Writing YA: Literary Fiction–What It Is & Why You Shouldn’t Hate It

There’s something of a war between genre fiction and literary fiction readers. Genre fiction readers, the story goes, find the extra focus on words, well, wordy. And for the most part, they’re right–straightforward prose and familiar style are, in many cases, a writer’s best friend. But literary fiction gets a bad rap, largely because it’s actually quite hard to pull off well. Anyone can write a high-falutin’ sentence or two. Good literary fiction, though, isn’t literary because it uses posh words and a lot of semicolons (ah, I love a good semicolon; it’s my favorite piece of punctuation) but rather because it adds another layer of experience to the story.

Note: I’m sticking to literary fiction in the context of YA writing, and staying away from market chat (commercial v. Literary etc.). If you’re curious about lit fic in a broader sense, check out this post by Nathan Bransford.

Prose Poetry or Prose Piracy?

Done well, literary fiction has a lot in common with poetry. It uses metaphor et al and the human experience to tie into the reader’s emotions. It’s lyrical when read aloud, with cadence and rhythm that unobtrusively sets up an atmosphere or feeling. It’s evocative and beautiful and so many other superlatives I risk running into writing bad lit fic this very moment, so I’ll stop. The most important thing about good literary fiction, though, is that it’s unassuming. The characters don’t scream “look at me, I’m clever” every other page, and the writing, while often stunning, doesn’t overwhelm the story so much as give it nuance, much the way a shot of espresso adds depth to a deep, dark chocolate cake.

Poorly written literary fiction (*cough* recent Salman Rushdie *cough*) is what I think of hijacked fiction–is where the author gets so carried away with his or her own voice that the words overwhelm, or hijack, the story. This kind of lit fic is overwritten, full of awful, large, even loaded words that make the writer sound smart. For example, here’s a 16 year old boy telling us about the mall in bad lit fic:

Malls are always the same: crowded, cacophonous, chaotic, a sea of taciturn teens and tenuously tethered family units. I’m surrounded by sound; a susurrous of childish wails and parental discipline washes over me then twists, spinning itself into a coil of sorrow that catches my heart, binding it tight, reminding me of everything I have lost.

There are easily half a dozen things wrong with this passage:

• It doesn’t sound like a 16 year old.
• It’s repetitive for no reason–together, “crowded, cacophonous, chaotic” sets up a rhythm that doesn’t fit with the rest of the sentence, particularly since “sea”, on its own, suggests a calmer setting.
• “Tenuously tethered family units” is unclear, almost clinical sounding.
• The rhythm of the passage is off–it’s clunky to read aloud, and the wave-like beginning falls flat by the end.
• The last sentence is dated, less contemporary literature and more period-sounding.
• A couple of big words aren’t carrying their weight: cacophonous, susurrous.

Are My Words Hijacking The Story?

If you’re worried about your word-love getting the better of you, it’s probably not–not much, anyway. The key to writing good lit fic is awareness. Awareness of what your words are doing, how you’re using words and punctuation, awareness of what the rules are, where your limits are…the list goes on and on.

A few warning signs to watch out for:

• Too many Latinate words
• Too many technical words
• Too many words of greater than 2-3 syllables
• More than 3 3-4 line sentences per page (I’d say any 3-4 line sentences, but sometimes a long, flowing line is necessary)
• Over-punctuation–watch for dashes, semicolons, and colons. (If your page bears a striking resemblance to Morse code, you probably need a rewrite.)
• Too many words your critique group needs to look up in the dictionary
• Unnecessary backstory. (If you spend 3 pages telling us about your character’s favorite waffle iron and it isn’t the murder weapon, get out the red pen.)
• Overuse of parentheses. (I struggle with this one.)
• Extraneous character description.
• Overusing devices (alliteration, dialect, flashbacks &c)

In other words, if you sound like a pompous old professor (think the father in Eva Ibbotson’s A Company of Swans, or Hermione Granger on ADHD meds), then you might want to settle down with a cup of coffee and your favorite red pen.

One other, more worrying warning sign: lack of plot. It’s a pretty common misconception that lit fic is plotless. But literary fiction novels do have plots. At least, they should have plots. Often, yes, the plot is secondary to the characters, but it’s still there because, well, without a plot, we’re without a story.

How Can I Tell If I’m Writing Lit Fic?

Good literary fiction uses words to add another layer to the story. It’s another way of showing rather than telling, a way of getting inside the reader’s head to set up an experience or tug on an existing memory. Some authors seem to do this as naturally as breathing (Neil Gaiman’s Coraline is an excellent example), though most admit spending a long time crafting their prose.

If you…

• Spend a lot of time thinking about words and sentences
• Have been known to exclaim “what a beautiful word!”
• Keep lists of words and phrases
• Envy a gorgeous turn of phrase
• Have a favorite piece of punctuation or grammar rule
• Run out of red ink at least once a week

…chances are, you tend toward literary fiction.

Generally speaking, in adult fiction, literary fiction and genre fiction don’t collide. Genre readers stick to genre, and lit readers stick to lit fic. The beauty of YA, however, is its tendency toward the mashup (hmm, I may have been watching too much Glee)–some of the best literary fiction in YA is also genre fiction.

Such as? For starters: Shannon Hale’s Book of a Thousand Days, Neil Gaiman’s Stardust & Coraline, Ann Dee Ellis’ This is What I Did, Laurie Halse Anderson’s entire body of work, and Kathi Appelt’s The Underneath are all stellar examples of lit fic done well. (Most of them are also genre fiction.) (If you’re looking for something on the lighter lit side, check out Eva Ibbotson’s The Star of Kazan, Sharon Creech, or some of Shannon Hale’s Bayern books.)
When writing literary fiction, each of these writers uses at least one or two of these techniques:

• Using short sentences to build tension, or switching up sentence length to create a rhythm.
• Choosing words that do double duty–”pounded down the stairs” instead of “ran down the stairs”, “huffed” instead of “breathed heavily”
• Playing up one or two senses–focusing on scent and touch/hearing and taste instead of relying on sight
• Using simile and metaphor effectively–picking an experience most people have had, and drawing on it, such as being frightened of/standing up to a bully, fleeing an escaped alligator, etc.
• Using certain sounds that relate to the action–in a scene with a lot of whispering, I could sprinkle ‘s’ throughout (not overdoing it). If I were writing a fight, I could use hard-sounding words (versus softer, vowel-heavy words) to create more tension.

Why You Shouldn’t Hate Lit Fic

It’s easy to hate literary fiction. It wins awards. It sounds pretty. It’s usually dolled up with a stunning cover, and its covers usually have blurbs like “ravishing!” and “a revelation” and “enchanting prose second only to a riveting story”. But literary fiction often wins awards because it’s good. Yes, good. Not because it’s literary, or because it looks like a dictionary vomited all over every page (*ahem* Mr. Rushdie *ahem*), but because the authors have spent a long time working on every detail of the story.

Every detail?

Yes. Every detail. Literary fiction isn’t just prose poetry–it’s perfectionist fiction. Every little piece of the story means something. There are no extraneous details, no wasteful words. It’s Rebecca Stead’s When You Reach Me, or Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book (fyi: I’m starting to hate Neil Gaiman, just a little bit. He wins everything, and he shows up in my blog posts far more than I like. Lose your touch just a little please, would you Neil?). Writing good literary fiction is an incredibly difficult feat. Fortunately, reading good literary fiction is incredibly worthwhile. (I’ll have a book list of the good stuff on Friday, so check back.) If you’ve been avoiding it for any reason, try setting that aside for a day or two, and picking up a lit fic book. It’s a chance to learn from some amazing writers, and to read some truly gorgeous stories, too.