Have you ever sat down
for a meal and wanted to savor your food because you’ve never tasted anything
so good? Well, if you’re new to literary fiction, or can never seem to “get
into it,” this is how you should try approaching it.
Think of the book as a
meal with intricate scents, flavors and textures that you can’t quite recognize
unless you spend a little more time with it, and give it a little more of your
attention. Because, trust me, sitting down a little longer than usual, to enjoy
your meal, can be liberating.
Sensory information is,
more often than not, a huge focus in literary works. Literary fiction,
unfortunately, gets a bad rap for all the description it uses. This makes me
sad because I adore it. I never used
to. But then I realized I wasn’t reading it for the right reasons.
I’m convinced that
some people think it’s boring because their expectations are all wrong. Most
literary works are not heavy on plot. It exists, but it is not usually the main
focus. Primarily, the focus is on character and theme. So you cannot expect to
pick up a literary novel and become so caught up in the story that you can’t
bear to put it down. But so what? Each reading experience should be different,
and should inspire you in different ways. So, before you dismiss the idea of
reading another literary novel, because the last one you read was so boring you
couldn’t keep your eyes open, try taking a different approach.
Try to focus on the
small things, page by page, rather than the book as a whole. Allow yourself to
not finish the book “this week” because you’ve signed up to the Goodreads Book Challenge and need to
maintain your momentum. Life is not about numbers, folks. It’s about quality.
Give yourself that extra week to read a literary novel and you’ll discover the abundant
beauty and importance of unique phrasing, character development, theme and
symbolism, and how all these elements can effortlessly blend together to create
a masterpiece; to create an atmosphere rarely found in the commercial works
that can be gobbled up in one sitting. Focusing on these things is going to
make your writing better. And you can
learn to entwine, even if in the smallest of doses, a little more magic into
your prose. And you never know, by not focusing on the story line, you may find
you’ll actually enjoy reading something that lacks the pace you’re used to. If
you give your brain the opportunity to accept the difference, you give it room
to enjoy the difference.
Take this amazing line
from Marilynne Robinson’s, Housekeeping,
which is well-known among my peers, as my most favorite book of all time:
“It was the kind of loneliness that
made clocks seem slow and loud and made voices sound like voices across water.”
Isn’t this just so
beautiful?
Read it again. Slowly.
Out loud. Now, picture it. What other senses does this conjure? Can you hear
the loud and slow clock ticking? Its echo crossing a flat lake trying to reach
the disappearing voices of loved ones you wished existed? The still and
stifling warm air at dusk? Your heartbeat in your ears? The emptiness in your
chest? The melancholia you can’t seem to place? An amazing comparison to
loneliness, don’t you think?
You can do this in
your work. By reading a bit more literary fiction, you can discover small
beauties like this one. You can then practice taking someone’s breath away in
your own writing. Give your manuscript that extra touch of character, of magic,
of prose so well crafted that others will wish they could write like you. Now …
wouldn’t that just be an amazing accomplishment? To write a page turner that
makes a reader’s mouth water too?
Tell me, do you read literary fiction? Why/Why
not? If you’ve given up on literary fiction in the past, do you think you might
like to give it another go now?
Leaving the Hall Light On by Madeline Sharples
So excited. I've been waiting for FROM STAGE DOOR SHADOWS to come out for about a year, because inside is a story of mine I could never in a million years have imagined I could write. Not only is it my first ever speculative piece of fiction, but it's also the first I ever wrote to a strict prompt: a line from a song lyric, "L.A. Lady".
