Best Literary Fiction Book of the Year, and Musing on Genre

I’m pretty excited to tell you that Beautiful and Terrible Things has won another book award! And this time, it’s a first-place win, as opposed to the finalist and honorable mentions received to date. My contemporary novel was named “2024’s Best Literary Book of the Year” in the Indies Today Awards.

And, hot off the presses, my novel has been awarded the Gold in the Reader Views Reviewer’s Choice Awards, in the LGBTQIA+ category!

The book has now won awards for General Fiction, Social Issues Fiction and LGBTQ+ Fiction. But Indies Today is the first to recognize it as award-worthy Literary Fiction.

But if I’m being honest, I don’t even consider my novel Literary Fiction. Why not? Read on.

What is Literary Fiction?

First, if you don’t follow the publishing industry, or aren’t an author yourself, you might be confused by the fact that Indies Today even has a category called Literary. Aren’t all books literary? Well, it depends on how you define it.

“Literary” means related to literature, so yes, in a sense all fiction could be considered literary.

But the publishing industry — literary agents, editors and publishers, writing contest organizers — use the term “literary fiction” to refer to sophisticated, what some would call high-brow, writing. Think of Pulitzer Prize-winning works, or the novels you were assigned in high school English class — the ones that either made you groan due to their length, lack of action and verbose style, or lick your lips in glee if you were one of the rare teens who loved nothing more than getting lost in a thick tome. Catcher in the Rye and The Great Gatsby might come to mind.

While “commercial fiction” focuses on a fast-moving plot, literary fiction focuses on character development. The lesser emphasis on plot and action is what leads many readers to classify these books as simply “boring.” It all depends on your taste.

But another differentiator between commercial and literary fiction is the language. When an author’s words make you stop, back up and re-read a passage just to appreciate the beauty of the words again, that’s most likely literary fiction. That has happened to me with the opening pages of Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible, and pretty much anything by Toni Morrison.

What About Commercial Fiction?

But can’t a commercial novel have beautiful language, you ask? Of course! Dean Koontz wraps his supernatural thrillers in lovely language and dense description that leave me in awe. But his stories also have fast-paced plots.

Many consider commercial fiction to include thrillers, mysteries, horror, romance, science fiction and fantasy — stories that have wide appeal and follow a fairly predictable pattern, although they leave plenty of room for skilled authors to shape original stories. (Further confusing things, many in the industry call this type of book “genre fiction” instead of “commercial fiction” but we’ll stick with “commercial” lest this post get too messy.)

General & Mainstream Fiction

But what about those stories by, say, JoJjo Moyes or Kristin Hannah, that don’t fall into one of those commercial genres, but — incredible as they are — don’t seem to fall into the literary fiction genre either? Now we have some choices: General Fiction, Mainstream Fiction or Upmarket Fiction.

General and Mainstream typically refer to novels that can’t be slotted into one of the commercial genres like mystery or sci-fi, but aren’t as “sophisticated” in writing style as true literary fiction. If you really want to get into the weeds on the genres mentioned so far, check out this excellent article by Mark Malatesta on Literary Agent Undercover.

So Moyes and Hannah could be shelved here, or they could be considered…

Upmarket Fiction

On Jane Friedman’s excellent blog, literary agent Carly Watters defines the relatively new genre of Upmarket Fiction as writing that blends elements of literary and commercial. How and what they blend varies by book, but in general, upmarket fiction has a fast-paced plot and ample character development, along with artful writing. (If you want to dig further into the differences between commercial, upmarket and literary, read the full article here.)

This need for a genre somewhere between commercial and literary led the Independent Publishers of New England (IPNE) to create a “Fantabulous Other” category for their Book Awards!

Do Readers Even Care?

At the end of the day, most readers don’t really care if a novel is considered literary fiction or something else. And most (but not all) bookstores have a Fiction section that combines Literary and General, so the average person doesn’t spend too much time thinking about this. The commercial fiction genres like romance, westerns and mysteries usually get their own sections.

I find readers tend to consider other aspects of fiction to slice and dice the books available to them, such as:

Time Period: Is it historical, contemporary, or futuristic?

Target Age Range: Is it written for “Young Adults” i.e. 13-18, or the relatively new genre of “New Adult” i.e. ages 19-29? Or it is “Adult Fiction” and if so, at what age does “adult” start? I find these categories helpful but slightly problematic because there is so much good fiction in all of these categories that transcends age group. I find it funny when an older person says they won’t read a book about a 25-year-old. Really? Weren’t we all 25 once? Is it so hard to relate?

Level of “Sophistication”: Some readers wouldn’t be caught dead with a “cheap romance” novel in their hands, while commercial fiction fans would rather shove toothpicks under their fingernails than be subjected to another long, wandering book like those assigned in high school. Others cross easily between genres, enjoying the best of both worlds.

But it does help to have some idea what type of book you’re picking up, so you’re not disappointed.

A Word on LGBTQIA+ Fiction

While I consider Beautiful and Terrible Things LGBTQIA+ fiction (and am very proud and grateful that it has won two awards in this category), it is not LGBT Romance, a genre that focuses mainly on romantic/sexual relationships. The fact that different characters in my novel have differing sexual preferences is “normalized” i.e. not the main plot point, in an attempt to mirror real life. Yet sexuality does figure fairly prominently into at least one character’s arc (shhhh, I’m not saying which one), but as part of a larger quest.

But LGBT Romance typically has hot and heavy sex scenes, which my novel does not. (None of my books have heavy sex; I prefer the “closed door” approach to romance, in which you feel the sexual tension between characters but the actual doing of the deed is left to your imagination.)

So What Genre is Beautiful and Terrible Things: A Novel?

Well, now that you know why I don’t consider Beautiful and Terrible Things to be literary fiction, what do I consider it?.

I believe it falls into these genres: Upmarket, Contemporary, Women’s Fiction to some extent (I’ve always had a problem with that genre title as I blogged about here), LGBT Fiction and Book Club Fiction.

How Do You Choose Your Books?

Thus ends our quick tour of the vagaries of literary genre. I’d love to know, how do you choose which books you’re going to read? Do you seek out a particular genre, or just crack open a book with no prior information and take your chances? Do you gravitate toward bestsellers or award-winners, or care more about recommendations from friends or online sources? Let me know in the comments.

P.S. – Plot Devices

(Can you have a P.S. in a blog post? What the heck, it’s my blog, right?)

While we’re on literary topics, those of you who write fiction or want to write fiction might be interested in this article that appeared recently on The Rauch Review, in which I am quoted a few times. It’s all about plot devices: the different types, how they can be useful or detrimental to your story, and tips on how best to use them.