Storytelling v. Writing

Discussion in 'General Writing' started by Steerpike, Aug 8, 2018.

  1. Steerpike

    Steerpike Felis amatus Contributor

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    Magic realism, a subgenre of fantasy.
     
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  2. John Calligan

    John Calligan Contributor Contributor

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    I'm reading: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0098QHZBY/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

    "Writing 21st Century Fiction" by Donald Maass

    If I'm getting his point correctly, he seems to think that most of the books lasting the longest on the NYT Best Sellers list are literary fiction with great stories. Craft and story with personal emotions and genre conventions as tools not rules are the way to go if you want universal appeal.

    So... do it all.
     
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  3. BayView

    BayView Huh. Interesting. Contributor

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    But at least sometimes classified as literary as well.
     
  4. Steerpike

    Steerpike Felis amatus Contributor

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    Yes, it is. I feel like any other genre can be “literary.” Detective stories, SF, Fantasy, Horror. Depends on the story.
     
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  5. deadrats

    deadrats Contributor Contributor

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    I feel like it's probably harder to sell a literary version of a genre to a genre market and vice versa. That's been my personal experience. So I don't really see why you would really want to do that, unless, of course, that's really what they want to do. But literary is not a substitute for the word good which so many people seem to misunderstand. It's a different kind of story. It's told a different way. It has different kinds of outcomes. Really, the marriage between genre and literary is quite hard to achieve.
     
  6. Spirit of seasons

    Spirit of seasons Active Member

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    Before I started to read/write serously I never really cared about the style of the prose as long as it wasn’t actively bad. Exessive reppition, lack of vocabulary, saying “I” or “she every single sentence.

    There is a difference between tight prose and sloppy/cut writing. I tend towards sci fi books for solid outline based plots, and fantasy for more free flowing stories.

    Giving large portions of my time to writing has made me more aware of how people write.
     

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