what is the difference between literary fiction and commercial fiction?? part 2!

i don't think it is that clear cut. Commercial fiction tends to fall into a genre e.g. chick lit, sci fi, romance - but then some genre novels could also be literary works - e.g. HG Wells - War of the Worlds. Why is this issue of so much concern to you? If you are concerned about your writing then i would say, don't worry too much for now and just write, when you get it to a stage where you want to find a publisher then you can decide whether it is genre or not. And don't forget according to a literary writers mag Mslexia 'lite lit' which is a cross between the two is the next big thing. Juliet

Authors get reclassified (and declassified?) over time too.

Err... see my comments on the other thread, daron. Genre fiction is formula driven. Lit fiction is originality driven. I think that's the major difference. I went into it more thoroughly on the other thread.

A good way to improve your writing is to read more (particularly good books), and I think reading more would also answer these questions for you.

The answer to the original question is "no." Jack's suggestion is probably about as good as you'll get but I don't accept that 'commercial fiction' exists as a category beyond being a description of books that sell lots of copies. I don't think it really matters what category your writing falls into. This issue is largely unconnected to the bigger question of whether or not it's any good.

Just to clarify. "No" was the answer to the question in the post, rather than the one in the title.