Category choice in creative writing

Abstract

Would-be writers of fiction face choices as soon as they start thinking about how to get published: What sort of a work is this? Where will the book sit on the shelf? What does the publisher tell the reader about what to expect? And then, where does it sit in company of other works, and where do you sit in the company of other writers? This paper examines three such questions of category choice: plot versus character, genre versus literary, psychology versus philosophy. It asks how do writers – and audiences – make sense of a work of fiction, and with what implications for the process of writing? It suggests how writers might use the differences between them to enhance the experience of reading beyond the expectations set by the categories to which the works have been placed.