into a side-taking debate. All too often in discussions of this nature, presenting personal opinions creates a sense of preferential, contentious, and divisive viewpoints. Sometimes I feel as though a clique of bashers is out to one-up an undesirable "element" and drive them away through intimidation and abuse, and through presenting the appearance of solidarity on an issue not in keeping with the supposed majority group-think. Not necessarily here, but commonly in other venues. That's one of my reasons for liking Hatrack, everyone gets a say that's thoughtful, reasoned, considerate, and contributory to the conversation without suffering from deprecating responses.
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One thing I've said in other threads, but don't think I've emphasized enough, is what the esteemed Mr. Card brought to the theory of story. His Milieu, Event, Character, Idea (MICE) concept is, to my mind, one of the greatest, latest major contributions to the evolution of story theory, and noteworthy for understanding what orients a story's priorities for best reader appreciation.

Much emphasis is placed on Character in literary genres, especially in academic circles. Of late, creative writing programs have expanded the pursuit by emphasizing Character in Milieu (place). Mr. Card led the pack. There's some catching up in academic circles still to go in reaching Event and Idea's relationship to story.

I place Mr. Card's MICE contribution up there on the all time major contributions to story theory along with Aristotle's Poetics and Freytag's Technique of the Drama. He's in lofty company.

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One thing I've said in other threads, but don't think I've emphasized enough, is what the esteemed Mr. Card brought to the theory of story. His Milieu, Event, Character, Idea (MICE) concept is, to my mind, one of the greatest, latest major contributions to the evolution of story theory, and noteworthy for understanding what orients a story's priorities for best reader appreciation.

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I thoroughly agree. When I read that section of his book, it seemed that a lot of things snapped into place at once.

One of its virtues, I think, is that it gets you out of either/or thinking about these story elements, because as Card presented it, it is not so much a question of which elements a story features most prominently, but rather establishing an agreement with the reader about which element needs to be resolved to constitute a satisfying reading experience. An idea-based story can still have wonderfully rich, growing characters in it, but the character development happens along the way to answering the question the story poses, and when the question is answered, the story ends.