Tag / genre

by Gerald Hornsby

Writing – literary or genre?

There is a question all writers should confront at some point during their writing life:

What sort of writer do I want to be?

Because, of course, there are a number of different types of writer. Perhaps the question should be: “What do I want from my writing life?”

Believe it or not, this is something nearly all writers fail to ask themselves. I know, we all start off writing as a bit of a hobby. Most of the population can physically write, putting letters together to form words, and words together to form sentences. That’s a basic function many can handle.

But writing seriously? Learning how to write productively, and with a purpose and with an intention to gain an audience?

THAT’S DIFFERENT

To align with this blog’s title, one of the choices fiction writers should make is: do we want to write genre or literary fiction?

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by geraldhornsby

Should I write literary fiction, or should I write genre?

I’ve just read a fascinating article by Laura Miller HERE , where she investigates the continuing “literary – vs – genre” debate. This, in response to an article in the Guardian recently.

For me, this article sums up the ideas about reading, and why we shouldn’t dismiss genre fiction too lightly. It all depends on who your target audience is. Do you want your works to be admired for their cleverness, or do you want them to be read by a mass market?

The current rise in popularity of the romance genre in ebooks shows that there is a market for ‘traditional’ genre fiction. And long may it continue.

Oh, and I can’t write literary fiction. I’ve tried. God knows, I’ve tried. But it’s genre for me.

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