Genre vs. Non-Genre Fiction

July 2, 2013 4:26 AM

So, I'm starting tentatively to plunk out the first few pages of what I imagine will become a first draft of a first novel. It's aimed somewhere in the range of a very-near future, with some decidedly speculative features and technologies. No spaceships, no aliens, no dragons, no ray guns. I'd like it to be something like the novels of William Gibson and Gary Shteyngart, though I don't presume to compare the quality of what I'm working on to their works, which I truly admire. Both of those guys have published what are clearly SF novels, outside of genre SF. What are the advantages and disadvantages of attempting that, rather than selling to the SF publishing houses?
posted by newdaddy to Writing & Language (17 answers total)

According to the late Iain Banks, his mainstream fiction outsold his 'genre SF' by a factor of 2 or 3 even though it often had overt SF elements.
posted by pharm at 4:33 AM on July 2, 2013

It's just market reach, and really nothing more.
posted by DarlingBri at 4:35 AM on July 2, 2013

Response by poster: Let me just say, I'm not disparaging explicitly SF writing - most of my favorite authors are published as genre SF.

Also, its not my intention to prompt a discussion of Gibson's recent works and how much SF they are or aren't - that has surely been done elsewhere and thoroughly.
posted by newdaddy at 4:38 AM on July 2, 2013

What are the advantages and disadvantages of attempting that, rather than selling to the SF publishing houses?

Generalizing a bit here, but you can sell genre Sci-fi on high-concept and world-building alone. Mainstream fiction needs to have really strong theme, characterization, style, social relevance or at least some combination of them.
posted by empath at 4:45 AM on July 2, 2013

There's a certain amount of snobbery concering genre fiction among some readers - they won't pick up a book that's marketed as SF even though they might love it if they found it in mainstream fiction. Or people think they don't like SF without being all that familiar with the genre. And SF covers usually look decidedly SF.
posted by hannala at 5:10 AM on July 2, 2013

Best answer: Iain Banks is not typical in terms of sales.

As of 2009 (and comments from those in my MFA program suggested this was the case as well), advances and sales were low in literary fiction, with most of the sales coming from a narrow swathe of top sellers. From what I've observed from the careers of those I know in both literary and genre fiction, you are far, far more likely to make a profitable career from genre fiction; most literary writers of my acquaintance make their livings from teaching. An easy way to check out pay rates is to buy a subscription to Publishers Marketplace. Using their guide, you can figure out how many sales are for multiple books in the high five and six figure range. It is very, very rare to see those sales in literary fiction.

Also, your premise is wrong. Neuromancer was published by Ace; Gibson's novels won the BSFA and Nebula Awards. He was not a literary writer writing SF; he was a SF writer. Be careful about saying such things; they're very political to SF writers, not because of what hannala says, but because we've often encountered significant genre snobbery from other writers.

Anyway, genre writers care just as much about characterization, plotting, style and theme. However, in my experience as a reader and participant in literary workshop settings, literary writers care significantly less about setting and worldbuilding. It's only a fallacy among non-genre writers and readers that SF readers don't care about all the stuff that makes good books good. They do, so no slacking.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 6:37 AM on July 2, 2013 [6 favorites]

Conversely, if you go the genre route: you may find it hard to get recognition of any sort besides sneering from your literary-focused colleagues. You won't be invited to speak at your alma mater and you won't make the headnote of your MFA newsletter (or at least, I didn't). If you want to teach, it may be difficult to secure a tenure track teaching position, as writing faculties that are welcoming to genre writers are rare. It may be more difficult for you to get reviewed in Journals of Literary Prestige.

You're choosing a tribe, essentially. My experiences on both sides have indicated that this is far more politicized from the literary side of things. I don't know why, but it's where I (anecdotally) observed the largest number of mean and sneering comments. Which is sad. They're just books.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 6:53 AM on July 2, 2013 [2 favorites]

I was a bookseller off and on for years, and from that perspective, a genre writer can have a far longer career, in terms of back catalogue availability, than any but the top level of literary fiction authors.
posted by rtha at 7:15 AM on July 2, 2013 [2 favorites]

rather than selling to the SF publishing houses

Write the story that you want to write rather than the story you think you can sell. Write because you love it, not to try to make money, because it's very difficult to make any significant amount of it.
posted by Candleman at 7:46 AM on July 2, 2013 [1 favorite]

My experiences on both sides have indicated that this is far more politicized from the literary side of things.

Hmm. Just as another data point, I find different but strong snobbery on both sides of the divide toward the other. Sure, academics and mainstream audiences can sniff mightily at "sci-fi" and other genres (though they don't do it as widely and severely as they used to) but few things get disparaged the way the sf community looks down on a perceived "literary" author entering their turf, or someone they would like to claim as their own eschewing the marketing categories of science fiction or fantasy with a publisher.

To back up a couple steps (and I say this in a kind and supportive spirit): I would recommend focusing on the writing at this point, writing the best possible novel you can without getting hung up on slant and marketing -- and then worrying about marketing and politics when you have a finished, revised, submittable boxful of MS in hand. I've seen writers really mess up their own process, putting the cart before the horse.

It's also possible that you personally will not have very much control over marketing and labelling decisions, as a first time author, and you or an agent will send your MS to many many different places looking for a publishing home, suffer lots of inevitable rejections regardless of the novel's quality or degree of science fiction-ness, and eventially sell your book to whatever editor loves it and accepts it. And then part two (shaping a career) begins. If you are talented and lucky enough to have a couple big early successes, you might have a good deal more control over the business end than otherwise.

But whatever happens, good luck.
posted by aught at 7:52 AM on July 2, 2013

Write the story that you want to write rather than the story you think you can sell. Write because you love it, not to try to make money, because it's very difficult to make any significant amount of it.

It is okay to want to make money off of your writing. It is okay to write with specific career and financial goals in mind. It is not impossible to become a working writer, although it takes perseverance and time.

Whichever market you choose to aim at, though, and it sounds like your writing might fit right at the crossroads, you do need to focus, first, on finishing your book. I'd also recommend querying reputable agents when your novel is finished, rather than pitching directly to publishing houses. While there are both small literary presses and decent genre publishers which take unagented manuscripts, a good agent will know where you should aim your book to get the most money, whether it be a small independent publisher or a dedicated SF/F press like TOR. Once you have one, you can let your agent make marketing decisions for you. They're the experts and will do what they can to start your career on a firm platform.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 7:59 AM on July 2, 2013 [1 favorite]

Look at your bookshelves. Are there a lot of SF books? Do you know enough about SF to write it convincingly? Lack of knowledge of a genre's conventions can be a problem. Beware of the idea that doing genre in a half-assed way will allow you to be considered a writer of literary fiction. For one thing, literary fiction is a genre too.
posted by BibiRose at 8:00 AM on July 2, 2013 [1 favorite]

There is snobbery on both sides, but there's generally more crossover potential from mainstream to genre than there is from genre to mainstream. Here is your best bet: First, write the book. Then, when you have a draft you like and are prepared to have agents look at it, do what they tell you in terms of publishing routes.

But if I were in your position, and if an agent told me they felt this book was best suited to be marketed as genre sci-fi, I would probably use a pseudonym. The genre ghetto is a hard one to break out of, so I'd prefer to avoid having to do so if at all possible.
posted by FAMOUS MONSTER at 8:13 AM on July 2, 2013

I think it depends what your goals are and where you think you can succeed at them.

I have a friend who is a novelist in the "literary fiction" world. He has A LOT of unpublished novels. After many, many years of writing, he is finally publishing a collection of short stories and one of his novels this year, through a small press with a strong reputation for Serious Novels. I'm not entirely sure he's being paid for any of it, at least not in the kind of money that would compensate him for the literally DECADES of time he has been working on the things that are about to be published. Certainly not enough money to live on as a professional writer.

I know some other people who write genre fiction. They seem to be able to publish about as much as they're able to crank out. I don't know that all of them make all of their money solely as writers of genre novels, but they're a lot closer to that than my literary fiction friend is. They also see their work in print a lot more often. Additionally, there seems to be more of a market for their work in the self-published business model, so if they want to go into business for themselves and work outside the world of agents and editors and publishing houses, they can.

Personally, if I wanted to quit my day job and make money, I'd go genre. If money wasn't a factor or I was content to keep working in another field to pay the bills, then I'd go literary.

This all assumes that you are a talented writer and could make it in either area, and are actually faced with this choice. It might not really be up to you. In general, I think you should go where your abilities are. And there's nothing wrong with that being genre rather than literary.
posted by Sara C. at 10:57 AM on July 2, 2013 [1 favorite]

Something else I thought of, which some of the answers here touch upon: if you plan to be a commercial genre writer (even one whose stylistics are more literary) you will often be expected to write books on a schedule of roughly one book every one to two years.

If that sounds onerous or impossible to you, you might have a happier home in literary fiction, where one can spend decades working on a manuscript without angry publishers at your back or fans out for blood.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 11:22 AM on July 2, 2013 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: Thanks to everybody for thoughtful responses! Especially thanks to those who included links or pointed out other resources.

Of course, the thing I most need to do, and do first, is write the actual manuscript. I know that's not the end of the process though.
posted by newdaddy at 5:28 AM on July 3, 2013

Whether you decide to focus on a particular genre or you want more a mainstream and widespread readership, the important thing is just to write! The skills you learn from writing verisimilar literary fiction are the same skills you will use to write SF fiction – plotting, characterization, pacing, and revision. The market demands are different but it's easy to get caught up in concerns about the world of publication and how to market yourself etc. etc. – none of which matters until you have produced some work that you can show to your workshop group or your editor or your agent. You can suss out details of marketability when you at least have an outline.
posted by deathpanels at 6:14 AM on July 3, 2013