you know you're writing literary fiction when...
...your genre is something like, "Oh, it's a drama. Well, no, not really, I guess more of a... it's more slow, so... well, in some places it could be a thrill-- okay no, um, sort of like... well it has religious themes, but it's more about socialism, and how society-- uh... I guess you could call it, like... I don't know."
...your friends read it and go "but... where's the ending?"
...there's love, but it's not romantic, it goes beyond friendship, and there are no sex scenes.
...most of the plot could be conducted having the various characters sitting together, in a blank room, just thinking.
...your latest attempt at horror morphs into a dream your MC had that is actually a symbol for their thoughts on the transience of life.
...you wind up with an assassin who has no one to kill so ends up contemplating the moon and being sarcastic at garden parties.
...the whole thing just winds up as a fascinating portrait of a fictional city and its society with glimpsed conversations between merchants, smugglers, inn keepers and drunks.
...the names of all of your characters are painstakingly-constructed anagrams for their hidden vices and virtues, yet you still have no title.
...you have a dozen or so highly developed characters, a complex and dynamic setting, and a universally meaningful and touching theme, but only the vaguest glimmer of a "plot".
...you start refering to your MC as your "protagonist".
...you have three or more characters in a single room and no dialogue for over five chapters.
...your MC can't have breakfast without drifting off into three pages of disorganised thought trails.
...you find yourself chainsmoking and muttering in angry French, even though you don't speak the language.
...the natural world becomes a character all its own AND it's better flushed out than your MC.
...you begin to understand why Hunter S. Thompson wanted to be shot out of a cannon.
(extracted from the litfic forum at nanowrimo.org)
...your friends read it and go "but... where's the ending?"
...there's love, but it's not romantic, it goes beyond friendship, and there are no sex scenes.
...most of the plot could be conducted having the various characters sitting together, in a blank room, just thinking.
...your latest attempt at horror morphs into a dream your MC had that is actually a symbol for their thoughts on the transience of life.
...you wind up with an assassin who has no one to kill so ends up contemplating the moon and being sarcastic at garden parties.
...the whole thing just winds up as a fascinating portrait of a fictional city and its society with glimpsed conversations between merchants, smugglers, inn keepers and drunks.
...the names of all of your characters are painstakingly-constructed anagrams for their hidden vices and virtues, yet you still have no title.
...you have a dozen or so highly developed characters, a complex and dynamic setting, and a universally meaningful and touching theme, but only the vaguest glimmer of a "plot".
...you start refering to your MC as your "protagonist".
...you have three or more characters in a single room and no dialogue for over five chapters.
...your MC can't have breakfast without drifting off into three pages of disorganised thought trails.
...you find yourself chainsmoking and muttering in angry French, even though you don't speak the language.
...the natural world becomes a character all its own AND it's better flushed out than your MC.
...you begin to understand why Hunter S. Thompson wanted to be shot out of a cannon.
(extracted from the litfic forum at nanowrimo.org)