I think this is really interesting when thinking about romance. Romance is already probably the most character-driven of commercial fictions, but when romance goes upmarket, it tends to underdevelop one of the leads at the expense of the other.
There is also a suspension of disbelief that the romance genre enjoys, and upmarket often tries…
I think this is really interesting when thinking about romance. Romance is already probably the most character-driven of commercial fictions, but when romance goes upmarket, it tends to underdevelop one of the leads at the expense of the other.
There is also a suspension of disbelief that the romance genre enjoys, and upmarket often tries to be "above" needing that, but still wants to have the same emotional response, which doesn't work as well.
That is really interesting to think about as a particular commercial genre intersects with upmarket features and what gets lost in the genre when it goes upmarket.
I think suspense and crime tend to intersect well because deeper and more nuanced character work don't undermine the plotting. Romance, though, may be a different beast.
Lots of writing branded crime fiction thrives on people centred protagonists (as opposed to character or meat-puppet focussed. I’m thinking of The Garnethill trilogy by Denise Mina, The Cutting Room by Louise Welsh and Kate Atkinson’s earlier Jackson Brodie books). There’s lots of closure (arguably the whole point of crime fiction) too. I speak as someone who did a module on Women Crime Writers during my BA and then read almost nothing but crime fiction for 20 odd years.
I do like literary fiction more now - but you are right about their being something unsatisfactory about a lot of upmarket/best selling stuff
I think this is really interesting when thinking about romance. Romance is already probably the most character-driven of commercial fictions, but when romance goes upmarket, it tends to underdevelop one of the leads at the expense of the other.
There is also a suspension of disbelief that the romance genre enjoys, and upmarket often tries to be "above" needing that, but still wants to have the same emotional response, which doesn't work as well.
That is really interesting to think about as a particular commercial genre intersects with upmarket features and what gets lost in the genre when it goes upmarket.
I think suspense and crime tend to intersect well because deeper and more nuanced character work don't undermine the plotting. Romance, though, may be a different beast.
Lots of writing branded crime fiction thrives on people centred protagonists (as opposed to character or meat-puppet focussed. I’m thinking of The Garnethill trilogy by Denise Mina, The Cutting Room by Louise Welsh and Kate Atkinson’s earlier Jackson Brodie books). There’s lots of closure (arguably the whole point of crime fiction) too. I speak as someone who did a module on Women Crime Writers during my BA and then read almost nothing but crime fiction for 20 odd years.
I do like literary fiction more now - but you are right about their being something unsatisfactory about a lot of upmarket/best selling stuff