That giant neko

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But you should also remember that, in the end, readers can decide whether they like it or not.

Alright, and what if they do not lke it?

If it doesn't bother you, good. But then you have some people who bitch and complain that no one pays attention to them.

ZionAtriedes wrote:

I write for myself, but I try to consider others as well. Without readers, an author has no recognition. What I am trying to say isn't that writing for yourself is bad. You should write for you. But you should also remember that, in the end, readers can decide whether they like it or not.

But at the same time, you are the one who knows how your story should go, not the fans.

Okay, there is a spectrum here, people who write for themselves and those who write for others. Those who write for themselves are people who write what they want because it makes them feel good to have their ideas put down. Those who write for others gain joy in sharing their ideas with others and getting an audience. Most people are a bit of both, so it becomes a balancing act. When you are the first you don't have to care about your audience, you don't really have much of one, on the other hand the latter you HAVE to respect your audience or you wont have one for long.

An author who writes something and discounts what the audience and looses readers, then they have only themselves to blame. If you are a writer and you do not take your audience into account then you will starve. If you do it as a hobby and don't expect anything to come of it, then hey that's good for you, but don't expect people to care.

Now for one side of this to call the other side "para-literature" is immature. BOTH sides are valid, to say otherwise makes you an elitist prat, please don't be like that. Understanding that no every one does things the same way you do or for the same reasons is called being mature. I do not like Twilight, I could go on about the reasons, but you know what! its written for young girls, and it sells to its audience. If I was to attack it I would do so for the message it sells, not that the vampires "twinkle". Well okay, I would, but not seriously. On the other hand calling Harry Potter "para-literature" I just find insulting.

document yourself a bit asa, and youll see what para-literature is. para-literature isnt an insult, its a fact.

Krisexy26 wrote:

document yourself a bit asa, and youll see what para-literature is. para-literature isnt an insult, its a fact.

ITT: Opinion = Fact

i didnt quite understand your post aisu

I'm saying that in this thread, opinion is now fact.

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paraliterature, the category of written works relegated to the margins of recognized literature and often dismissed as subliterary despite evident resemblances to the respectable literature of the official canon. Paraliterature thus includes many modern forms of popular fiction and drama: children's adventure stories, most detective and spy thrillers, most science fiction and fantasy writing, pornography and women's romances, along with much television and radio drama.

its not an exact exact definition, but its a start.

no, its a mater of opinion that people excuse as a "fact" to espouse their side of an argument with out using any real basis in solid logic and have to fall back onto fallacy. Sorry but that Harry Potter is amazing children's literature, that the general populaces likes it and not some "literature elite" don't diminishes it nothing. They often like Faulkner, and I find that to be some the most horrible stuff I have ever seen written, you know what that's called? Opinion, thus it can not be "fact", its just opinion.

I am referring to the post I quoted. You stated that:

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para-literature isnt an insult, its a fact.

It is in fact someone's opinion if something is "paraliterature." It can not be stated as a fact, as anyone can have a differing opinion, and any doing of so is highly fallacious.

call it opinion if you want, paraliterature does really exist. children literature is far, far, FAR from being a real literature. im sorry but the difference between the degree of intellect between J.K. Rowling and Kafka is just too immense. one is better than the other. i also at first disagreed with it because it meant that the lord of the rings was also a paraliterature. but its serious, it exists, theres an institute that regroups many many authors around the world that categorize books in:

-Literature (Hugo, Baudelaire, Kundera, Balzac, Rimbaud)
-Paraliterature (Meyer, Rowling, Paolini, King) (I will not mention lotr because there are talkings about making it literature)
-Non-literature (Dictionaries, Encyclopedias, Cooking book)

LORD OF THE RINGS MAYBE BEING LITERATURE?

It is the, not one of, but THE most influential piece of fiction today. Just because it wasn't written half a millennium ago by someone with another version of English doesn't mean touty-fouty, high-nosed elitists can look down on it.

Kris, those are still opinions.

They may be the opinions of a literature institute, but they are still FUCKING OPINIONS!

Furthermore, what little I've found on this "Paraliterature" term makes me believe it is some faux-academic jargon used by those who don't understand what "Rhetoric" is.

okay black aquila, just ask a literature teacher about paraliterature, he'll answer you quite easily. it is mostly accepted.

and maybe lotr has been influencal, but it has huge caracteristics that makes it paraliterature.

Yes, those are opinions.

Highly elitist opinions.

And you only listed French authors in your Literature list, so possibly ethnocentric, as well.

Kris, what is literature?

kundera is from Czech, though yeah he lived in france. and i listed french authors because i like them the most. but i can give you swift, Poe is talkable, Borges is limit, umberto eco is just fantastic, shakespeare is a top guy, brown is literature too.

I'm requesting that a new thread be made do discuss this topic of literature. This isn't the topic that this thread was made for. It's against forum rules to derail a thread like this.
If a moderator could move the relevant posts from this thread too, that would help.

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Kris, what is literature?

Eh eh eh, i absolutely do not know

Everytime people come across something, an author comes in and write a literary book that is just completely agaisnt the definition they came across

so im kinda vague with my definition: Literature with a big L is something (that is the vague thing) that contains every single book written in History.

No, its not really, its part of one group trying to say that they are better than another group and getting people to go along with it. There is no single group that gets to define what is or is not actual Literature, what there is are people who have opinions who try to force others to accept it as fact. The reason for the term "para literature" is so that the logic fallacies of "poisoning the wells" "and "ad Hominem" could be used with "authority". In truth is gives them NO baises for FACT, it just makes them elitists snobs.

Do you consider Tolken, HG Wells, Asimov, HP Lovecraft, or Arther C Clark, Literature? Any single one of these have had more impact on the world than Baudelaire, Kundera, Balzac, Rimbaud and Kafka COMBINED! This assumes that what is Literature is biased off the impact it has on the world, the same still applies if you consider Literature being biased on who many people read it. If you base it on how old it is, then that's stupid, and if its biased on writing style then its also stupid.

edit: sorry AJ, I was writing this and posted before you posted.

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Any single one of these have had more impact on the world than Baudelaire, Kundera, Balzac, Rimbaud and Kafka COMBINED

i have to highly disaprove this statement. now this is a self-centered-english speaking person statement that think they are better than anyone. im sorry, but the people who the biggest impact on literature are Baudelaire and Flaubert when they respectively wrote Les Fleurs du Mal and Madame Bovary in 1857. both are from france, and i do not even live there.

Even though only one of those authors listed is American, yeah, it's obviously an attempt by an American trying to prove our superiority.

H.P.Lovecraft is the only American on that list. All others on that list are non Americans.

myeah i also edited my post