2. Commercial Fiction: Seeks to entertain Best sellers Bodice Rippers Mystery Provides an opportunity for escape Reduces Stress Provides enjoyment Make money Goal: Take us AWAY from the world

3. Also provides enjoyment but authors hope to:  Broaden, deepen, and sharpen the reader’s awareness of life  Provide a lasting intellectual pleasure  Take us more deeply into life  Create a sense of empathy with others  Enable us to understand the complexities of life

4. For instance, Charles Dickens wrote novels like, A Christmas Carol, which provided marvelous sales and income + entertainment but is seldom classified as literary fiction. On the other hand, novels like, Hard Times and David Copperfield, provided entertainment and a deeper look into the human condition. These novels are considered literary fiction.

5.  The value of literature does not reside in the presence or absence of a “moral”  Whether a novel or story includes “facts” does not necessarily define the literary weight. For example: Good historical novels provide many facts but may only depict the shallowest look at human nature…

6.  Commercial fiction can appear to be very realistic and portray everyday scenes and situations but …lack any depth of presentation beyond the reality.  A tale full of wizardry and flying men may, on the other hand, reveal some surprising truths. For example: Detective novels-- Realistic and escapist Bloodchild by Octavia Butler about futuristic beings who require a surrogate to reproduce reveals profound thoughts on the nature of slavery

7.  Happily Ever After  Rabbits  Happy Endings  Duex ex Machina (Think Frankie Avalon in Grease)  Plot Manipulation (Think—why can the bad guys in, say Die Hard, not hit the side of a barn?)  Beautiful heroines/hunky heroes  Vicarious Expectations Big Blue Bow

8.  Explorers  Wow—human beings are so complex  Dispel stereotypes  Dispel illusions  Seek to empathize with characters see, feel, and understand them better  Illuminate human behavior  Create original characters and situations

9.  Carefully—At least twice First time to familiarize; second more slowly  Expectantly-Seek to find the writer’s purpose  Engagingly-involve yourself intellectually and emotionally  Open-mindedly-suspend your doubts and expectations while reading  Expect the unexpected  Realize the unsettling outcomes, challenging ideas, and questions = Real Life

10.  To learn to get the most from whatever we read  To learn to chose wisely—what books/stories will give the greatest “return” on our investment of time and attention  To learn the elements of fiction (and poetry)  To learn to explore fiction as an “indispensible source of knowledge” to better understand the world, and ultimately yourselves

11. A)Bellyache B)Gas C)Weight gain D)Poor health E)Heartburn F)Diabetes G)And so on …

12.  We expect only happy endings, happily ever after, and big blue bows  We are poor bullet dodgers (emotional and real)  We expect our significant others to be flawless (and shirtless…)  We are unable to relate to people outside our realm of experience  Our minds and hearts are far less engaged