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Apologies for the missed
newsletter in July - the end of term plus burst school bubbles
caught me out!
Hi again it's Gaynor here, with another of my
monthly newsletters, and this time I'm looking at ...form.
Always
remember, writing advice should be taken with a pinch of salt,
what works for one person will be impossible for another, but I
hope you find something here to inspire you! If there are
particular topics you would like me to write about in the future,
then give me a shout on gaynor@retreatwest.co.uk
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How do you feel when you hear the phrase 'experimental fiction?' As
happy as the chap above?
Interested? Annoyed? Intrigued? Judgemental? A mix
of all these things?
I remember when I heard that someone had written a novel without using the letter E and
my first thought was WHY? Writing is hard, why make it even harder
for yourself? I haven't read that book, but thanks to a unit on
contemporary fiction at Uni, I have read others, such as 253 by Geoff Ryman, The Atrocity Exhibition by J.G.
Ballard, and I'm currently reading the excellent We All Hear Stories in the Dark by Robert
Shearman which is sort of like a terribly unsettling
'choose your own adventure' book.
I've become quite fond of experimenting lately, especially in short
fiction. Sometimes,
the experiment is just to get ideas flowing, and I might write the
final draft as a more 'traditional' piece. But
sometimes the experiment stays, as in my Bath story, Cleft, where I
kept in the dictionary definition, flitted between time, and
judiciously used punctuation to imply narrative, hoping that
my reader would fill in the gaps themselves!
I feel like my skillset of flash or micro fiction is in itself a
form of 'experimental fiction' - I'm often writing to a very tight,
self-inflicted word count.
I spoke to a poet friend recently who told me they sometimes choose
a very deliberately restrictive form as it produces a different
kind of work. I did a quick google and could barely
understand this article, but maybe you'll
fare better.
So, experimenting in fiction isn't new, but if it's new to you, then
here are some ways to ease into it.
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Lists aren't just for shopping. One of the easiest
ways to change the form of a story, is to turn it into a list
instead. I wrote a short story about a plane crash and decided to
use numbers to segment each paragraph. I thought my protagonist
would be trying to hold onto something logical among the chaos and
numbers and organising seemed like a good way in to that mindset.
The original title was Inventory, but the editors asked me to
change it to The Numbers Game, which seems just
as apt.
You don't have to use numbers or bulletin points when creating a
'list story'. The hugely lauded Kathy Fish flash fiction, written
in response to gun violence, Collective Nouns for Humans in the Wild
is so tense and evocative. The stark flash contrasts with the
subject matter, and the stripped away language of a list gives some
distance from the emotion of the violence being reflected on.
Rather than a straight list, in Receipts, Monica Dickson uses a
series of receipts to punctuate and separate the narrative, with
each receipt giving us a clue about the story to follow.
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I also really like stories which use instructions.
When I'm reading one, I feel much more drawn into the story, such
as in this piece by Ruth Bradshaw, Instructions for Overcoming a Fear of
Darkness. I wonder if that's why I'm such a fan of
second person narrative? I like being part of the 'you' in the
story, as if I'm absorbed in the tale and experiencing it first
hand rather than reading it on a page or screen (or listening on
audio book!). Ruth's story, arguably, still has quite a traditional
form following each instruction, whereas this story from Raima
Larter takes quite a different tack. Assembly Instructions for A Love Triangle
is exactly that - a list of instructions laid out as you would see
in a manual - but there is still a strong sense of narrative flow.
There is still emotion, conflict, yearning - it's just presented in
a very unique way.
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If you would like to try something even more
unusual, then do have a look at this stunningly powerful crossword
puzzle story by (content warning for abuse and suicide) K.B.Carle, Vagabond Mannequin
You might think it would be hard to enter such a story into a
writing competition, which often have fairly strict layout
criteria, but experimental fiction does make it to the top in
competitions too.
I had two friends on the shortlist for the Manchester Fiction Prize
in 2020 so I had read their stories, and gone through the other
stories too. I’ll admit, when I first saw Strange Weather by Tim
Etchells, I did raise an eyebrow. I struggled to see beyond
the form the author had chosen, mostly because I was skim reading
it - I can hold my hands up and admit that now. But, I was able to
attend the prize ceremony that year, where a section of each story
was read aloud and I knew - within moments of Tim beginning to
speak - that his story would be the winner. It made all the
difference to me to hear him read it aloud, to see the effect of it
ripple through the audience. I pay much closer attention now when I
see an experimental story!
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For some simple experimental ideas, try starting
your story at the end and telling it backwards, or use the times on
a clock (or seasons) to separate segments, or, the 'breathless
paragraph' is particularly popular and effective in flash fiction -
write your story, or part of it as one long sentence with minimal
punctuation. Just have fun with it, if it doesn't work for you it's
no problem - there is room for all types of stories.
I think it's clear from this newsletter, and from my own work, that
I am a huge fan of less traditional fiction, but I do often feel
I'm in the minority.
Such forms ask a lot of the reader, and I suppose there's a danger
that an editor or first reader in a competition might be put off.
But, there's also the chance that your story will stand out among
the crowd!
Do let me know if you have any 'experimental fiction' published, or
if you have read any you'd like to share.
We're taking a newsletter break over the summer, so I will be back
on the autumn, with a slightly different format!
Until then, happy writing
Gaynor
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