FICTION: LITERARY OR GENRE?

Back in 2010, when my newly acquired agent asked for the genre of my debut novel (The Third Grace), I identified it as literary fiction. He immediately corrected me: “No, no. We’ll call it contemporary women’s fiction. No one today reads literary fiction.”

I almost gasped. Was it true? My own library was full of literary titles, my writing brain of literary characters and themes:

• Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights with Heathcliff’s smouldering passions teaching me about the human condition and societal influences (the author’s one and only novel);

• Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter exposing Hester Prynne’s shame inside the punitive culture of the New England colony (imbued with Christian and religious themes);

• C.S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia with Aslan pointing to a transcendent world beyond our physical realm (a fantastical series heavy on symbolism).

I loved literary fiction’s motifs, tropes, and allegories conveying abstract ideas—the physical story hinting at the metaphysical meaning demanding active reader learning rather than passive entertainment. But at the point of publishing my first novel, I didn’t yet understand the difference between genre and literary—the two fiction classifications known to the world of general publishing.

Of course, what my agent really meant when saying no one reads literary fiction nowadays was that literary fiction doesn’t sell widely and that publishers must, above all, sign multi-title authors who will produce many books—and genre fiction sells more than literary.

This distinction between genre and literary fiction came into being only in the twentieth century, when publishers began to use labels for mass marketing. Publishing houses were seeking the next bestseller, so they developed main categories (securing genre authors with huge advances):

• Romance (e.g., Nora Roberts)
• Mystery and Crime (e.g., John Grisham)
• Science Fiction and Fantasy (e.g., Ray Bradbury)
• Horror and Thrillers (e.g., Stephen King)
• Westerns (e.g., Louis L’Amour)
• Historical (e.g., Ken Follet)
• Young Adult (e.g., Judy Blume)

What actually is genre fiction?

In broad terms, genre fiction is popular narrative focusing on entertainment and written within the narrow specifications of each category. For example, in general:

• Horror intends to arouse reader dread, terror, even repulsion;
• Mystery/crime centers on the investigation and resolution of criminal acts;
• Romance is about love relationships with happily-ever-after endings.

What is literary fiction?

In contrast, literary fiction is a bit fuzzier to define, aspiring to be artistic; it emphasizes meaning through character, theme, and story style over plot action and prescribed outcomes. In literary fiction, you might find:

• Ambiguous endings not always neat and clear;
• Plot structure not necessarily following rules of particular genres;
• Exploration (sometimes unresolved) of ideas, philosophies, aesthetics, conceptions, and social/political commentary.

Can’t genre and literary fiction overlap?

Of course, the rigidity of black-and-white genre rules versus the open-ended nature of literary fiction blends in all manner of grey tones. We see this fusion when we consider literary titles employing subgenres, or genre stories adopting literary approaches. Take, for example, these blockbuster genre novels of great literary value:

• All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr is considered historical fiction, its subgenres including suspense and survival. On a literary level, Doerr’s lyrical style encompasses sensuous detail and employs a nonlinear plot structure, ethical and political critique, anti-war themes—and a blighted romance.

• Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens is a murder mystery with a coming-of-age subgenre, yet Owens’s literary style poses two timelines through atmospheric setting, symbolism around wild animal behaviour, and themes of justice and loneliness.

• The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien is wildly popular and one of the best-selling books of all time. It’s what I would call literary fiction but is known as a classic of the fantasy genre. LOTR is another hybrid of literary and genre fiction.

A third classification

In addition to the two broad classes of literary and genre fiction (with, of course, subgenres of religion or spirituality in many flavors), traditional American publishing today distinguishes between the streams of ABA (American Booksellers Association) and CBA (Christian Booksellers Association). “Christian” writing, then, is a third entity, viewed by the publishing world as distinct from both literary and genre fiction recognized by the general market. Writers are forced to decide whether they are targeting secular or Christian readers, as most ABA agents and houses don’t accept explicit faith messages, and most in the CBA won’t abide the grittier aspects of violence or sexuality.

A true crossover between the world and the church doesn’t seem feasible unless publishing independently—outside of both CBA and ABA. I might wish that the distinctions would ease, as I attempt to write literary fiction with genre attributes available to the secular world but understood at a spiritual level. However, I suspect even more polarization is developing in our constantly changing culture.

Literary Fiction with a Theological Twist

As a reader, I crave the entertainment value of popular genre fiction, and yet I love to delve into deeper themes accessible through literary fiction. I’m saddened over the hollow feeling I’m left with by a strictly genre novel I can’t analyze for spiritual meaning, while I’m also overwhelmed by impenetrable ramblings when faced with an artsy literary read that doesn’t grip me through at least one or two genre conventions.

As a writer who is also a Christian, I don’t pen what many would call “Christian fiction”—I don’t swim too easily in that genre stream. At the same time, my own love of Scripture demands fictional expression. To top it off, most of my stories don’t follow rules of the main genres (for example, some of my romantic characters have their hearts broken and some of my endings are unresolved); instead, I try to use symbolism pointing readers back to the Bible.

(For more of my thoughts on this subject, check out my preceding post, “Read It Anew,” found below on this website.)

A NEW LOOK FOR GRACE

Fresh cover, same award-winning story . . .

. . . and same old author!

QUESTIONS ABOUT ME (DEB) AND MY NOVEL

(Adapted from an Author Interview by Michelle Griep)

A licensed pilot, speaker, cattle herder, academic editor . . . So Deb, why writing?

Actually I’ve been writing since I was a child, and all my growing-up dreams centered on becoming a novelist (from the time I penned my first story in elementary school through college communication classes). But I see life in itself as an adventure to be lived, with fiction writing just a result. So when I fell in love, when I birthed babies, when I’ve been presented with opportunities to fly or speak or round up cattle—well, how can I say no? Living heartily and writing at the same time hasn’t always been a possibility for me, as I’m not a great multitasker; there have been years during which I’ve written very little publishable material. So going to grad school at age 44 was a turning point, a way to kick-start serious writing from a firm theological base. I guess you could say I’d been paying my dues and felt I might finally have something of substance to offer the reading public, with the time to do it.

What’s your favorite part about the writing game? Least favorite?

I love daydreaming; I love plotting a piece and developing its characters, researching and anticipating its effect, and chatting about it and going to sleep with that story on my mind. My least favorite part of the process is self-promotion, so I’m delighted to have recently joined Mosaic Collection Books, an international circle of women writers supporting one another in not only marketing but also creating.

In your newly relaunching (debut) novel, The Third Grace, the heroine is torn between her rural upbringing and her search for self. How much of you is there in the heroine?

There’s a great deal of Deb in Aglaia. For starters, like Aglaia, I fell madly in love at a young age and have a tendency to romanticize circumstances. Like her, I’ve lived the tension of rural versus urban life and learned my own place in it geographically as it shaped my attitudes about myself and the world. (For example, when I relocated from city to ranch—in the opposite direction of Aglaia’s move—I adapted by changing my wardrobe like a costume, wearing Levis and checkered shirts for a while, and even tried to like Willy Nelson’s singing!) But, as with Aglaia, my basic self wasn’t ever annihilated and has had to be addressed—especially as it pertains to my relationship with a living God. Aglaia rebels; my rebellion has been slightly more subtle but just as condemning. Aglaia mourns; I’ve had my own brand of sorrow that elicits grief. Aglaia turns to the arts, imagination, and professional avarice for satisfaction of her soulish thirst; I, too, have been tempted to fall into idolatry of creation rather than Creator. Is there really anything new under the sun?

Where did you get the idea for the story?

When I first visited the Louvre museum in Paris in 1989 and stood transfixed before James Pradier’s marble statue grouping, The Three Graces, I knew I’d found the icon for my novel. The three figures immediately suggested to me a trinity of womanhood, triplets in a way, all made of the same “stuff” yet each looking at something different—each with her own focal point or perspective or philosophy. In Pradier’s rendition of the Graces, one looks downward at the earth, another upward at the sky, the third outward at others. They came to represent to me humanity as a whole and, in effect, the personalities of the three lead characters in my novel.

What surprises you most about being a published author?

My appetite. Have you ever tasted pan-seared foie gras on a toasted baguette? One bite of that incredibly rich bit of heaven is just not enough! As deeply satisfying as I find publication of my first novel, I’m surprised at how insufficient it is (and how quickly!) to quell the hankering for the next mouthful—to write my next novel and see it published, too. How can I stop at just a taste?

Got any writing advice for aspiring authors?

Yes—I’d like to pass along the words of an early mentor in college, who said:

“Don’t fret about not writing if you’re too busy living; it will all come out in the end.”

There’s no way of knowing who we or others really are unless we enter into our lives with zest and observation—a necessary preparation for writing, I think.

What question didn’t I ask that you wished I would’ve?

I wish you’d asked, “What kind of reader did you have in mind as you wrote this book?” I’d have answered:

Well, first of all, my intended audience for this novel was not readers of prairie romance, or those who are squeamish over sensual writing, or those who are confident of their position before God. All the while that I plotted and drafted, Psalm 61:2 sang through my mind:

“From the ends of the earth I call to you, I call as my heart grows faint; lead me to the rock that is higher than I.”

In other words, I wasn’t writing to those who already know where they stand in Christ, but rather to those who—having left their past behind—are still yearning for a destination beyond their view.

In my novel’s epigraph I quote G.K. Chesterton:

“Man has always lost his way. He has been a tramp ever since Eden; but he always knew, or thought he knew, what he was looking for.”

(What’s Wrong with the World)

I wrote The Third Grace for all the Aglaias out there—for women who, in pursuit of their own success and self-definition, have left their “Mary Grace” behind and are beginning to wonder if their background might after all hold some clue as to what it is they’re really seeking. On the first page, I dedicate my novel thus: “To all my lost sisters wandering alone out of earshot—His voice still calls.”

BACK COVER BLURB

The past casts a long shadow, especially when it points to a woman’s first love.

As a teen, Mary Grace fell in love with a French exchange student visiting her family’s Nebraska farm. François renamed her “Aglaia”—after one of the beautiful Three Graces of Greek mythology—and set her heart longing for something more than her parents’ simplistic life and faith. Now, fifteen years later, Aglaia’s budding success as a costume designer in Denver’s arts scene convinces her that she’s left the naïve country girl far behind—but “Mary Grace” has deep roots, as Aglaia learns during a business trip to Paris. Her discovery of sensual notes François jotted into the margins of a Bible during that long-ago fling, a silly errand imposed by her mother, and the scheming of her sophisticated mentor all conspire to create a thirst in her soul that neither evocative daydreams nor professional success can quench.

The Third Grace takes you on a dual journey across oceans and time–in the footsteps of a woman torn between her rural upbringing and her search for self.

AUTHOR BIO

I was raised, along with four siblings (in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada) by an entrepreneurial father and an artistic mother, both of whom encouraged creative expression. My first dozen articles and short stories appeared in paying Christian magazines after college, in my early years as a ranch wife—during which time I also learned to cook for huge branding crews, herd cattle, and fly a small plane. In 2001, when our three homeschooling kids were all back in the classroom, I returned to school myself to earn an M.A. in theological studies and then began academic editing of doctoral dissertations and journal articles. For about six years I wrote for a national professional quarterly, and other nonfiction work of mine appeared in various publications (one I’m especially proud of is Christian History).

The Third Grace, first published in 2011, won the prestigious Grace Irwin Grand Prize. My nonfiction book published in 2015 is titled Roots and Branches: The Symbol of the Tree in the Imagination of G.K. Chesterton. But my love has always been fiction, and my next novel, The Red Journal, was published in 2019.

I’m still producing, slowly but surely, with a collection of short stories now in the works and several novel plots up my sleeve. I currently reside with my husband in an empty nest on the banks of a babbling brook in southern Alberta—just a stone’s throw north of the Montana border—and write to my heart’s content.

(Adapted from an interview conducted by Michelle Griep: http://www.novelrocket.com/2012/01/deb-elkinkdebut-author-and-so-much-more.html)