From this post, “The Cultural Decline of Literary Fiction.”
I think the most important conclusion is that all of this is actually good news for aspiring writers: it’s not that the philistine dopamine-addled masses will never be capable of giving you the praise you deserve, it’s just that (1) basically no one is writing literary fiction and (2) the present-day norms of literary fiction mean that the general reader will never like anyone who is. Both of these problems are easier to fix than drastically changing the reading tastes of the entire population. But how will they be fixed? I’m not sure.
I don’t think magazines with short stories are ever coming back. The situation in academia will likely not improve. But I do suspect Substack will play a role in broadening norms and making it easier to write literary fiction. I think the advent of the internet, though it killed the magazines, will someday be seen as a godsend for writing. Although on the topic of technology, if LLMs or AI have any part to play in this story, it will likely not be a good one. But knowing that the fate of literature is still in the hands of writers, I’m optimistic.
If I read correctly, the typical explantations for decline in readership, especially fiction, don’t suffice.
The author says it’s a supply side issue that effects the demand side. A few pipelines to producing great literary writers have gone away:
- The magazines all went bust, relative to their height. You can’t make a living writing short stories anymore and therefore less writers are going to print. They went to TV instead (Game of Thrones, Mad Men, etc.)
- The academic track is unrealistic. Thousands of PhD’s, ~100 tenure-track positions. More academics meant more writing in the magazines, meant more writers in the pipeline.
All of this influenced the editors and publishers. They believed there were less readers out there, so they optimized their books for other critics. Status was found in inward instead of outward (book sales).
The supply side argument is interesting to me which makes the Conclusion – basically no one is writing literary fiction and if writers and editors start publishing for readers instead of critics again then there’s hope! – an exciting opportunity.
Maybe it’s time to write that novel.