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Abstract
Popular writings are basically plot-driven and attract broad audience while literary writing is character-driven and it appeals to a smaller, and more intellectual, audience. A work of literary fiction may fall into any category but what sets it apart from pop fiction are such characteristics as excellent writing and originality of thought and treatment that elevate it above ordinary writings. Chetan Bhagat is undoubtedly a writer of popular fiction. Popular fiction is defined by a wide and varied readership that belongs to a mediocre and lowbrow category. The word ‘popular’ originally meant ‘belonging to the people’. While literary fiction aims to hold up a mirror to human condition, popular fiction aims to entertain, thrill and comfort the readers. This difference manifest itself in the plot, character, specifically language and style fictional writing. According to Chetan Bhagat, serious fiction experiments with theme, language and technique. Chetan Bhagat writes his books mainly for all readers. The young people read his novels avidly because they can easily identify themselves with the characters and situations depicted in them and with the issues articulated in a kind of English which they themselves speak and write. Unlike the literary writers, Bhagat does not use any passive sentences in his writing which makes his books such easier to understand for the readers whose English is a functional and acquired second language. His books can be read even by those who have very limited English and experience difficulty with the language.