The real question, I think, is this: Does your writing fulfill you? Yes, it’s an odd question on the surface, but it is the only question worth considering. If you’re not happy with what you’re doing, something is wrong. If you feel that you could be writing better if you weren’t writing so much for others but more for yourself, something’s wrong. Or, if you feel that you’re too much of a snob in your writing, that you put yourself on too high a pedestal, something’s wrong.

(I’m answering this question in this way because for the past several months I’ve been going through a writing “crisis.” I realized that I can’t write commercial fiction because I think most commercial fiction is Slop with a capital S. I also realized that I can’t call myself a “serious novelist” because I don’t like the connotations of that phrase. So what I’ve done is thrown every burden off, kicked every shackle loose, and I’m going to write what I would want to read. My goal is to write honestly.)

On more point: Do readers really know what they want? I don’t think they do. Sure, they know they want a good story that sucks them into another world and gives them intellectual and emotional fulfillment. But they don’t know what kind of stories do that. Consider that Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose was a national bestseller when it came out. So was John Gardner’s The Sunlight Dialogues. Neither one of these can be considered “commercial,” but they were successful.

Sigh

But by following the formula for a first sold book, I have my big toe in the door--I hope that by following my agents advice to make the book even more "movie" like that a publisher will pick it up soon

But the problem with 'screenplay writing' is something that I see far more in unpublished writers than in any well known published writer of whom I'm aware. Thus, I think that the failure to master POV is still something that forms a bar to getting published, and to attracting a significant audience as well.

The public doesn't want or need writing which is simply inferior in every way to a movie or TV show. Novels that don't contain effective POV writing are even inferior to comic books (particularly graphic novels). I don't read graphic novels much myself, but I far prefer a good graphic novel to a conventional book written by someone that has not mastered the art of using words to show what pictures cannot show.

If your goal is to write 'serious fiction', then it is only what the readers want that matters--and readers want to explore the inner surfaces of their own worlds. If one is writing only to exorcise one's inner demons (the only form of 'writing for myself' that makes any sense to me personally), then I can't seen any reason to write about anything but inner feelings.

External description is fine and dandy, and most people want enough of it to convince them that you know enough to be worth reading. But if external description is all you have, then a picture really is worth a thousand words...or a bit more. And if you give me the choice of looking at a picture and reading about that picture, I'm going to look at the picture itself every time (unless the picture is horribly offensive--in which case why would I read the words either?).

It is a fine balance, and one that takes sometime to master. But once you have your writing will jump off the page.

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If your goal is to write 'serious fiction', then it is only what the readers want that matters--and readers want to explore the inner surfaces of their own worlds.

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That all depends on how one defines "serious fiction." I agree that the serious fiction of today is not the same as the serious fiction of yesterday, and that difference is fundamentally an epistemological difference. Do we believe an objective reality exists that we can know, or do we believe that we can't know objective reality and the only thing we can know are our perceptions. Are we essentially Aristotelians or Nietzscheans?

If we are Nietzcheans, then I agree: "serious fiction" is all about exorcising one's inner demons, insofar as one’s exorcising inner demon is purporting one’s cynical attitude through one’s work. If we are Aristotelians, then serious fiction is something completely different: fiction is, as Ron Hansen puts it (modifying Frost), a "stay against confusion." Stories become ways of understanding the world, ways of affirming both human interconnectedness as well as individual uniqueness. I am an Aristotelian—actually, I’m a Thomist, so stories do more than affirm human interconnectedness as well as individual uniqueness; they should also affirm God’s love for humanity, but that’s a different issue—I take Hansen’s view of what fiction is.

So what does a Thomist mean when he says “that it doesn't matter what the readers’ want”? It means that he is more interested in telling the truth than anything else. At the end of the day, he doesn’t ask—“Did they like it?”—rather, he asks—“Is it honest? Is it truthful?”

Of course, a lot of things come before this. Is it a good story? Have I told it well? Is the language vivid enough? Is there a unity? Are there any questions that haven’t been answered? In short, serious fiction of the Thomistic brand must meet the demands of good fiction. But once all those demands are met, the only thing that really matters is if it is honest.

Fiction is a lie that you want the reader to believe as he reads. Therefore, you want your fiction to sound like it is true.

Except in very limited circumstances, any account written in the present tense is obviously false: unless it is being written as the events occur, you know the author must be lying.

So, unless there is a good reason to use present tense, use past tense.

Someone asked if it is possible to write something good one would not wish to read, I answer absolutely yes. I am sure there are many well-written and engaging pieces out there which would fail completely to hold me in thrall. There's also a bunch of tripe out there that people gobble up simply because it's written by someone well known. For instance, I just finished Twain's "Roughing It" which can be in no way referred to as a great peice of literature, but I read it, and people read it simply because it was written by Twain. People read Stephen King all the time, and I have yet to read something by him which I might consider good literature. Grisham? Same thing. But people slurp this junk up like it's going out of style, and you know what? Both King and Grisham have more name recognition than their peers (and more money from it to boot) so at what point does one throw in the towel and say, 'hey, I am going to write something people will want to read because I need a paycheck right now instead of the posthumous fame The Great American Novel will bring'?

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...So at what point does one throw in the towel and say, 'hey, I am going to write something people will want to read because I need a paycheck right now instead of the posthumous fame The Great American Novel will bring'?

I don't know. It's something I'm trying to come to grips with and I'm having a real hard time.

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Welcome to the club.

There is a difference between writing commercial fiction and writing serious fiction, and you’re struggle indicates that you recognize this fact.

If I were to make a distinction between the two, I would use Graham Greene’s distinction. Commercial fiction is entertainment, while serious fiction—which also must be entertaining—must include serious philosophical and religious ideas. Serious fiction is neither philosophy nor theology.

The best way to understand this difference is to read one of Grisham’s racially motivated novels, such as A Time to Kill, and then read Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. If you don’t immediately see the difference, then forget about being a writer. You don’t have an iota of literary sensitivity about you.

The question(s) I think you need to ask yourself is, “Are you willing to do what needs to be done to become a serious writer?” Are you willing to make the basic tools of writing as sharp as possible? That is to say, are you willing to take two to four weeks off from writing and study a college level freshman composition and grammar book? Are you willing to spend five or six months reading a dictionary, marking down those relatively short and relatively common words that aren’t in your active vocabulary? Are you willing to challenge yourself intellectually and study the writings of Plato, Aristotle, St. Augustine, and St. Thomas Aquinas, as well as Descartes, Kant, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Heidegger—that is, are you willing to strive to understand the fundamental Western philosophical "systems" expressed by key figures? Are you willing to understand your own philosophical and theological view of the world and develop an aesthetical standard by which you judge what your read as well as your own writing? Are you willing to steep yourself in American history and political ideas? Are you willing to put off the idea of publication as you humbly develop your skills in secret? Are you willing to put away the bulk of commercial fiction and give yourself the time and energy to read authors such as Melville, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Joyce, Faulkner, Hemingway, Flannery O’Connor, John Irving, Toni Morrison, etc.?

This sounds like a lot, and at the root of it is this question: “Do you enjoy this already?” If you don’t enjoy grammar or developing your vocabulary, if you don’t enjoy philosophy, and if you don’t enjoy reading serious fiction more than commercial fiction, then you’re not a serious novelists. There’s nothing shameful or degrading about it. If you can’t be yourself when you write, when can you be?

Personally, this is something I’ve been struggling with for six months. I can say I can answer “yes” to every question, but more importantly, I also enjoy all of this. I can say, as I did in a previous post, that I don’t want to be a serious novelist, but that’s what I am. I’m not writing speculative fiction any more. I realized then when I looked at my reading habits for the past six months and found that what I was reading and that what I wanted to read was literature. Then I looked at my writing and realized that the stories would be better if I removed the science or fantasy elements (save one story) and wrote the stories as “straight” fiction. There were concrete signs in my writing life that indicated that I had to finally say to myself what Martin Luther said in 1517: “Here I stand; I can do no other.” I am very comfortable with the fact that I may never reach the level I want to reach, that I may never be published, and even if I do, that I may never be able to make a living by writing. (But these aren’t the problems of merely the serious novelists.)

The question I would ask you, Lightbringer, is what are the trends in your reading and your writing? Are you naturally tending toward more serious and non-commercial fiction? Or, do you tend toward purely entertaining fiction? Remember please, it’s possible to write serious, commercially oriented fiction. Orson Scott Card is a marvelous writer whose stories are both very entertaining and intellectually and emotionally significant. J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings is a masterpiece on both the serious and commercial levels.

In the end, you have to find your own way. I wrote this rather verbose thread to let you know that you’re not alone in this struggle. But you are alone in finding your way.

One final point. The only sin in writing commercial fiction is thinking that it’s on the same level as serious fiction. Unfortunately, both OSC and Stephen King have made this mistake. Graham Greene, I think, is a perfect model. He knew when he was writing entertainments, and he knew when he was writing his serious novels. He knew the methodology was different; he knew the demands were different; and he knew the product was different.

On the flip side, the only sin of the serious novelist is refusing to see the value in good commercial fiction. Far too many serious novelists and critics are snobs. Don’t be that.

Best wishes, and good luck.

PS -- If you decide to become a serious writer, then I highly recommend three books, all by John Gardner: On Becoming a Novelist, The Art of Fiction, and On Moral Fiction. If you don't hold to Gardner's basic philosophical views, then you'll find On Moral Fiction quite irritating. Since I agree with Gardner philosophically, I found this book very illuminating.

PPS -- I'm arrogant enough to direct you to another post in which I disussed this subject, namely, "Literary Fiction vs. Genre Fiction."

There is one axiom to remember when you deal with Art (note the capitalization).

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Yes, there is a difference between writing commercial crap and between art...but all truly great Art has to be popular. There must be an audience for there to be a message. If the message can't be decoded (whether because it isn't recieved or because the coding is too abstruse), then you have to wonder if the information is actually there.

I can't say I've ever read anything by Grisham. I have read Plato, Aristotle, St. Augustine, Aquinas, Descartes, and a little of the modern philosophers (enough to know they have nothing on me ). I've read the literary greats too, and you know what? Most of them were simply writers. All of them make mistakes. Some of them aren't even very good, but the themes and characters they treated touched people, and that's what being a writer is all about.

I have to wonder about the value of writing anything that isn't speculative fiction in our modern world. Gibson treats this question with Pattern Recognition, a book that takes a look at the 'unimaginable present' we all live in today. I'm setting one milieu in the near future, one in the far future, and one in an even farther future that looks suspiciously like a mythic past. Why? Because the world I happen to actually live in would be unbelievable as fiction. I live here and I have trouble believing it.

But that is a debate I can leave alone for others. Most of you live in a world that the audience could understand. So it isn't like you have to make up a more believable world than the one you happen to inhabit.

My main point is that it isn't a mistake to think that the work that touches more people is going to be more significant. Before Uncle Tom's Cabin could become a focal point of the abolitionist movement, it had to be read by a lot of people that were gullible enough to believe in the message when it was told as a story. It is certainly true that appealing to the lowest common denominator will destroy any higher meaning in your work, but the vast majority of 'commercial' fiction doesn't appeal to the lowest common denominator (all books, after all, have to be aimed at people that read--rarely the lowest common denominator in any society and certainly not in our own).

OSC has never written his books to make them sell. In that sense, if in no other, his work is hardly commercial. I wouldn't say the same of King (partly because it simply isn't true--King does often write what will sell), but I will say that trying to get 'ordinary' readers to read stories he's written because he really cares about them is by no means a sin on his part (though perhaps it was a sin to write some of his commercial books). Is Card a great writer? I'll leave that judgement to history (which is likely to be kinder to him than to non-speculative writers--the future will find most modern literature to be absolutely meaningless, after all). For my part, he's just a writer.

But then, so are all the 'Greats' we might seek to emulate.

Other than that minor point (and it is a minor point), I assent to everything you said, Survivor. The great problem with contemporary "literature" is that it doesn't tell stories any more. It pontificates about anything and everything, making connections between things, connections that no reasonable person would make, such as four notes Bach uses in one of his pieces, the four nucleotides in the DNA, and the tetragrammaton, the four letters for God in Hebrew (see Richard Powers, The Gold Bug Variations).

True literature, as Faulkner said, communicates the verities of existence to the reader. And that's the best definition of what a serious novelist is that I know of.

PS -- I never used the phrase "commercial crap," and I certainly didn't mean to imply that commercial fiction is crap.

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Commercial fiction is entertainment, while serious fiction—which also must be entertaining—must include serious philosophical and religious ideas. Serious fiction is neither philosophy nor theology.

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I find you divisions overly constricting, Balthasar. People turn to fiction, even in entertainment, for its ability to illuminate (directly or indirectly) the human condition and our own relationship with the world around us, which is certainly at the core of most philosophical and religious ideas. They respond to the inherent lie of fiction because of the truth and honesty contained within it. While you include these elements as criteria for serious fiction, even commercial fiction depends upon these things to be successful.

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Writing from the soul, if you will.

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I couldn't agree more. That's why you study grammar and read the dictionary, so that you have the tools to write from the soul. That's why you must read theology and philosophy, two subjects that enrich and cultivate the soul. That's why you read American history and American political theory (provided that you're American), because you want to write from the soul, a soul, whether you like it or not, that has been formed by the American experiment. That's why you don't worry about publication, because writing from the soul is too damn difficult when you're worried about getting published. And that's why you read the great authors, becasue they did indeed write from their soul.

And as for the term "serious novelist," I agree, it's quite bad. But what would you use in its place? Would “literary novelist” be better? The problem with that, however, is that too often people think of literature and of nothing else. The literary novelist can write in any genre he or she wishes—mainstream, SF, horror, mystery, western, whatever. Would the “quality writer” have worked? Perhaps, but it has too many negative overtones for me, for it implies a gradation of value or worth, as if the quality writer is striving to produce A+ material whereas the commercial writer is settling for C- material.

The distinction between “serious fiction” and “commercial fiction” is a distinction of kind—so much so that one can’t compare the two. It has nothing to do with genre. Perhaps I wasn’t clear about that; I apologize if I wasn’t. And I certainly didn’t mean to imply that commercial writer isn’t serious about his or her work.

If you can think of a better phrase, be my guest.

PS -- I find my divisions (they're Graham Greene's distinctions, really) between serious fiction and commerical fiction overly constricting too.

Speaking of observation, that’s something that you seem to have left off your list. Fiction is about people interacting, and if you don’t watch those interactions, then examine them and try to explain them to yourself, how can you possibly bring that element to your fiction meaningfully? Perhaps you feel a study of philosophy and history covers this territory? I don’t. I’d say its a matter of being conscience of your everyday life.

But these things aren't of particular benefit to writers per se. Having a great vocabulary is no more (or less) important than speaking Spanish or German, which are good things in and of themselves, whether or not you plan to be a writer. Knowing the philosophy of Kierkegaard or Kant, Socrates or Zeno, Sun-Tzu or Kung-Fu-Tzu, is all very well and good...but it doesn't apply more to being a writer than to being a carpenter.

To become a 'great' writer, you have to be able to speak to the human condition, so I think that there is something in what GZ says about watching people. I have to do that anyway to comphensate for what instinct has not provided--though I don't know how valuable it actually is in terms of my writing.

So I would suggest personal literature as an alternative to 'commercial' literature, because that's where we all seem to agree the dividing line runs. When we write with the motive of making a sale, our writing is often robbed of the power to express what is truly in our hearts. Since the truth you have in your heart is all the truth anyone has, that invariably means that your commercial writing will be less true to you.

Will writing the story that is true to your heart guarantee that you become a 'great' writer? No. 'Greatness' is assigned by posterity, often using criteria that we haven't imagined or would find trivial. We can guess...Robert Jordan's WOT has a much better shot at becoming great than anything by Gore Vidal, for instance. Even the fact that he can't seem to bring the story to a !@#$ing close will probably make him seem great to future readers (I imagine that he knows this, and is actually planning to die with the series unfinished). But we can't even agree on the guesses, as I'm guessing most of you decided from reading my previous guess

If you want to write fiction that is true at a deep level, then be true to the only truth anyone has--the truth of yourself. If you want to write fiction to make money...well, there is quite a market for that--you won't make a lot, but you can probably live. The truth of Balthasar's self has deep roots in his love of history, philosophy, and the English language, I imagine (or vice versa, his love of those things having deep roots in his personal truth). The truth of my own has a lot of bitterness and rage over the lost and fallen state of humankind, finely honed by ever more genuine love for you. I'm not going to suggest either program as the one true path to becoming a 'serious' writer. Your truth might be of delight in the endless marvel of life and love, or the encompassing joy of existence itself, or even the taste of the first doughnut at Krispy Kreme's in the morning...I don't know.

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The truth of Balthasar's self has deep roots in his love of history, philosophy, and the English language, I imagine (or vice versa, his love of those things having deep roots in his personal truth).

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But, in short, the focus I felt was being placed upon these intellectual areas was not sufficiently counterbalanced by the personal human element that is critical to all fiction.

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I am 29 years old. I grew up in a North Dallas suburb. I was educated in the public school system. I didn't study, but I graduated with a B- average. I piddled around at a local junior college for a few years, never studying but maintaining a B average. I thought I was pretty goddam smart . . . until I enrolled at the University of Dallas, a small Catholic liberal arts school that focuses on the Great Books of the Western intellectual tradition. I was 22. I quickly learned two things about myself: I was (am) smart, but I wasn't educated. I've spent the last seven and a half years educating myself.

I want to go a lot of different direction with this, but I won't. All I will say is this: the more "intellectual" I become, the more interesting and entertaing fiction becomes. The human being is not an isolated being, but a being in-the-world -- a being with a history, a being in a society that has its own history, a being in a world with its history. All those intellectual areas are means for understanding the eternal verites of the human heart, the verites fiction grapples with.

Without a doubt I came across overly strong in my previous posts. That is the downside of a on-line writers forum. Who wants to write a 5,000-word manifesto each post? One of my deepest concerns is how American culture is rapidly loosing (has alreadly lost!!) its grip on its cultural heritage, and how individual Americans have by and large a very dumb lot, dumb on the emotion, intellectual, and spiritual levels. We're very smart when it comes to our bodies. (You can discern my thoughts on this subject based on my "requirements" for the serious novelist, or you can read Allen Bloom's The Closing of the American Mind and Alasdair MacIntyre's After Virtue as good introductions.) My hope in posting something like I did -- and my hope in continuing the discussion -- is that I might change one or two hearts about what great writing is and how to go about becoming a great writer, and that by affecting that change of heart it might effect a change in our society.

I don't know if any of this makes sense. I think my hope is a fool's hope; I chasing a chimera.

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. I think my hope is a fool's hope; I chasing a chimera.

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By this I meant changing society as a whole, not changing one or two hearts of people in this forum. Sorry that wasn't very clear.

I'm actually writing a story that (surprise surprise) takes the decline in our cultural literacy as one of its themes. One thinks of Orwell's vision of a future in which books are written by machines that semi-randomly string plot elements together...an actual human writer isn't necessary, only machinists to keep the drums oiled. Orwell makes the point that only because the three great powers of his future are never in actual danger of being conquered is such depravity possible...were the competition real rather than largely imaginary, the consequences of deliberately impovershing your own nation's intellectual and cultural heritage would be catastrophic....

Speaking of randomly generated storylines, check out They Fight Crime!. The first dozen or so will be hilarious or even interesting, after you start getting repeats you'll lose some interest. Your mileage may vary.

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He's a globe-trotting chivalrous assassin on the run. She's a bloodthirsty impetuous schoolgirl on the trail of a serial killer. They fight crime!

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He's a lounge-singing moralistic photographer from a doomed world. She's an elegant goth politician trying to make a difference in a man's world. They fight crime!

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Three donkey carts covered in hay, a common sight in Baghdad in the early morning, were found loaded with home-made concrete rocket launchers with steel tubes. They were housing either 107-milimeter Soviet-made Katushya rockets or 122-milimeter Brazilian-made Aspro rockets, powerful weapons that can hit targets at a range of 10 miles.

In addition, a donkey wired with two propane gas cylinders set to explode was spotted near the College of Law at Baghdad University and the explosives were disarmed.

All four donkeys survived, and one of them, outside the Palestine Hotel, was given as gift by a United States soldier to a passing Iraqi. The donkey used in the attack on the Palestine Hotel, however, was singed in the rear by the ignition of a rocket. This apparently startled the animal, upsetting the cart. The result was that 11 of the 16 rockets on its cart did not go off.

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From your post I think I better understand your vision. It still doesn’t make it my vision, but then my history is of a different sort, though it too includes an educational crisis. One that I rocked both my belief in science and the inherit value of graduate-level education, managed to numb my sense of wonder, and affected the way I define myself through my own intelligence. Such crisises are not comfortable things to work through, and I still see its effect in the way I approach thing of an educational and intellectual nature these days. They do not hold the comfort they once did for me, and I have turned more internally for my inspiration.

Interestingly enough, I find from your post you already have what I think you would define as the stuff of great fiction within your own history. Your own experience speaks to the loss of cultural heritage in America which you strongly respond to. You have lived it, and found what society demanded and/or exposed you to wanting in cultural and intellectual depth. What greater experience could you have to fuel your fictional ideas in this area? In that way, one of the things driving you in your quest for serious fiction it also a truth that you will be able to bring to your own fiction. I hope you explore that in your fiction (perhaps you already do), because I think it could be a very powerful thing indeed. I say that not meaning to psychoanalyze a fellow poster (which as I read over the what I typed above, it could read like that is what I’m doing. The inherent problems of a BBS discussion, as you said, are many.). I was simply trying to explore your vision through my own.