Today’s post on how to transcend genre in fiction is authored by Igor da Silva Livramento, friend and fellow writer, academic, and creative-writing advisor. He’s also a composer, music theorist, and producer. You can find him on LinkedIn, and also take a look at his blog and his page on Bandcamp.
In today’s entry, I will discuss (albeit quickly) something that has bothered me for a long time: The genre/literary fiction split. I’ll try to propose solutions for that, including some writing exercises to get those creative juices flowing on our way to transcending genreBy the way I phrased it, you may notice I consider literary fiction a genre too. Food for thought, eh?.
The light, the composition, and the colors of this photo, all point in specific directions in terms of affective response. Genre isn’t very different. But just as we can transcend the qualitative nature of affective responses in a photo, so we can transcend those of genre(more…)
This review of The Perfect Gray is obviously not mine – though it would’ve been an interesting exercise to try to review my own novel. Still, this particular review of The Perfect Gray is offered by my friend and fellow academic, author, and creative-writing advisor, Igor da Silva Livramento. Check out his papers on Academia.edu, his music on Bandcamp, and his personal musings on his blog – in Portuguese, Spanish/Castilian, and English. You can also find him on LinkedIn.
Important Note: At the beginning of the process, when I asked Igor if he’d like to review The Perfect Gray, I set down two imperative requirements: i) he would have complete editorial freedom; ii) similarly, he would have full freedom to critique The Perfect Gray as he objectively saw it. What follows from this point on, is his personal, independent review of The Perfect Gray as he saw it. I have only offered some very minor formatting recommendations, for consistency within the blog. I have also suggested the added links to other blog posts.
The Perfect Gray Novel
Unassuming title, aye? To be fair, it is accurate by my book (pun intended).
I must admit: I didn’t expect it to be such a good novel. I simply had to drop everything I was reading to beat The Perfect Gray as quickly as possible. It had been over a year since I’d read something so intense, exciting, memorable – simply unforgettable.
So, here we are… A new literary-fiction novel – though, hey, what’s so “novel” about a novel? The Perfect Gray is a project I began almost as an exercise. The idea came soon after I wrote the post on concept fiction. Quite frankly, I had absolutely no plan in mind regarding plot or characters, which of course is the whole point behind concept fiction.
At 70,000 words, The Perfect Gray is within the usual range of literary fiction word counts, yet I still find it a bit surprising how little it took me to complete it – about 5 weeks.
What is it about? I’ll let one of the character in The Perfect Gray to answer that:
It’s always hard for writers to tell you what their book is about. But I think you’ll like it.
