Two Herds, One Cliff: The Death of Literary and Genre Fiction

--By Kirsten Weiss, Cozy Mystery Author

Photo by Yannick Pulver on Unsplash

Literature is facing a crisis, and it’s not because of AI.

And I’m not talking just about “high” literature.

The Commonwealth Scandal and What it Means

This year, the Commonwealth literary prize was given to multiple authors who have been accused of writing them with AI.

I’m compelled to write about this, not because of the possible use of AI, but because the winning story I read, published in Granta magazine, was laughably terrible.

How terrible?

Here are a sampling of some of its metaphors:

She had the kind of walking that made benches become men.

The girl smiled like sunrise over a sink.

Her hair is midnight rain; her laugh is bright as zinc.

Uh, whut?

Metaphors are tricky to write, but... What???

And it won a prize?

How did this happen?

How did this get past the judges?

I blame postmodernism, which leans hard into relativism.

When there is no objective truth, there is no good or bad writing.

(There’s also no reason to give out writing awards, but that sort of logic is out the window with postmodernist philosophy.)

In some respects, the recent scandal is a good thing. It exposes the fatal flaws in the literary academy, and gives them a shot at reform.

Whether they will reform is in question, but at least the problem has been identified.

But the Commonwealth scandal proves that when you strip away standards, even the “elite” end up producing nonsense.

And in genre fiction, when you strip away originality, you end up with a sea of interchangeable pulp.

The only difference is that literary fiction wears a tuxedo while stumbling drunkenly off the cliff.

Genre Fiction is at a Tipping Point Too

As a low-brow cozy mystery author, I admit there is a little schadenfreude in my critique.

But genre fiction has its own problems, and they’re not entirely the fault of AI either.

The problem is us.

The conferences, the workshops, the mastermind groups, all encourage authors to copy what’s worked in the past—chasing the same hot tropes, algorithms, and marketing techniques—because... They’ve worked in the past.

Authors made good money doing this.

But it just created a pile-up of “same but slightly different” stories, hollowed-out creators, and books that neither touch the soul nor surprise the mind.

Writers are creating carbon copies of carbon copies, and the words are getting fainter, flatter, less interesting.

AI—which can only copy, not create—is accelerating this trend.

At first glance, the literary academy’s postmodern free-fall and genre fiction’s trope-chasing factory seem like opposite problems.

But they’re not.

Both stem from the same disease: the abandonment of quality in favor of something easier.

Literary fiction replaced good writing with clever posturing.

Genre fiction replaced original stories with market-tested formulas.

In both cases, the result is the same—work that doesn’t move, surprise, or last.

Genre Fiction’s Copyist Strategy Will Ultimately Fail. It Has to.

René Girard’s mimetic theory explains why.

In crowded markets, writers (and companies) imitate each other with the same covers, pricing, style, and narratives, driving down profits in a mimetic arms race.

This herd-like imitation leads to destructive competition, conformity, and, ultimately, destroys the very thing that once made a book, genre, or product valuable.

Genre fiction—from cozy mystery to romantasy— is in the grip of the mimetic beast.

Has been for years.

And it’s eating writers alive.

The only way to beat it is to not play—to resist the crowd and to create something original.

Not every original idea will be a winner, but at least writers won’t be doomed to lose in the mimetic marketplace.

The mimetic herd’s current desire is genre fiction that’s been dumbed down and sexed up, that makes no emotional or intellectual demands on the reader.

Now, there’s always been trash in pulp fiction, but there were greats too, like Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett.

Chandler and Hammett succeeded by refusing to follow the herd.

Literary fiction, under postmodernism’s spell, has just found a fancier way to join one.

Because postmodernism isn’t just the literary academy’s philosophical dead-end—it’s a mimetic trap too.

If there’s no “good” or “bad,” then everyone’s just guessing, and the safest guess is to copy the last person who won an award.

Sound familiar?

Genre fiction’s trope-chasing is postmodernism with a spreadsheet.

Both are herds, just running in different pastures.

The literary herd chases prestige; the genre herd chases algorithms.

But the outcome is the same: a race to the bottom where the only winners are the ones who refuse to run.

AI didn’t kill writing.

We did.

Literary fiction killed itself with pretension. Genre fiction is killing itself with repetition.

The bottom of the cliff awaits.

The only question is whether we’ll roll into it or turn around and write our way out.