Reminder that reading genre fiction is a sign that you genuinely enjoy reading

Reminder that reading genre fiction is a sign that you genuinely enjoy reading.

Anyone who poo poos genre fiction is automatically a pseud who only allows himself to read the classics and hates every minute of it.

You can shit on me, but I know I'm correct.

What is the purpose of this post? Is it to incite anger? Is this what they call 'bait'?

Reminder that you're not on reddit. You should go there if you want to be patted on the back for being an insecure plebgot.

I'm not the one who is insecure.
>w-will Bloom-sama approve of me reading this?

On the contrary, genre ficiton is more likely to be devoid of the artistic qualities that make legitimate literature enjoyable. One can say they enjoy reading if they spend 6 hours a day enjoying the reading of Veeky Forums posts, we must look past semantics and stop making these false equivalencies between genre fiction and literature.

>genre ficiton is more likely to be devoid of the artistic qualities that make legitimate literature enjoyable.
Such as?

once you read enough genre you pick up the formula and get sick of it
every now and then you get a few wildcards like Dick or LeCarre who do something interesting but they are pretty rare
who do some interesting stuff

Do you want me to snuff myself by attempting to draw blanket comparisons? The specific qualities and styles that make up a piece can vary individually. One can't distinguish between genre fiction and literature without directly comparing works.

Ok, can someone explain the "genre fiction" meme to me? I don't even know what it means.

You are not correct. The epithet 'Genre fiction' is applied on here to literature that purports the tropes of its genre as identity above literary quality (such as interesting ideas, characters with depth and humanity, prose that transcends the procedural, etc.), and as such they are largely uninteresting escapism texts for people who like the superficial trappings of a genre more than a real connection with strong ideas and writing. However, you could also define genre fiction as any fiction bearing a significant portion of the usual archetypes found in that particular genre (to that effect, Pynchon's work could be considered gumshoe genre fiction). The problem is obviously that people use the term to denote different things, and that is where the confusion/disagreement lies

I agree with you, OP.

But it's so fucking boring

Scifi/fantasy/mystery/romance

I also agree. This board is full of terrible shitty pretentious fags.

>read classic literature
>feel like a pretentious try hard
>read genre fic instead
>feel like an illiterate pleb

OP, your defense is a weak one, and one not needed.

Genre fiction has answers to timeless questions that literary fiction isn't broad enough to address. If a few misinformed simpletons, who only get their faulty opinions from a backwater like Veeky Forums, decide they don't like it, then it's their loss.

>poo poos

Maybe if you read more classics you would know how to spell better.

I read genre fiction and regular fiction alike. This is basically true, since genre fiction writers aren't known for having sophisticated writing skills.

I'm still struggling with the difference between the two. I write fantasy and I'm always striving for the depth of literary fiction. But it's hard to sway too far from the fan-fare of action and violence. I worry sometimes whether I'm being too posh or not posh enough. Where do we draw the line from sniffing your own butthole to making your book actually enjoyable for normies?

Perhaps and example of the two side to side would be helpful. I'm not sure if GOT would be considered literary fiction but from what people who enjoy it say it is. I just found it rather drab. The characters G.R.R has projected himself into are a little too obvious, Lessoning the quality of the work for me. So as I said, where is the line drawn?

It's actually even more pretentious to assume that only the kind of shit you like is enjoyable regardless of your thoughts on quality or literary merit.

If everyone knew the answer to that question, writing great books would be easy. Don't make your book predictable and don't make it sound like a mouthpiece for what you want to express.

Read . ASOIAF is indeed genre fiction, but genre fiction with qualities of literary fiction that doesn't follow the classic tropes fantasy books follow. This is also why genre fiction =/= bad

Ah, it's great you're not one of those fags, user!

I used to think the posher the better. It's an argument that plagues me all the time. Would you rather create something mediocre and be known for it, or great and die nameless?

If you create something great you will be remembered, only by less people. I believe that is better than dying popular for something overrated.

>projecting this hard

What pretensions do we have?

I read a little bit of genre fiction but let's be honest, the vast, vast, majority of it is garbage. If all I read was genre fic I'd go insane. When I read actual history I find it far more imaginative than anything GRRM, Robert Jordan, or Tolkien ever wrote. It's ironic that there is rarely anything fantastical about a fantasy novel other than the sales figures. And the basic mechanics of the writing in so many genre novels is faulty. I just can't read it without rolling my eyes. If you actually take a course on writing and try it yourself the amateurish mistakes of others become more obvious.

I dont genuinely enjoy anything.

>On the contrary, genre ficiton is more likely to be devoid of the artistic qualities that make legitimate literature enjoyable.
Such as modernistic experiments that has been old hat since 1923, murdered whores, depressed middle-aged cops, horny schoolgirls, more murdered whores, histrionic middle-aged female journalists that change their underwear every 1d4+1 days and brags that they piss in the shower, murdered rentboys (we social concious now), impotent middle-aged asian men, nazis on murderous rapmages, murdered whores, depressed middle-aged serial killers and businesmen who obviously know nothing about running a business?

Everything you listed exists in much larger quantities in genre fiction.

Have you not read works that are considered literary that are full to the brim with violence?

OP, you're a planetary faggot. Nobody cares that you read genre fiction, but once you bring it to our attention we're duty bound to tell you it's fucking stupid. No, your love of reading isn't more pure or true than ours, you just have retarded tastes and require comfortable "aesthetic" experiences that do nothing but sedate you. genre fiction is shit - if it wasn't, it would just be referred to as 'fiction'.

>timeless questions
>what if we like had jetpacks? Woah

Is there a simple yet universal rule for what "genre fiction" is? For some popular works it is obvious, but what if someone writes something with a technically "horror" or "sci-fi" plot, are they automatically genre fiction?

I don't encounter the classification so much in my country, so I've always left wondering whether "horror fiction" (for example) includes Poe's works, etc. Or extreme example: is Crime & Punishment "crime fiction"?

Ligotti and other "weird" authors would definitely be genre, no?

...or is it more about being marketing as genre fiction than actual content?

Agreed, OP. Also, Caitlin R. Kiernan's early novels and short fiction are excellent genre fiction.

Just a rec.

It's mainly for marketing purposes. Clearly if you were to publish Dracula today, it would go alongside all the other vampire novels - it's just that since it was written, it's been analyzed enough that critics have been able to pull out themes and motifs that haven't yet (or can't be) pulled from today's vampire novels.

Meanwhile, literary fiction today deals with specific kinds of language and specific kinds of subjects - subjects you often don't see dealt with maturely in genre fiction.

I wouldn't classify dracula as genre fiction though. It takes a very long time to esculate and reach its climax, it's not a short book by any standards and it has an artistic literary element as well

The entire genre/literary dichtomy is spammed by plebs who just read a few classics so they think they know what literature is about. That is if theyre not involved in publishing, where the terms are a practicality for marketing.

Any writer who is a good writer will make a good story no matter what type it is; the real argument is good writing vs bad writing.