Literary Fiction Love

Ah, Literary Fiction. The hallowed pedestal of writing. These are the books you would read in a University English class, as opposed to picking up from the pop-culture section of the shelves. They are Novels full of depth, gravitas and insights on the human experience. Oh and metaphors.

Literary Fiction is all about the new and dizzying heights that evocative writing can bring to the reader. Does this shining beacon of literature have clichés? You bet it does.

Each trope is accompanied by a book recommendation that uses it well, as opposed to falling into the trope trap.

1.Eye color indicates everything you need to know about the character. If they have crystal blue eyes we know they’re pure and innocent and waif-like. Cold blue eyes means they’re the villain or have something to hide. Green or hazel eyes equals quirky, unique fairy. Grey eyes denote the bad guy or someone with a closed off, steely personality. And the brown-eyed character in the story must be practical, earthy, someone you can trust.

If the author mentions something like silver or purple eyes you’ve probably wandered into a thicket of fanfiction.

2. Dysfunctional Family Saga. “Every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way,” says Leo Tolstoy. He wasn’t around to see the genre of Literary Fiction become a thing, or he would have known that every unhappy family will end up in the fiction section.

The parents will have issues. Someone will be an alcoholic. One or more of the kids may be flirting with drugs. The ones that seem to have it together have NOTHING together, not really. No one will have a healthy sexual relationship. Devastating accusations will be thrown that will seems to shatter the family beyond repair. Kooky Aunt Betty will be kooky. Food will be cooked and eaten in tense silence. Basically, everyone is a hot mess.

3. Childhood Memories (with bonus body of water). What would literary fiction be without childhood memories? A lot shorter, that’s what it would be.

Unhappy childhood memories abound, and something about water just jerks these people back. Ponds, creeks, rivers, definitely the ocean. All of these characters grew up by water somehow and something life altering and suitable for flashbacks happened there. What about people who grew up in the middle of the desert? No childhood memories for them until they move near some water.

4. Someone Died. That’s the Plot. We know who, because we read the book description, the only question remaining to be answered is what that death will mean for all of the characters in the novel. The main character just lost someone and they will spend the book reflecting on the loss until they have an epiphany when they break a cup or drive by a barking dog or something.

5. The Title is a Metaphor And 99.9% of the time it will include the words ‘The’ followed by ‘a Novel’.

Anyway, once you have read through ‘The Lake of My Childhood: a Novel’ and taken all of the darts the author throws your way (what with all the deaths and the needle-sharp prose) you close the book and consider the lessons it taught you. And right there on the cover glares that title, the one that seemed vague and incomprehensible but somehow pretty when you bought the book. And it turns out that title was a metaphor. The settings were a simile. The main character’s love of coca-cola was an allegory. Every stinky sock dropped on the floor symbolized something. This is Literary fiction. Everything is a metaphor.

6. Adverbs and Adjectives and Alliteration, oh My! This genre is all about the descriptive language remember. Purple prose or perish.  If thrillers are the modern minimalist end of fiction then the gilded, gothic slot is definitely filled by literary fiction.

In the quest for evocative language some of the authors include . . . a tad too much. In this genre, more than any other, you are judged by your writing and it takes some real talent to walk that line between gripping prose and dripping adjectives.

7. Killing Off The Mentor. Is someone in the book the heart and soul of a group? The one who keeps the other characters human when everything around them has gone wrong? Perhaps . . . the dearly loved older mentor? *author rubs hands together in a threatening manner*

Hello, my name is The Author. Prepare for that character to die. At the most emotionally destructive moment, when the author needs to make it clear that they can seduce you into loving a character enough to care whether they live or die, they will be killed off.