Every single one of those is either SF or Fantasy.
There are a lot of artsy lovers of literature out there who hate exactly those genres, and who have a burning passion to fix all the (perceived) flaws which (in their view) come baked into them.
As I see it, that’s a big part of the problem: For the last century “a writer” was always “the literary type”. There were some nerds who pretended to be writers. And those wrote pulp, SF, fantasy, and comics. Those were not real writers. You wouldn’t hire one of those, if you wanted to have a real, well crafted story. At least that has been a rather common prejudice for the last 100 years or so.
And now, all of a sudden (over the last 20 years), the most popular franchises, generating the most income, all turned into SF and Fantasy, while eating everything else in their path.
In that context, I don’t think the current situation is all that surprising. If you want to hire “a real writer”, there is a good chance that you will hit one who despises what writers were taught to despise for the last hundred years. In an unlucky twist for everyone involved, that also happens to be what they now have to write.
Do you notice a pattern?
Every single one of those is either SF or Fantasy.
There are a lot of artsy lovers of literature out there who hate exactly those genres, and who have a burning passion to fix all the (perceived) flaws which (in their view) come baked into them.
As I see it, that’s a big part of the problem: For the last century “a writer” was always “the literary type”. There were some nerds who pretended to be writers. And those wrote pulp, SF, fantasy, and comics. Those were not real writers. You wouldn’t hire one of those, if you wanted to have a real, well crafted story. At least that has been a rather common prejudice for the last 100 years or so.
And now, all of a sudden (over the last 20 years), the most popular franchises, generating the most income, all turned into SF and Fantasy, while eating everything else in their path.
In that context, I don’t think the current situation is all that surprising. If you want to hire “a real writer”, there is a good chance that you will hit one who despises what writers were taught to despise for the last hundred years. In an unlucky twist for everyone involved, that also happens to be what they now have to write.