Colson Whitehead Loses the Plot

For the past three years, I have taught creative-writing courses at Georgetown University, and in that time, I have come to accept something I initially found strange: The majority of my students prefer reading and writing genre fiction—sci-fi, mystery, romance—to literary fiction. (A loose explanation of the difference: Literary fiction generally resembles real life and focuses on characters, whereas genre fiction tends to rely on familiar themes and prioritizes plot.) I’d initially constructed a syllabus that was stocked with a variety of classic and contemporary literary short stories, but I soon learned that my students were keen to produce work that resembled what they were consuming outside of class: fantasy epics, apocalyptic science-fiction tales, fearless and risqué romances.

I am by no means immune to the charms of sci-fi and fantasy, though I’ve long preferred to read literary fiction because