By Slanted Light

Sorry to take so long to get back! *g*

I do think pure genre fic - very run-of-the-mill crime, romance, etc. is unlikely to be literature by anyone's standards.
Hmmn - but then that sounds to me as if the basis for not being included as literature is the fact that it's run-of-the-mill rather than because it's defined as genre. Comes back to that elusive thing - what's good writing and does that make something "literature" or does the opposite, at least, disqualify it from the possibility of being "literature"...

both could be in danger of being dismissed as m/m genre
Hmmn - but that depends on whether a reader has defined "m/m" as a "genre" in their head. I don't, for instance! Well, except for that particular m/m romance "genre", which I rarely even try and read after having been continually let down by it. So now I read books, and if some of the books involve m/m relationships instead of f/m, well they're still just books. I guess I'm not mad on the idea of labelling anything in this or that "genre", because there should ideally be all kinds of cross-over between genres, and... well, and I just hate labelling and boxing things up... *g*

Publishable writing
Heee - I'd say there was a huge difference between "publishable" and "published", it's just that publishers don't always take note... *g*

If it's just more about your favourite characters then yes, it probably falls short of literature. But when some writers place those characters in different settings and see how they cope (e.g. Birdwatchers Guide), or write semi-metaphysical stuff like yours where they're waiting to see what will happen in heaven, then I think literature is a possibility hovering in the wings.
Interesting... (and hah - I'd forgotten about that fic! *g*) I think we'll divide here again - "more about your favourite characters" could absolutely be literature in my book (so to speak *g*), depending on what that "more" is. Just the pretty pr0n? Well, no... but as you say there are fanfic writers out there who write much more deeply than that, so that you end up considering the outside world that the lads (whichever lads) or lasses deal with. Hmmn - would seeing how the lads cope in different settings define literature...? I'm not sure - I suppose it depends how the different settings are dealt with, as much as the coping... and whether an author writes something that makes us think about the world around the lads (or after the lads *g*), or just the lads themselves! Trying to think of anything I'd think of as borderline "literature" in fanfic, now... well, maybe Rhiannon's Larton stories, of course! They leave us as much with an idea of the lads world as of what the lads are doing, and make me wonder about it... but then that's coming back to the definition I've been making up of literature as something that tells you more about the world and/or human nature...

...plus, enough rambling cos I have to get back to work (stoopid day) but yeay musing and rambling and thinky-thoughts!