What goes in this folder

[David]

There remain 22 days for writers to enter for The Quagga Prize for Literary Fiction. Details of how to enter a paper book (no ebooks)may be found here: http://www.quaggabooks.net. Many prizes are offered, the Quagga Gol d Medal (£350), The Silver Medal £100 and other runners-up of £50. Literary/mainstream fiction is what I seek to promote in a world where genre is rampant and there are more prizes on offer than you can shake a stick at. This is why I stand up and support the writing that lasts and changes your life in some subtle way that perhaps will last a lifetime. My Proust blog on the author page will give an idea of my obsession with serious fiction that is much richer than that offered for mere pass-time.


LITERARY FICTION

Literary fiction is a term principally used to distinguish mainstream works from genre fiction. Thus works that are typically categorised as Romance, Horror, Crime, Detective Fiction, Science Fiction, Chic Lit, Women's Fiction and so on are by definition not Literary Fiction.

Despite the fact that genre novels may be well written, those works are generally not considered literary fiction. To be considered literary, a work should ideally be complex, literate, multi-layered and wrestle with universal problems. Literary fiction is usually contrasted with popular fiction

Characterization

Literary fiction, in general, focuses on the central figure or figures to create introspective, in-depth characters. This contrasts with genre fiction where, generally speaking, the characters are flatter and serve the purpose of furthering the plot.
Plot

Usually, in literary fiction the focus is on the "inner story" of the characters who drive the plot with detailed motivations to elicit "emotional involvement" in the reader.
Pacing

The pacing of literary fiction is slower than genre. Terrence Rafferty maintains that literary fiction, by its nature, allows itself to dawdle, to linger on stray beauties even at the risk of losing its way.

[Adriano]

Everybody interested in literary fiction; there is finally (!!!) an unwerewolfish group on Goodreads dedicated to literary fiction: Literary Fiction Dialogue: https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/...