I've been blogging about how to make any piece of writing more literary or meaningful. There are different kinds of power in fiction. If the power that runs your fictional universe, the power that makes your characters able to do what they do, is technology-based, you likely have a variant of science fiction (hard or soft sci-fi, steampunk, etc). If magic, even simple magic like magical realism, runs your world, you have something like unto fantasy. If there's a combination, it may be fantasy sci-fi, which could include superheroes. But regardless of what shapes the power in your world, your actual story must have some kind of actual human drives, actual social power, or your story will fall flat and have little meaning.
Most authors know that the source of power that drives your fictional world dictates the genre, but if that's all the power your story features, your story will be forgettable, sometimes unreadable. It's easy to see that love and other social impulses drive romance and women's fiction. Social pressures and social commentary drive most literary fiction. Think of everything from Shakespeare to Bronte to Austen to Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird to modern fiction. One can have long and extensive discussions about what social pressures, character drives, meanings, and literary devices affect the characters and the narrative.
However, genre fiction often gets a bad reputation because it will many times lack anything deeper than a story about a mage with a wand, a knight fighting a dragon, a super fighting a monster, or something like that. If it's all plot and no depth, what is the point in telling that story? Even if you come up with clever and unique conceits and twists, how will it impact the reader or the world?
This doesn't have to be. Think of Shakespeare's Tempest. The main character was a mage whose assistants could be classed as a fairy and an inhuman creature. The tempest in the title is the result of his magic. Centuries of people have debated the deeper meanings and symbolism of this play. Most if not all of modern fantasy novels can trace their roots to the popular and literary Lord of the Rings series. Many social messages can easily be interpreted from children's fantasy like Peter Pan and Wizard of Oz. Meanwhile, generations have seen the depth and symbolism of science fiction or proto-sci-fi like Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, the works of H.G. Wells, as well as the works of George Orwell, among others.
Genre fiction can be just as meaningful, just as symbolic, and just as life-changing as any other genre if we think of it as being driven by the heart and the mind instead of magic or technology or even just some cliched plot. What drives your story? Why do you write it? What meaning can you bring out through the power of your words? Read the greats and see how they do it.
