Blog Post: Differences between commercial, upmarket, and literary fiction

[Carol Rose]

I love this blog post. It's from P.S Literary Agency agent Carly Watters and explains the differences between commercial fiction, upmarket fiction, and literary fiction in easy to understand language with examples.

http://carlywatters.com/2015/11/16/...een-literary-upmarket-and-commercial-fiction/

 

[1408]

Thank you! I can never get my head around these things, but I found this helpful.

 

[Carol Rose]

Thank you! I can never get my head around these things, but I found this helpful.

I love the way she explained it. Makes perfect sense.

 

[Chase Gamwell]

Thanks. This is the best!

Love how informative a simple infographic can be...

 

[Paul Whybrow]

The infographics are useful, but the third for Commercial Fiction blithely falls into the common practice of suggesting that any novel that fits into a genre can't be upmarket or literary.

Just think of Charles Dickens, who most would say wrote literary fiction, but whose novels are precursors of the crime genre with detectives, murderers and graphic descriptions of the criminal underworld in Oliver Twist, Bleak House and The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit. What of Tolkien's entire catalogue, which would be shoved into the fantasy genre—whatever you think of his stories, they're certainly not fast-paced and I bet that any film goers who enjoyed the movie adaptations were bored witless by the depth and slowness of the source material, if they tried reading the books.

It's been said rather cynically, that literary fiction wins prizes given by the publishing industry who hope to popularise the intellectualism of their highfalutin authors' novels which don't sell well, whereas commercial fiction rarely gets any prizes but sells in the millions. There are plenty of authors who are highly respected, having won awards, but who are struggling to make a living, including one of my favourite writers Rupert Thomson:

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/mar/02/bestseller-novel-to-bust-author-life

At the other extreme, there's Harold Robbins who wrote tawdry novels with lots of sex and corruption in them, that were turned into Hollywood films and have sold 750,000,000 copies. His own life was one of excess, and he admitted that he wrote only for money and cared nothing for style or the contempt of the critics. He was as vulgar a man as the characters in his trashy books, and he died penniless with few mourners.

My own crime novels aim to be literary in scope, and they fit the parameters given in Carly Watters' infographics. As further proof of my literary ambition I'm as poor as a church mouse!

Perhaps I should sell out, and get jiggy with some commercial fiction...

 

[Alistair Roberts]

Well I'm happy to realise I fall in the Commercial Fiction area

 

[Nicole Wilson]

I have no illusions that mine are literary or even upmarket. I love commercial fiction and I'm glad I fall there. Less pressure to "say something" with my books.

 

[Jason Byrne]

God... I can't positively say I'm in genre fiction. I thought I was well and solidly tucked into genre fantasy fiction, but I think I'm actually lost somewhere in the moorish borderlands. You know my pace is slow and careful, the story more open-ended... it's character-driven... and you know I'm always trying to talk about issues...

I don't know. I think I'm still safe calling it genre fiction. What do you all think, who've read bits (or all) of it?

 

[Emurelda]

I have no illusions that mine are literary or even upmarket. I love commercial fiction and I'm glad I fall there. Less pressure to "say something" with my books.

Yep...commercial here too.

 

[Alistair Roberts]

Well it's all a bit vague. Honestly mine (well the Ceridwen series anyway), is a touch of fantasy, historical fiction, that can fall into the YA arena and is commercial fiction. Maybe, Fanhistoyamercial ???

 

[Nicole Wilson]

God... I can't positively say I'm in genre fiction. I thought I was well and solidly tucked into genre fantasy fiction, but I think I'm actually lost somewhere in the moorish borderlands. You know my pace is slow and careful, the story more open-ended... it's character-driven... and you know I'm always trying to talk about issues...

I don't know. I think I'm still safe calling it genre fiction. What do you all think, who've read bits (or all) of it?

I think it still classifies as commercial fiction. As I was reading that picture, I disagree that commercial fiction is all plot-based. In fact, the only genre I know in commercial fiction that's plot based is thriller. All the rest are character based.

 

[Nicole Wilson]

Personally, I think the major difference between literary and commercial is whether or not the goal of your book is to tell a message. Are you trying to say slavery is bad? Literary. Are you simply telling the story of a crime and the investigation? Commercial.

 

[Alistair Roberts]

In some cases (but not always), both

 

[Richard Sutton]

As further proof of my literary ambition I'm as poor as a church mouse!

Perhaps I should sell out, and get jiggy with some commercial fiction...

So should we all, but jiggy requires energy. 3 billion mice can't be wrong... can they?

 

[Jason Byrne]

So should we all, but jiggy requires energy. 3 billion mice can't be wrong... can they?

3 GIGAMICE of energy?!

 

[Jason Byrne]

I think it still classifies as commercial fiction. As I was reading that picture, I disagree that commercial fiction is all plot-based. In fact, the only genre I know in commercial fiction that's plot based is thriller. All the rest are character based.

Personally, I think the major difference between literary and commercial is whether or not the goal of your book is to tell a message. Are you trying to say slavery is bad? Literary. Are you simply telling the story of a crime and the investigation? Commercial.

That's a really good way of putting it. It allows for writing smart genre fiction.

 

[Richard Sutton]

Telling a story beats preaching every single time. It even beats assembling a deeply personal, ironic collage of doubt and motivational reflexes... or so I've heard.