In a
recent blogpost, Chip
MacGregor
predicted that Christian fiction as we now know it will cease to exist. Namely,
he stated, because the readers who demanded 100,000 copies of the latest Amish
romance had “aged out.”
Chip
(who knows this industry, folks),
stated further that the few Christian houses still publishing fiction will now
look for “high-quality literary or women’s stories for a broader people of
faith … rather than clearly religious stories aimed only at the faithful.”
I’ll
admit, I’m doing a happy dance over here.
Authors
of Southern fiction have known for a while that our work is either about poking fun at our people (think Mary Kay
Andrews (Hissy Fit)) or we dig into
the darkest elements of who we are (Pat Conroy (South of Broad).
Southerners
are a complex bunch of people. We can praise God from one side of our mouth
while quoting superstitions from the other. We are white verandahs and dark
shadows in the cluster of live oaks dripping with moss.
But
how do we differentiate between “fiction” and “literary fiction”? And what makes
literary fiction “southern”?
Fiction
is literature with madeup stories and characters. Literary fiction is symbolic
or thematic fiction and should comment on something significant (such as the
human condition). Literary fiction isn’t meant simply to entertain—such as
genre fiction, which is meant to help you escape your reality. Rather, literary
fiction sparks discussion—arguments even—around the dinner table, the water
cooler, and on social media because it comments on the realities of life.
Literary
fiction usually has complex/complicated characters (which is why Southern Fiction
can so easily fit right in). Complex/complicated characters are multi-layered
and, when brought together between the bindings of one book, form an onion-like
story filled with sub-plots told without any sense of rushing.
Who
better to fit the proverbial example than Scarlett O’Hara in Gone With the Wind? Southern literary
fiction at its finest. Not because it is set
in the South, but because its complex characters embody the Southern
experience.
Writing
literary fiction is as simple as one-two-three. (Okay, we all know there is
nothing simple about it.) But if I had to give you three steps to writing in
the literary style, they would be:
1. Create
characters who are complex. This means spending time working out the details of
characters who are by nature one thing, but who have been shaped to something
else by experience. Then, allow your characters to tell you a story that is bigger than you could have possibly imagined.
Listen long. Listen hard. This won’t come in one sitting.
2. Concentrate
as much on your tone and voice as you do the theme of the story. Take your time
with word choice and don’t let anything sway you from those that come from your
gut. That doesn’t mean you’ll use three adjectives to describe one noun and
three adverbs to describe one verb, but more that the nouns and verbs pop on
their own. (Not to say you can’t use adjectives and adverbs … just be careful.)
3. Take
all the time you need. None of this will come overnight nor will it be written
in a day. Or a week. And maybe not in a year. But when you are done—deliciously
exhausted from the process—you’ll have something you’re proud of. You’ll say,
“This is it. This is it.”
