When you visit a library, all the books are arranged according to categories. It makes the job of finding what you want much easier than having all the books loaded onto the shelves at random.
Similarly, with online bookstores, books and e-books are arranged based on classification. All the mysteries are in one section, all the suspenseful thrillers are together, all the sweet romances are together. This is how Amazon does it. Barnes & Noble too. In fact, all digital book sellers use a classification system that groups all similar books together.
Ranking categories are based on what readers want and are looking for. Businesses exist to meet market needs, so if the buying public wants something, some enterprising business will make it available.
Take murder mysteries, for example. Knowing that the reading public loves to read murder stories, many writers have specialized in that genre. Often the reader receives descriptions of brutal murders with or without rape. The more shocking these acts are, the stronger the public reaction will be.
There are other writers who choose not to write such bloody stories. They can be about a murder or a sexual attack but without highlighting the violence, suffering or horror. It is a tragic fact that human beings around the world are raped every day, but there are writers who may or may not include such terrible things in their stories, but if they do, the evils are briefly covered.
They choose to write stories without violence. Or if a violent act is included in your story, it is not covered in detail. It is not glorified. The reader will know that someone was killed but will not be struggling with mental images of evil.
That’s what clean fiction is all about. Or more accurately, this is part of the ethos adopted by authors of clean fiction. As HL Wegley says of his stories, “descriptions and events will never be rude, graphic, or gratuitous.” He writes inspiring thrillers and high-action suspense romance novels.
Wegley is one of the authors featured on CleanSuspense.com, where books are chosen that are clean by virtue of: no bedroom scenes, no obscene language or use, and where violence (if any) is not glorified. Some of my favorite authors also avoid profanity.
Clean fiction is not so much a category of book as it is a description of the author’s writing. So clean fiction includes romance, suspense, mysteries, thrillers… even time travel. Virtually any genre can be written cleanly.