Who knows what literature is? Few, I would guess, and probably not many care? For many, literature equates with boring, archaic, inaccessible, verbose, and most modern fiction authors seem to fail at quality stories achieved by past great literary writers. Remember The Great Gatsby, Pride and Prejudice, Wings of a Dove, A Passage to India, Wuthering Heights, A Simple Heart, The Scarlet Letter, and so many others? Much contemporary fiction seems to fade before the ink dries.

If you carefully examine differences in what has persisted as literary fiction from the past and what is being written today, interesting similarities emerge from techniques that made great writers.

Great literary fiction is often character-based. With loving care, characters are meticulously molded to engage a reader, and to induce wonder as to what will happen. The character is complex with strengths and weakness that drive the plot, or at least direct plot turns and advancement. Great literary stories always have the essence of dramatic momentum at every level of the writing and storytelling. Drama is conflict, action, and resolution, honed by imagination, talent, and intellect.

And equally as important, great literary fiction has theme and meaning. It may not be always in-your-face obvious and need not always be defined, but somewhere, something is gained from literary fiction about what it means to be human struggling in a seemingly random, unjust, and chaotic existence. Some enlightenment of both characters and readers must occur and must not be contrived and described by an author but instead must emerge through story and characterization.

I wish the goals of contemporary writers included writing fiction with intensity to bring great storytelling and writing to readers of today. Great literature needs to be created along the lines of those who built the tradition and value of fiction.

What do you think? Are there readers still searching for fiction based on established techniques of the past, or is the enjoyment and sustainability of literature as an art form doomed to extinction?

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Tags: contemporary fiction, Literary Fiction

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No matter your opinion of Flannery O'Connor's collected work, discovering the author's life will bring you to new understanding through this collection of O'Connor's letters, edited by Sally Fitzgerald.

O'Connor, a devout Catholic in rural protestant Georgia, remained unmarried, became seriously ill, and died at an early age. Writing was her life. Having the privilege of knowing O'Conner's mind–her thoughts, her fears, her doubts–will forever change your reading of her works and may even mystify you as to the loyalty of her readers and the sustainability of her stories. A reader's gem.

A writer's resource. And every reader's fountain of empathy for a life lived.

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Tags: flannery-o-connor, Literary Fiction, William H. Coles

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