I write... Literary Fiction?

[Rozume]

I was looking up Literary Fiction today and a lot of it sounds like the stuff I usually come up with and focus on (i.e. emphasis on character driven stories, exploration of themes, etc). The only thing I don't have is the "fine writing," but I'm working on it. :'D

Anyway, I don't know know how I feel about this discovery. When I come up with an idea, I put a lot of my focus on the characters and I usually don't think of a specific genre, all though genre can be a factor. I feel like because I write like this, I might not have much of an audience within the VN-sphere; I looked around and it seems like typical VN readers expect certain things when reading/playing.

That's probably not the audience I'm aiming for anyway, but I would like to reach to a large audience if possible.

Any thoughts on this? How do I reach a large audience while still remaining true to myself and my writing?

[trooper6]

I was looking up Literary Fiction today and a lot of it sounds like the stuff I usually come up with and focus on (i.e. emphasis on character driven stories, exploration of themes, etc). The only thing I don't have is the "fine writing," but I'm working on it. :'D

Anyway, I don't know know how I feel about this discovery. When I come up with an idea, I put a lot of my focus on the characters and I usually don't think of a specific genre, all though genre can be a factor. I feel like because I write like this, I might not have much of an audience within the VN-sphere; I looked around and it seems like typical VN readers expect certain things when reading/playing.

That's probably not the audience I'm aiming for anyway, but I would like to reach to a large audience if possible.

Any thoughts on this? How do I reach a large audience while still remaining true to myself and my writing?

First off, perhaps lots of VN readers only want otome high school dating sims. But you could always write a literary fiction style otome high school dating sim, right?
Secondly, lots of VN readers like other things as well.
Thirdly, you can also market to non VN readers. Coming Out on Top is a gay male dating sim VN. I saw an ad for it on the gay superhero web comic I read. This means Obscura is marketing to people who are interested in the content not just people interested in the form. I also gave a copy of that game to my best friend who plays video games but hasn't played VNs because he is a gay man who I know would love the game. So maybe Coming Out on Top doesn't get the typical VN audience (though maybe it does, I don't know), but it can also get a different audience interested in gay male stories. Cave Cave Deus Videt is really experimental. It seems not to be the thing that the imagined typical VN audience would like. But they also advertised to art game people.

Fourthly, What does being true to yourself mean? How rigid are you with what that means?
If you are rigidly invested in a very niche form...like lets say you "being true to yourself" means only writing in strict 12-tone musical style...well, that is not going to get a large audience. But the audience you get will be people really invested in 12-tone music. So be happy with that. If you are willing to be flexible...maybe you add a sick beat and heavy bass and some sampling of machinery to your 12-tone music and market it as a new EDM/Industrial/Punk subgenre and you get a bigger audience.

But I think you need to think: what is your main priority, and what are you willing to do to achieve that priority.
If you could only pick one, which would you rather have:
a) "be true to yourself" with a small but dedicated fan base? or
b) have a large audience but feel like you are not being true to yourself?

Now you make be able to have your cake and eat it to. But you'll never know until you put out your work....and then do your very best to market it as strategically and as widely as possible.

So make the best work you can make, market it the best you can market it. Then do an assessment. Then do another project adjusting based on what you learned from the first project.

[Rozume]

@trooper6

Thanks for the advice! As for your question, I'm a very flexible person however I don't want to change the way I come up with and write stories. My main priority is telling a story, and trying to reach out to the widest audience possible to tell that story.

Honestly, I'd pick A because I want to stick with what feels the most natural to me.

This only became a concern to me, because I do at some point want to make a living out of this. But, I'll just keep doing my thing and see what happens.

[Taleweaver]

Funny thing about literary fiction: Scientifically speaking, it doesn't exist, at least not as a genre in itself.

Great literature can originate from almost any genre. To Kill A Mockingbird? Classic coming-of-age story. East of Eden? Family drama. Lolita? Romance (told by unreliable narrator). Fahrenheit 451? Sci-Fi. And I double-dare anyone to say that Beagle's The Last Unicorn isn't at the same time fantasy and high literature.

[SundownKid]

While I don't quite agree with the distinction people make between "high art" literary fiction and... everything else, since I have been affected by plenty of "genre fiction" over the years (maybe moreso than any literary fiction I've read), I do feel like literary fiction is a genre. They are books that, according to Wikipedia, "offer deliberate commentary on larger social issues, political issues, or focus on the individual to explore some part of the human condition."

Literary fiction is written with a specific purpose, to be artistic. (Which kind of defeats the point of being artistic, in my opinion). But some people like these works that are more of a meandering character study than something with a driving situation to push the plot forward. I think anything has a potential audience. I think that to translate the strengths of literary fiction into a visual novel, it should be very detailed in its art and soundscape to immerse people into the characters.

[Vogue]

While I don't quite agree with the distinction people make between "high art" literary fiction and... everything else, since I have been affected by plenty of "genre fiction" over the years (maybe moreso than any literary fiction I've read), I do feel like literary fiction is a genre. They are books that, according to Wikipedia, "offer deliberate commentary on larger social issues, political issues, or focus on the individual to explore some part of the human condition."

Literary fiction is written with a specific purpose, to be artistic. (Which kind of defeats the point of being artistic, in my opinion). But some people like these works that are more of a meandering character study than something with a driving situation to push the plot forward. I think anything has a potential audience. I think that to translate the strengths of literary fiction into a visual novel, it should be very detailed in its art and soundscape to immerse people into the characters.

I agree, but I don't really think there are any examples of visual novel work that can really be called (or even want to be called) 'literary fiction' since that's an accolade that has to be carried on the strength of the writing alone. People who write VNs shouldn't concern themselves with trying to write themselves into a genre that, by definition, does not take advantage of art, music and sounds. You wouldn't call a really well-written movie a piece of literary fiction.

That said, most visual novels are written as what would be described as 'genre fiction' anyway, though again I'm not sure if that's a label that applies to VNs all that well.

[trooper6]

Considering that visual novels often are used to manifest a literary genre (romance, cyberpunk, sci-fi, etc), I do think that Visual Novels certainly could fall under the category of "literary fiction." Yes, a lot of Visual Novels tend towards genre fiction, but don't have to be limited to that...and I think there are some examples that are pushing towards that definition. I think Christine Love's work trend towards literary fiction...especially Analogue, but I do know that there are college classes that have assigned Digital.

So I think it is certainly possible. You might have to push towards a different audience, but if Cave Cave Deus Videt can exist as a VN, a lot of things can exist as a visual novel.

[Vogue]

Considering that visual novels often are used to manifest a literary genre (romance, cyberpunk, sci-fi, etc), I do think that Visual Novels certainly could fall under the category of "literary fiction." Yes, a lot of Visual Novels tend towards genre fiction, but don't have to be limited to that...and I think there are some examples that are pushing towards that definition. I think Christine Love's work trend towards literary fiction...especially Analogue, but I do know that there are college classes that have assigned Digital.

So I think it is certainly possible. You might have to push towards a different audience, but if Cave Cave Deus Videt can exist as a VN, a lot of things can exist as a visual novel.

I mean, movies are labeled romantic, sci-fi and cyberpunk as well. What I'm trying to get at is that the things that separate literary fiction from genre fiction aren't well suited for the visual novel medium. That isn't to say it isn't possible to make it happen.

This is largely a semantic argument anyway. Visual novels can have value as art regardless of whether or not some critic deems them worthy of being called literary fiction.

[trooper6]

I mean, movies are labeled romantic, sci-fi and cyberpunk as well. What I'm trying to get at is that the things that separate literary fiction from genre fiction aren't well suited for the visual novel medium. That isn't to say it isn't possible to make it happen.

This is largely a semantic argument anyway. Visual novels can have value as art regardless of whether or not some critic deems them worthy of being called literary fiction.

Oh sure. There is an equivalent of literary fiction in films though, they are called alternately: drama, art film, or Oscar bait film. In TV, they go with prestige television, drama, HBO. VN's includes sound and visuals...but they also include a LOT of text. And for some, NVL style kinetic novels..The text is very central. So I think it wouldn't be completely ridiculous for someone to call their VN literary fiction. I, personally haven't decided if I like literary fiction or drama better...or art game... I don't know.

I agree that it is largely semantic...though on the other hand, those semantics signify important things when putting your work out there. It will mean something very different to potential customers if I describe my game as an "art game" than if I describe it as a "thriller."

Anyway, one more point of agreement--visual novels can be considered art with or without critical approval. But then I think all creative work is art. All of it. It might be bad art, or good art, but bad art is still art.

[Zootower]

"Literary fiction" A.K.A.: "Arbitrary Distinction" using snappy buzzwords like "Character-Driven" and "Exploration of Themes" which is what the vast majority of fiction -- genre, experimental or otherwise, achieves without special attention drawn to those particular aspects for the sake of easy categorization.

Ultimately the very topic of lit-fic runs itself into the ground in most settings because it ends up creating high-art/low-art distinctions which are increasingly out-of-vogue in most academic settings. At the end of the day, it ceases really to be a term used in serious conversations among writers and educators and starts becoming some catch-all phrase used by agressive marketers in the publishing industry.

Long story short, lit-fic needs to die a grisly death because it denies agency in the very terms it espouses for itself to other works and really does very little to establish itself firmly as a category. Take a novel like Gravity's Rainbow, for example. Or anything written by masters like Hemingway, Pynchon, and Twain along with other quality craftsmen of the English language. They would, by contemporary marketing definitions, be simultaneously lit-fic, experimental, and genre writers (I suppose maybe less so with Hemingway) so the distinctions themselves become pro forma.

[Vogue]

out-of-vogue