ita resumes her confusion at the still undefined genre of "literary fiction"

ita resumes her confusion at the still undefined genre of "literary fiction"

Oh, easy. You tell by what the cover illustration looks like. Or where it's shelved in the bookstore.

That's you?

(From earlier, blinks)

Err, yes? Sorry?

(Runs and hides under rock.)

(No, really. It's a nice rock, all mossy and comfortable.)

I feel like I need to disclaim that I find incest fic EXTREMELY squicksome ordinarily. Why there's this vibe with Connor that drives those particular bunnies, I don't know. Hell, I'll own that the Wes/Connor has been stymied by my own squicks.

But--I didn't go into the Connor thing (as a viewer) looking for a weird sexual/competitive vibe from Angel and Son. It just hit me last season and made me want to scrub my brainpan. This being non-NAFDA, I won't go further than that, but suffice it to say, the bleach didn't work.

cereal:

-- but seriously? I said that about not knowing much at all about f/sf because I know that there's that genre divide recognized in the industry & when I look with that divide in my eyes, that sort of literary movement and those sort of literary styles are things I know less about. If that sentence parses at all. But the f/sf I have gotten to read, I thought about & judged exactly as I did, or do, lit. As I do fan fiction.

It's all prose; or ought to be. Unless it's fan poetry. In which case it's all writing.

[& shiny numberslut.]

How does the industry define it, RL? I still really don't have a clue.

t puts on the hat of Talking About Things Other People Know More About

The publishing machines behind the two halves, as it were, recognize themselves as very different. The f/sf, so I've heard from Plaidder's tales of trying to get herself published

[btw? If you haven't read www.plaidder.com/wof Women On Fire yet, even checked it out, please please please do so because it's really lovely. Ignore the ugly-ass webpage. It's good and it gets even much *better* from that first chapter.]

is much more conscious of itself as a big old corporate thing. The lit world is to some degree more coy.

Plus there's the whole small-press-movement thing; but that's not really quite applicable to the question. Because it really is marketing, and the aesthetics that grow out of (are forced out of) that.

Okay, so that's the definition I've heard before -- but it's not a definition. I still have no way of telling what's literary fiction, what's fiction, and what's science fiction.

I'm not sure I get the distinction between "literary fiction" and just plain "fiction." I've seen some bookstores that have a "literature" section and a "fiction" section, and the distinction seems to be that "literature" is stuff that's commonly assigned in high schools, but I don't really get how "literary fiction" is a genre, or how it's defined.

t x-post with ita

Hil, you make me feel better. Because, really, my complete and utter lack of comprehension of these distinctions make me feel quite illiterate, but I know you're not. So I'm saved.

Giles isn't sexy.

Do I have to say it again?

My favorite Lizard, CHAIRS find Giles sexy!