Stuffed Animals and Sub-Literature - A Review

I’d like to call myself a storyteller. I’m not sure if I’m good at it, because like most people who consider themselves storytellers, I’m filled with self-doubt. I’m not fishing for compliments either, I’m just my own critic.

But, as the news will tell you, you don’t have to be good at something to be something. So, regardless of my skill, I’m a storyteller.

I’ve been telling stories since I was pretty young. It started as these sorts of fantastical lies. For example, I tried to convince my parents I was adopted. Kind of hard to do since they were both there for the birth, but I did my darnedest.

Sometimes, I would lie for the fun of it. I don’t really understand why. It was compulsive I guess, but I don’t do it anymore, thankfully. Thinking back on it now, it’s extremely strange how casually I made things up. I hate myself for having done it for so long and can hardly even understand why, but, we all have quirks, one of mine just happens to be something I’m ashamed of.

But only as far as I let myself be ashamed. There’s no room for regrets, because at the time something in me made me lie, so I did. I can’t change that, I can just be better now.

But I can’t say being a liar didn’t have its perks. I’m pretty good at improv and making up stories on the fly turns out to be profitable, so long as you write it down and label it “fiction.”

I think some people think storytelling is daunting, when in reality it’s just an exercise in retelling an experience. Whether that experience is real or imaginary is your prerogative, but as long as you respect your audience and the material, the story is probably worth hearing.

Which brings me to the concept of sub-literature. Literary purists consider there to be two very distinct categories of fiction. Literary fiction, and genre fiction. Genre fiction is a massive category that contains just about any popular book you can think of. Literary fiction is stuff like Toni Morrison, Ursula K. Le Guin, and you know… Shakespeare.

But the more hardcore literature snobs and avid genre fiction readers believe in a third category, sub-literature. If you look up a list of sub-literature, you’ll find some oddities. Harry Potter is often cited as sub-literature, as is Twilight and Fifty Shades of Grey. Fan fiction is considered sub-literature, as are the copy pastas I mentioned in a previous blog. I think all of these stories have merit and informed a generation/got people reading. They all have worth in different ways and all have vastly different intended audiences, and yet, they’re lumped together.

There is no overt classification system for what distinguishes literary fiction and genre fiction. And likewise, there is no classification system for what distinguishes genre fiction from sub-literature. In the 1900s, most critics were against allowing any Science Fiction novel be considered as literary fiction. Kurt Vonnegut saw to changing that. His books were initially considered genre fiction, but as his work matured, his books began being taught in classroom.

And while the same probably won’t happen for most forms of sub-literature, there is no question that that “genre,” as it were, doesn’t inform today’s up-and-coming writers, or, at the very least, the world’s storytellers.

The reason I bring all of this up, is because I have participated in sub-literature. While I don’t write fan fiction, or participate on RP forums, I do write jokes for my friends. They’re often in the style of copypastas or are just generally wild improv streaks between the lot of us.

The first time I participated in something like this comes in the form of yearbook signings. Here’s a link to an imgur folder containing the entire story, we were in highschool, be gentle. There was no reason to writing this, except that it was fun. The story took place over three-years of yearbooks and was epistolary. We didn’t know we were participating in sub-literature, and I’m sure at the time, none of us knew what an epistolary novel was. But! We still managed to have a running gag between the three of us, it was a story that built upon itself and was created by multiple authors without sharing any insight with each other.

What does this matter, you might ask? Experimental writing starts at this level. On the ground floor, none of us expected these little yearbook messages to matter at all. I hardly even expected the joke to continue after the first year it began, but it did. And while we don’t talk often (or at all in the case of one of the writers,) whenever we do talk it’s brought up. It’s almost central to our entire friendship.

Now, I can see someone publishing the "signing page" of a bunch of yearbooks as an actual piece of literature. It wouldn't be too different from the other experimental fiction I've read, and I'd actually be interested to read something like that.

The act of shared storytelling lets us relate with one another, and while critics might call our story worthless and sub-literature, it isn’t to us. It was even meant to be anything more than fun.

So, why would anyone ever try to take that away from someone else? What are the merits of stealing success because a story doesn’t fit your mind’s categories for “art?” It seems like a waste of energy to me. Creators should be allowed to create, and sure they can be judged, but not dismissed and filed away in a box labeled do not open. That’s just pointless.