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/lit/ - Literature

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10005957 No.10005957 [Reply] [Original]

Why is genre-fiction looked down upon on here?

What makes it so inferior to other literary genres?

>> No.10005992

I'd rather let you figure out on your own why what you just wrote is incredibly stupid.

>> No.10006009

>>10005957
LARPing to scare newfags like you

>> No.10006014

It seems to me that the ''literary fiction'' meme was much more popular 3-4 years ago than it is now (had a hiatus and am only now browsing /lit/ regularly again).

>> No.10006018

>>10005957
Genre fiction is generally a larger challenge to the reader. It tends to have a lot more going on and it's where the serious authors congregate. It's not that it's looked down on but it's not appropriate for novice readers unless they are above average intelligent. /lit/ tries to avoid it because it's outside the league of most posters and the one's that can handle it don't want to intimidate newer readers by exposing them to the heavy stuff when their training wheels are not even off. Non-genre is sort of the pop-music of literature. It's fun sometimes and where most people start but simple and unrewarding.

>> No.10006084
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10006084

Can somebody explain to me what exactly 'genre fiction' is/means? Examples?

>> No.10006095

>>10006084
pleb escapism for plebs, shit with dragons in it

>> No.10006102

Literary fiction is written with a prose style in mind and in order to elicit a range of human and moral dilemmas and emotions.
Genre fiction is written with a plot style and sales in mind and in order to elicit generally a very base range of emotions [for instance, horror, harlequin, YA, are all generally directed at evoking one emotion and usually at a limbic level]

>> No.10006103

>>10005957
I think its looked down on because genre fiction writers put rarely to none profoundness into their work

>> No.10006133

>>10006084
Like dungeons and dragons or sci fi or detective shit, anything which neatly fits into a genre and is fiction

>> No.10006163

>>10006133
>>10006095
So in other words, any fictional work that standalone can't simply be labeled as 'fiction'?

>> No.10006180

>>10006163

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steven-petite/literary-fiction-vs-genre-fiction_b_4859609.html

>> No.10006447

>>10005957

I like genre fiction but most of it is shit, and the ratio of shit has chronologically increased since the 1920s. Basically, there was no difference between genre and literary fiction before then. What is the Iliad? The Canterbury Tales? L'Morte d'Arthur? Paradise Lost? But modernists and post-modernists decided they were too cool to write plain old novels, and also that commercial success is artistic failure, while those who chose to write genre fiction were often commercially motivated.

End result, "literary" fiction became a navel-gazing circle-jerk of pseuds with their heads up their own asses, while genre fiction declined in a similar way to film, due to conglomeration content publishers and the birth of the internet. Now both fields are infested with equal opportunity hires and so few people even read that breaking out of the control of your genre's publishers and niche audi nce, even if your genre is pretentious illegible pseudo-literary shit, is nearly impossible. Thus the written word as a whole continues to spiral the toilet as the prophecies of those who called the modernists indecent rapidly are proved prescient.

>> No.10006471

>>10006447
>Basically, there was no difference between genre and literary fiction before then. What is the Iliad?
This is deeply misleading, anon. Since the library of Alexandria we've had different genres because Homer was sectioned off from both tragedy and comedy.
Genre fiction hasn't increased so much since the 1920s, because that's when one of the mass market genres which started the "genre v literary" fiction memes was dying. Cowboy novels going out of fashion at that point is one of the reasons why Flann O'Brien could write At Swim Two Birds.
You're talking out your ass.