I just finished reading Stephen King's Full Dark, No Stars and I'm one of those people who always reads the acknowlegements, dedications and forwards/afterwords. (This is especially fun when you like the writer and such things are written in the author's style or voice.) I've mentioned I am a huge fan of SK and think he is an amazingly talented writer but I can't read a lot of his work because I am squeamish.
In his afterword of Full Dark, No Stars he said something that got my attention. "I have no quarrel with Literary Fiction, which usually concerns itself with extraordinary people in ordinary situations, but as both a reader and a writer, I am much more interested by ordinary people in extraordinary situations." This statement doesn't mention the words "plot" or "character", but is certainly a comment about which of them drives a story.
I am not a fan of literary fiction on the grounds that it is very realistic and therefore depressing. If I want to read about people in difficult, unfair or hopeless situations, I can read the newspaper. Where I disagree with SK is that I feel literary fiction concerns itself with ordinary people in ordinary situations; or while not everyday, common situations, ones that could easily exist . This is not uninteresting - even ordinary people are facinating in the ways they act, think and feel in many circumstances.
Even with that difference in opinion about the types of characters in literary fiction, SK and I would both agree that literary fiction is character driven and that his work is plot driven. I find that interesting and now want to explore the idea in relation to other genres, particularly Urban Fantasy and Paranormal, in my next post.
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