A label such as 'good fiction' means an awful lot of things; what's good for me in any one moment varies with my mood. A lot of terribly 'good' fiction is no sort of light read, and sometimes that's all I want. I would have said literary fiction answered questions of life - made moral standpoints, etc. But I don't have nearly such good a handle on it as poet Annie Neugebauer who just addressed this question on her blog... http://annieneugebauer.com/2012/05/07/what-is-literary-fiction/
But Suraya asks about 'good fiction'. I agree with Neugebauer that a lot of 'good fiction' is not literary. For me, it's fiction that is well written; fiction that causes me to reread passages a second time to look at the construction. I'm in awe sometimes at the way a writer can use such simple tools - common words - to create magic.
Good, fiction is all it takes to make a discussion serious...
I'd be interested to see how people define 'good' fiction.
A label such as 'good fiction' means an awful lot of things; what's good for me in any one moment varies with my mood. A lot of terribly 'good' fiction is no sort of light read, and sometimes that's all I want. I would have said literary fiction answered questions of life - made moral standpoints, etc. But I don't have nearly such good a handle on it as poet Annie Neugebauer who just addressed this question on her blog... http://annieneugebauer.com/2012/05/07/what-is-literary-fiction/
But Suraya asks about 'good fiction'. I agree with Neugebauer that a lot of 'good fiction' is not literary. For me, it's fiction that is well written; fiction that causes me to reread passages a second time to look at the construction. I'm in awe sometimes at the way a writer can use such simple tools - common words - to create magic.