Saturday, March 10, 2012

The Writer Will Take Your Questions Now (#105) -- Literary No More?

Do you ever plan to write literary fiction again, or do 
you consider that part of your writing career over?

Maybe. Maybe not. However, that doesn't mean I've abandoned the things that writing lit fic taught me. Even in pulp or comics or horror or steampunk stories, I tend to return to the tools of the literary tradition and fill my stories with symbols, characterization, and action beyond the mere physical to the emotional/psychological. I still prefer to write my characters as realistically as possible, rather than be satisfied with mere stereotypes (even in a genre like pulp that relies heavily on such stereotypes).

I'm of the belief that there's a place for literary horror tales, literary super hero tales, literary pulp, literary steampunk, etc., even it it's not billed that way.

And chances are, it will most likely come out that way when I write it, simply because it's being filtered through the sum of my writing experiences.  Considering I got my start on the tales of Hemingway, Faulkner, O'Connor, Welty, Morrison, Hurston, Fitzgerald, Vonnegut, and Carver, that probably isn't really any big surprise to anyone who knows me.

That said, I do have a folder of unfinished lit fic short stories I'd like to finish and publish as a collection one day.

4 comments:

  1. I have read so called "Literary Masterpieces" that have left me flat. I have also read "Throw Away Pulp" that has burned images into my brain that last to this day. In my opinion some elitist literary pieces can't hold a candle to some stories I've read in comics. Just focus on writing good stories. Remember the Woody Allen movie when the Alien tells him: "You want meaning? Tell funnier jokes."

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  2. Absolutely. Very true, Mark.

    I think Ray Bradbury and Kurt Vonnegut are good examples of writer who elevated the genre in which they wrote. Fahrenheit 451 is a great action story, but it's deeper than that. Slaughterhouse Five is an amazing time travel story, but so much more than that. I want to do the same with whatever genre in which I write, from comics to pulp to horror. I just want to, as you say, "tell funnier jokes" and by doing so continue to tell good stories that hopefully have meaning beyond just the surface action.

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  3. It's a great time to write, as someone whose "influences of choice" always seem to circle back around to Bradbury and Bukowski. At least now, a "poetic, literary, contemplative, sci fi, action" story has a snowball's chance.

    Just gotta remember to tell funny jokes.

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  4. Ha. As Donald sang... "slip on a banana peel, the world's at our feet, make 'em laugh..."

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