That subject line is a lie. Â There *is* no hierarchy. Â No genre is better than any other. Â Literary fiction isn't better than genre fiction.
I am so fed up with writers feeling like they're second class citizens because they write genre fiction. I'm even MORE fed up with literary fiction writers, along with critics and so many people in the publishing industry, treating genre writes as if they actually are lesser than in some way. Â As if writing genre is some sort of flaw. It's not!
Even Stephen King said that he spent years and years feeling ashamed about what he wrote, as if it wasn't quite good enough. Stephen King, for Pete's sake!
Recently I was listening to a writing podcast I normally enjoy. Â The host used the phrase "just writing genre fiction." I was angry and appalled, and honestly I lost respect for her. Â If she is brushing off large bodies of work because they aren't literary or mainstream fiction I find her less trustworthy.
Let me just state up front that literary fiction is not better than genre fiction or mainstream fiction. Â And it has a much higher chance of getting dry and pretentious because the first aim of literary fiction is to do art and make some sort of deliberate statement about society, politics, etc. Â When you let yourself wander away from good storytelling, your book will probably suffer.
Does this mean you shouldn't try to write literary fiction? Of course not! Â But if you are pulled to write literary fiction, don't do it at the expense of your story. Fiction writers are storytellers first. And that means the story is more important than any moral message you want to get across.
And if you find yourself thinking genre fiction is lower class than mainstream or literary, think again. It's about the storytelling. Every category of fiction has good stories and bad stories. Â That's not about the genre, that's about the writing. Â Focus on the writing, on the story, on building a world and drawing your readers into it. Â Don't get hung up on labels.
