Literary novels with themes of family, relationships, mortality, personal exploration, and quiet emotions get reviewed in The Guardian and are included on university reading lists. Odd speculative fiction sort of goes underground and doesn't often appear in WHSmiths, but is very fun to write.
I write this based on feedback I had from someone about a short story I knocked out and also the first six thousand words of my current novel in progress:
"[...]when I was reading your short story with the lovely/grosse [sic] worm and time in hospital that was tonally [sic] like reading a literary book. The introduction of humour / fantasy in that world would have been brilliant, but it would have still remained a literary book because it was so well grounded whereas this one [current work in progress] feels like a comic fantasy novel which I reckon is a shame if you can do the other one."
I actually like the idea of a comic fantasy novel. I like silliness juxtaposed against horror a.k.a. tragicomedy. I like comic books. I like things like Kick Ass, JTHM, Ghost World, The League of Gentlemen, Psychoville, and Jasper Fforde's books. Is that 'low' fiction compared to literary fiction?
So, go with gut or go with highbrow?
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