At what point does a literary work collapse into "genre fiction"? how does one avoid such pitfalls?

at what point does a literary work collapse into "genre fiction"? how does one avoid such pitfalls?

1. When it uses a significant number of the tropes that define a given genre
2. By not using them

Something becomes genre fiction when the primary goal is the plot instead of the themes, art, etc.

also genre fiction is plot-driven

Why does a good story hurt litterary value.
Why cant a good plot be part of it?

Genre fiction still have literary value, see: Shakespeare

genre fiction is just a label, memelords on Veeky Forums pretend that all genre fiction = bad but the truth is that its only most genre fiction = bad and that's true of most any subset of things.

When the primary goal is entertainment rather than art.

Where is the line? Who decides? Why not both?

Don't worry. If you're writing genre fiction, you'll know. It's not a pitfall, it's a choice.

>Where is the line?
Where I say it is.
>Who decides?
The creative nothing.
>Why not both?
It is all.

basically this

let me ask you this as the composer; how would you describe your text? What is the main thrust as it were?

If you begin to tell me about the plot and the characters then it is genre fiction, for example: "my story is about a boy who goes on an adventure to find his father who has been kidnapped by the government"

On the other hand if you begin to tell me about the why of the matter then it is not genre fiction, e.g: "My story is about the potential perils of american style democracy and the power that the government holds over the people, told through the lens of a child"

In case you didn't catch my drift, these are the same ideas but how you approach them changes how they would be written and this is what defines the difference between genre fiction and not.

Note also that neither is inherently superior or inferior to the other (and in fact since I came up with them in 5 seconds both are terrible).

Why is literary better?

more pretentious

It's pretty obvious if you've ever read anything competently. Even more obvious if you've ever written anything even halfway competently.

That is not an answer to the question.
Answer of fuck off.

You have a strange idea of what literary fiction is.

It's pretty obvious you blatant fucking pseudo-intellectual. Ugh.

If its obvious then explain.

ugh, wow. just wow. kys pseudo-intellectual.

I doubt he knows.
I wonder if anyone really knows.

Obvious samefag.

Nope
But i have noticed a distince lack of responses to my questions

How often is it actually a samefag anyway. Is ot so strange thhst people might agree?

Genre fiction:Dude, okay, waht if like aliens came down to fight the dragons of elfnoir but also had to solve the mystery of smechklodork

Not genre fiction: Okay, dudes, what if like 2deep4u pomo story about lower class white life in the appalachian mountains that really is a commentary about the perscrpiton drug industry all written in tweets

I'm not really sure about the distinction, to be completely honest I just insult works I haven't read or dislike as 'genre fiction' since I wouldn't be able to explain why I don't think that they are well written.

Post good genre fiction?

>Though sometimes compared to Trollope, Melville, Conrad and even Proust, the Aubrey–Maturin series has most often been compared to the works of Jane Austen, one of O'Brian's greatest inspirations in English literature. In a cover-story in The New York Times Book Review published on 6 January 1991, Richard Snow characterised Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin naval adventure novels as "the best historical novels ever written. On every page Mr. O'Brian reminds us with subtle artistry of the most important of all historical lessons: that times change but people don't, that the griefs and follies and victories of the men and women who were here before us are in fact the maps of our own lives."[28] And in a Washington Post article published 2 August 1992, Ken Ringle wrote, "The Aubrey/Maturin series far beyond any episodic chronicle, ebbs and flows with the timeless tide of character and the human heart."

...

is blood meridian genre fiction? it follows the genre's tropes faithfully, though it could be argued that its excessive violence subverts it. a parallel is the anti-westerns that came out of the 60s: the good, the bad, the ugly for example was a western, but it also subverted its own tropes through excessive realism. is genre fiction even a bad label? western, mystery, etc. aren't necessary bad terms, in my opinion. beethoven is 'classical', a genre label. does this mean that beethoven is necessarily bad because it has this label? no. Beethoven is a recognized force in musical history, BUT, it's just part of genre. so, does the label of genre fiction necessarily mean anything malicious? I say no.

the literary merit of a work is to be determined despite the label.

...

to be fair i would probably read the 2nd one

kys you literal retard