What even is literary?

What even is literary? What makes a book literary? Who decides what literary means? And why are non-literary books practically shunned?

I first was taught that some more are held with much higher esteem than others when I was in middle school. A classmate was looking for more of a challenge, so our teacher gave her "Great Expectations."

I spend all of high school in advanced academic and advanced placement classes, reading upper-level novels from "The Crucible" to "The Great Gatsby" to "The Lord of the Flies." All of college, both my undergraduate and graduate degrees, were about the same: "Macbeth," "The Canterbury Tales," "Dante's Inferno." 

The higher my education went, the further the idea of "What Is Literary" was drilled into our heads. Yes, we were also taught that it isn't all just old, dead, white men. But Literary was rarely romance. And it was certainly never anything close to steamy. And don't even get anyone academic started on fanfiction.

I first started writing fanfiction in middle school. My friend and I would write in our notebooks in homeroom, study hall, and lunch. We would then pass our stories around to all of our friends. I eventually moved to Quizilla (anyone remember that one?--it was the predecessor to Wattpad). I kept writing fanfiction until college when I was told it was inferior and people who respected literature would never dare write it, let alone read it. 

Coincidentally, I discovered Archive of our Own and FanFiciton.net while studying for my graduate degree. Having just read the Harry Potter series for the very first time, I was interested in knowing more and discovering how other people interpreted different characters/scenes/relationships. That's when I discovered smut. Ohhhh, dirty, dirty smut.

But let's back up a bit and connect fanfiction to "What Is Literary" a bit, because I'll bet a ton of my professors didn't know exactly where or when fanfiction started and how deeply rooted it is in the literary world, both past and present.

One of the very first instances of fanfiction happened 130ish years ago, following you'll-never-guess-this the Sherlock Holmes stories. The first Sherlock stories were instant hits, so much so, that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle tried killing the detective off multiple times (hence Moriarty and Reichenbach Falls) because he was capital-d Done writing him and wanted to do something else. However all of England mourned and protested so much so, that Doyle was practically forced to bring Sherlock back. One of Doyle's friends, none other than J.M. Barrie (the author of Peter Pan), wrote several Sherlock stories of his own (sadly, none of it was JohnLock material); and thus, fanfiction was born.

Some other famous texts that had it's origins in fanfiction: "Fifty Shades of Gray" was Twlight fanfiction; "After" was One Direction fanfiction; "The City of Bones" was Harry Potter fanfiction; and if you want to get technical, "Paradise Lost" was Bible fanfiction (bet my professors didn't think of that when they assigned it was reading material ;) ).

Then there are all of the books that outlived their copyright dates, allowing authors to reimagine or rewrite said texts. For example: "Wicked" was "Wizard of Oz" rewritten; "Pride, Prejudice, and Zombies" was "Price and Prejudice" rewritten; "Circe" was "The Odyssey" rewritten; then there's all of the fairy tales and famous fables rewritten into several classes texts as well as movies. Technically all fanfiction.

In the past few years, my fanfiction obsession went from unpublished stuff online to Rainbow Rowell's "Carry On," discovering in all of my fanfiction reading that low and behold, there was actual published books had queer romantic pairings. I didn't know that there were books out there with main characters that were gay. Like, blindly idiotic of me, yes, but it was like opening up the back of my closet and reaching Narnia. I read so many young adult novels since then within these genre categories. 

Around that time, I was hearing from my grad professors the idea of New Adult literature. It was not quite young adult and not quite adult, but a weird mix of the two, and it leaned into the erotica genre. All in all, we were told to stay clear of it, because it wasn't Literary or respectable, and we would certainly never get published if we even mentioned it. 

A few years after I graduated, I accidentally (much like I discovered "Carry On") stumbled upon the Game Changers series by Rachel Reid. It was more of what I had been leaning into. The queer romances I had loved so much, plus a little bit of that dirty, dirty smut from all of my fanfiction reading.

A lot of fanfiction has a sexual nature. Not all of it, not even close to all of it, but it's important to a lot of fans. Being so comfortable and close to our favorite characters helps make us feel comfortable and safe, and it makes us happy knowing that they get romance and a happily ever after (I totally meant that as in HEA not as in the ya-know, mind-in-the-gutter, sex-joke way).

Growing up, my mom, like oh so many, read those cheap books you can find at the drug store with scantily-clad-dressed damsels-in-distress on it being held by a Fabio figure: bodice rippers. And then, all of a sudden, I found books like that of my own. And they were so much more than I thought erotic was, of what I was told it was. It had deep relationships and real-world problems, it had learning moments and growing moments, it was dark and angsty and happy and bubbly.

Rachel Reid led me to Eden Finely and Lucy Lennox and May Archer and so, so, soooooo many more authors and books and series that are exactly that: gay and steamy and angsty and filled with HEAs. I've read over 500 books within this narrow but constantly growing genre. Another fucking Narnia, but a bigger and brighter one.

Why is it even called dirty smut? What's so fucking dirty about it? And why are people ashamed to read them? These authors certainly aren't ashamed to write them. "Guilty Pleasure"? Why feel guilty about something that makes you happy? I've learned sooooooo much about the LGBT+ community, about people, about myself from these books. They made me indescribably happy. I might sob my eyes out, but I also laugh out loud.

Over the years, fanfiction has become more socially acceptable, well, for the most part. Authors are writing books about fandoms and being a fangirl/fanboy. Fanfiction is getting turned into "legitimate" novels, many of which are also being turned into movies. Cons are more and more common, both in having them and going to them.

Erotica is becoming more than more prominent. I keep finding more and more series/books/authors to read; it's a never-ending pool of texts to discover. All of the themes and pairings, all of the different genders and sexualities and expressions, all of the make-ups and proposals, all of the tropes and cliches and happily ever afters. Even straight erotica has been booming over the years, thanks to books like "The Love Hypothesis."

So again, I'll ask, what even is literary? What makes a book literary? Who decides what literary means? And why are we reading books that make us unhappy just because it's more "socially acceptable?" 

Thank your coming to my TedTalk.

#literary #whatevenisliterary #fanfiction #books #queerbooks #queererotica #bodicerippers #bookstagram #bookphotography #ilovebooks