When I first began sending my work out for publication, I ignored the advice of every writer's guide, which is to look at a copy of a magazine before sending your work to it. I did this because most of the magazines I saw listed in Writer's Market were obscure and couldn't be found either on news-stands or in libraries. To order all those sample copies would have cost a mint. So I adopted the strategy one writer so memorably referred to as throwing a handful of pencils at the ceiling in the hope that one or two will stick*: I sent my fiction to magazines without looking at anything more than their writer's guidelines, or the description in Writer's Market.
After years of not getting a single story published, I recently decided it was time to change my strategy. I ordered some sample copies. And discovered, to my chagrin, that the magazines I'd been submitting to, or had planned to submit to, were loaded with stories I didn't like.
My mistake? Submitting to literary magazines. After all, Writer's Market recommends literary magazines for the new writer. They're small, they're willing to publish unknown writers, and they're looking for quality (ostensibly). But one thing I, and possibly Writer's Market as well, didn't realize is that "literary fiction" is not a synonym for good quality fiction, or polished fiction, or intelligent fiction. Literary fiction is a genre all its own.
From what I have read of the stuff thus far, I deduce that a story written in the genre of literary fiction has some or all of the following qualities:
I have no complaints about the first characteristic. Fiction should be well-written. Even the most intrinsically fascinating story will be spoiled by bad writing. Mind you, when an author gets so caught up in the production of gorgeous prose that he neglects every other aspect of storytelling, the result is even less satisfying than a good story poorly told. This does happen in the literary genre, but not often enough to be a serious problem.
An excessive focus on symbolism is more likely to be. Symbolism should emerge naturally from the subconscious during the writing of the first draft. But if the writer adds it consciously, saying to himself, "I'd better throw some symbolism in there to make it more literary," the result is liable to be neither subtle nor pleasant. This often occurs in the literary genre, since the author does want to achieve something literary. I remember a story about a boy whose mother had died. Then a dead tree fell in the backyard. The author kept juxtaposing these two elements--the boy's grief over his mother's death and his memories of her, and that dead tree in the yard. The symbolism was so obvious that the writer may as well have been beating the reader over the head with that tree.
A common side effect of excess symbolism is the deterioration of character as the story wears on. This does not tend to happen in short stories, as there is not enough time for the effect to take place. Rather, one sees it in literary novels. One in particular comes to mind. It received much critical acclaim--it was even an Oprah pick--and indeed the first half is persuasive and moving, but the second half is simply a mess. It's about a traumatized girl who grows up to be a fat woman, and towards the end there's something about a beached whale. Anybody care to guess what that whale symbolizes? That's right, it's nauseatingly obvious, and maybe that's why the main character deteriorates into a hideous, unsympathetic caricature before the novel is through.
Excess symbolism is definitely a problem, but the incomplete story disturbs me even more. And it's surprisingly common in literary fiction. Perhaps this is because so much importance is placed on character emotion, to the detriment of plot. Or perhaps it's a symptom of artistic snobbery. Perhaps literary writers feel themselves to be above the lowly, plebian goal of entertaining an audience. Whichever the reason, literary stories are often devoid of such usual features of fiction as climax and denouement.
That is to say, such stories are the opposite of Poe's "The Cask of Amontillado". Poe's story has no beginning. It is all climax, and it works brilliantly. We don't know what Fortunato did to deserve his fate, and it doesn't matter.
Where Poe's story is all end, many literary stories are all beginning. Then, since they have to conclude somehow--unlike James Joyce, they haven't the nerve to quit in the middle of a sentence--they tack on a weird little paragraph. I've never head about this paragraph in any discussion of writing theory. Perhaps it is unnamed; literary fiction's dirty little secret.
Such a paragraph has nothing to say. In fact, it's often incomprehensible. Its purpose is not to impart information, but to create an effect, like a swelling of violins. So I'll call it the violin paragraph.
Here's an example from the Fall 2000 issue of Glimmer Train. In this story, a man sips coffee as he watches workmen destroy his backyard tennis court. The man has divorced and remarried, and the destruction of the tennis court symbolizes his chucking the past away and making a fresh start. Then, at the moment it's too late, at the moment the bulldozer is tearing through the broken concrete, he has second thoughts, because he has just remembered a happy moment from his first marriage, and of course it involved a tennis court. And there it ends. Interesting perhaps, clever certainly, but a complete story? No. Hence the violin paragraph:
The bulldozer plowed ahead, pushing up wafers of green and pink that rose and fell away like ice floes. Clutching his coffee cup, he passengered along, breaking chunk by chunk through the sea.
In another story in the same issue, the writer talks about an old woman while offering up a detailed description of wormy apples. No doubt there's some sort of symbolism there, but I haven't the patience to figure it out. And the violin paragraph?
My memory fails me about the apple tree after that--as if I'd made and forgotten some sort of pledge.
I have read both these paragraphs repeatedly, trying without success to figure out what they mean. And there are other examples, too numerous to quote here. Have a look in any literary magazine or anthology, and you will find violin paragraphs on your own.
Despite the problems with the literary genre, these are the stories that win awards and critical acclaim. So what's a writer to do? Must one give up on plot and good storytelling in order to win respect? Conversely, must one give up respect and critical acclaim in order to be widely read? Literary magazines have a small readership, which does not astonish me.
My feeling is that a writer, in deciding what to write and how to write it, must look not to the outside world but within. If, despite your longing to appear in the Pushcart anthology, you really prefer to write stories in which something actually happens, do so. You may not win an award, but perhaps you'll win an audience. If, on the other hand, you most enjoy wrapping up a hefty package of symbolism and tying it off with a pretty, shiny violin paragraph, do that, and perhaps you will see your work in a Pushcart or Journey anthology one day. I do have to assume that there are people out there who like that stuff. And if one of them is reading this essay, please write and explain the appeal, because I just don't get it.
One other thing. If you're thinking of submitting to a magazine you saw mentioned in Writer's Market, do try to get a look at a sample issue, or see if you can find one of its stories in an anthology. It could save you time and postage.
*Wish I could remember where I read this, but I can't! I just know it was in one of the zillions of books of advice for writers.
So there's my first article. Did you like it? Did you hate it? Send your feedback to vivianunger@yahoo.com, or post it on my guest book.
Feb. 14, 2002