Well, that's... odd and irritating. I suppose you can try to make a run at magical realism.

Considering that I live and breathe genre, this could be problematic.

Yeah, I've seen this before. Lord knows what state literature would be in if it applied to the real world.

"Yo! Bill! What's up with this play you wrote. All these fairies and elves, and that guy being given an ass's head. Sorry man, can't stage it. And what's this now? You're thinking about writing something about a wizard trapped on an island. Man, you're going nowhere in this town."

My instructor gave me the same restriction, Holli. I think they're afraid they're going to read 47 bad Crow-fics, but I could be wrong.He also told us not to write dog-death stories. So we read 10 "Oh, no, the rabbit died!" stories. It helped me keep my pill prescription current, anyway. I'm still in touch with him, sporadically. I should tell him about my new fics and watch him turn green. He will think I've gone to The Dark Side.

Holli, what in sweet hell does that mean? "Plainsong" is considered literary fiction. It's also genre. Why are the two things necessarily separated? Does this person want 43 Jane Austen ripoffs?

He will think I've gone to The Dark Side.

You have, girl. You so very much have. And it's our gain.

I suspect that any half-way decently written "genre story" will count as literary fiction so far as this teacher is concerned.

Theo, I hope so. Because otherwise, he's (is it a he?) is putting a ludicrous straightjacket on what ought to be a learning experience.

I'd probably drop the class. I couldn't write a non-genre story to save my life, and I get so pissed off at people who see no merit in genre fiction that I'd antagonize the professor and get a bad grade if I tried.

I suspect that any half-way decently written "genre story" will count as literary fiction so far as this teacher is concerned.

If I had a dollar for every time someone in my critique group has told me they just can't think of my novel as a romance "because it's so well-written" and/or "because it has deeper meaning as a coming-of-age story", I could quit my day job today. And it drives me batshit.

Does this person want 43 Jane Austen ripoffs?

Well, then he'd get 43 romance novels, wouldn't he? (Says the woman who borrowed half her plot from Mansfield Park.)

Well, then he'd get 43 romance novels, wouldn't he?

Ha! Point. And I have a slightly different issue with the genre thing, because everything I've ever done (up to this point) has essentially been a quirky little novel that deals with women and power, from Godhood to queenship to spirital time travel and off into corners. So I have the other problem: "So, what kind of books do you write?"

I figured out early on that saying "I write literary fiction" would cut down on the explanations. Feh.

A few of the writers who teach writing that I know or have heard of, are very desirous of dissuading the hopeless wannabees before they arrive in the class by making the requirements sound a good deal more draconian than they are in practice.

Of course, until I started writing Due South, I'd never completed a story that was purely non-genre. (And even shorts concerning Ray and Stella or whatever may not count, since they're set in a Magic Realist universe by definition.)

I have,but then that's a genre, too, right? Don't hate me, but I kind of know what he means...yet, I wouldn't wanna read bad stories about daughters and their moms, either."Quality" and "honesty" should be the goal, even if there are hobbits in it. Joseph Wambaugh, a genre writer if ever there was one,(Police procedural if you didn't know,) said that most starting writers mostly write "My First Lay" anyway. And that he joined LAPD looking for life experience to write about. "Be careful what you wish for," was his final word on that topic.