Genre Fiction vs Literary Fiction

Hello world! Today we will be diving into a rather unspoken conflict among us all. That is: Genre Fiction vs Literary Fiction.


People read different types of books. That's a known fact. However, fiction books can be classified as either a genre fiction book or a literary fiction book. Genre Fiction are books that can generally be classified under a simple genre (i.e. horror, fantasy, sci-fi, ect). Literary fiction books are ones that aren't so easily classified under these. Some well known examples are the Sherlock Holmes series for genre fiction and The Catcher in the Rye for literary fiction. Now to summarize what the online community feels about this, many genre fans find literary books to be boring and the people who read them only doing so to be pretentious. Literary fans tend to think that genre books are written poorly and do not deserve any merit. Now obviously I'm taking the extremes of both sides here but you can probably see where either side is coming from. Genre fans will think "There's no way anyone actually enjoyed Great Expectations and anyone who reads it is just trying to look smart" and literary fans will think "How can some people even compare books like Eragon and the Hunger Games with books such as To Kill a Mockingbird and the Kite Runner?" Once again, keep in mind that I'm taking the extremes of both parties.

Now consider, what is your all time favourite (It's not spelled wrong, I'm Canadian | Je suis canadien) book? Where do you think your allegiances lie? For the intent of keeping this post as bias free as I can, I will not reveal my preference.

So what's the purpose of this post you ask? Well, I am hoping to clear up any stirring conflicts and help establish a clear definition for each and draw a border.

The major difference between genre fiction and literary fiction is that genre books have the intent of entertaining you. They are meant to whisk you away to this other world where you can escape reality and enjoy this world you are in now. Literary fiction on the other hand has the intent of sending a message, and idea, or sharing the author's feelings about the world. The book is used as a medium by the author to express something in the same way a painter would or a director. Now here's where it gets tricky, there is tons of overlap. Who's to say that a book can't be entertaining while still having a deeper message? The Catcher in the Rye is a great example of this overlap. You could read the book as a regular coming of age book and enjoy Holden's journey or you could read it and have it change your outlook on life. Both of these are achievable from the same book so what category does it fall under?

When things cross over like this, you should evaluate, what did you take away from this book more, entertainment or a message? And if you still can't make up your mind, screw it, it's probably a great book no matter it's category. Or just get a second opinion if you want to publicly voice your opinion.

Now that we've established some sort of distinguishment, let's address the major argument from either party.

First up, genre fiction fans who think literary fiction is pretentious. If you're a genre fiction fan who does not share this view, please continue reading because I do have some points that could benefit us all. The first thing we have to understand is that different people read books for different reasons. Some read as a source of entertainment much like tv or video games while others read to educate themselves about life and learn about other people's journeys through life and what they have learned. Both are valid reasons to read and in today's day and age where reading books is becoming less and less frequent, we shouldn't discourage anyone from from reading. Please understand that literary readers read so called pretentious books because it is a way of learning about the world that we are in. It's cool if you want to invest in learning about Middle-Earth but reading literary books is a way to learn about our world and honestly, it helps us avoid past mistakes and make more evaluated decisions in our own lives. Remember, that does not mean literary readers don't read for fun, it just means that they would rather explore their own world rather than another one.

Next, literary fans who disregard genre fiction as well written books. The reason so many literary fans feel this way is because there are simply more genre books than literary. This is because good and bad writers alike are able to publish genre books while literary writers cannot. Think about it this way, if a literary book is written in a subpar way, no one would read it and it would never get published. On the other hand, if a genre book is written subpar, it could still get published simply because the story is that captivating. Usually, these are the types of books that get marketed towards kids (*cough Magic Tree House *cough). Because of this, there are many genre books that well, are written poorly. That isn't to say that all genre books are written like this, just some are and still are able to get published. This is where literary fans think that genre books are not fine pieces of writing. Is there a valid cause of this misconception, yes, but that doesn't negate the misconception. There are definitely some genre fiction books that are still written well such as Ender's Game, and the Game of Thrones series. Another argument that literary fans use to show that genre fiction is not as good is that the majority of critically acclaimed or used for academic analysis books are literary. Simply put, there are a lot of books out there and it is easy to group all genre fiction together. Because of this, the process for choosing books for review and academic analysis often only selects from a pool of literary books. In summary, just because many genre fiction books are able to "get away" with being written poorly does not mean that they all are.

Whew, what a long entry we have today. If you're still reading, I would like to commend you. I have one last *brief point and if you're still with us, comment below your thoughts and I will 100% respond to you! This argument between genre and literary fiction is simply people with different appreciations and preferences arguing. The question boils down to, would you like to take a journey through an entertaining story or would you like to experience someone else's views and thoughts through life. Since the argument is quite universal, do you think that this border exists in other forms of art? Let's take movies for example, there are people who only like the watch explosion filled action movies (i.e. Fast Five) and Jennifer Aniston Rom-Coms as an entertaining escape from reality and there are others who watch classics (i.e. Dead Poet's Society) in hopes that they will learn something about life and often, themselves. Sound familiar?

That's enough from me now, leave your comments below (and I'll reply to all of them as a thanks for reading through this hunky piece), subscribe through email on the right side, and as always,

I'll catch y'alls next time.