UPMARKET FICTION

 

If you’ve heard the term, you might have wondered what it is. There’s a good post on Upmarket Fiction here.

 

But this post is about what it is to me, personally.

 

Upmarket, the sort of fiction that holds supreme commercial potential while also manages to be literary, is what I aim for every time I sit down to write.

 

Upmarket is what most agents want to represent.

 

Upmarket is most publishers’ dream: strong sales potential while also gaining the prestige of literary awards and bragging rights of association.

 

Upmarket is this magical straddler that has one foot in the rarified and another in the common.

 

Upmarket may be the tallest order of them all.

 

I continue to work on it— never quite there on either mountain top, but not for lack of striving.

 

Let’s face it: upmarket must be simple linguistically (commercial) while elegant (literary). Plots must move in rapid clip (commercial) while layered (literary). Themes must be basic (commercial) while holding philosophical heft (literary).

 

Try climbing two mountains at once this way, one foot on either. It’s mechanically impossible.

 

 

But the word “impossible” is another to forget, because here I go again, always trying.

©Toni McCorkle