On Experimental Writing
Dec. 6th, 2011 09:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seekingferretI went to a panel on 'experimental fiction' at Philcon. It wasn't exactly what I wanted it to be, but I did enjoy myself. It wasn't really the right set of panelists for the conversation I had. It didn't really seem to have too many writers of what I consider experimental fiction. Most of the writers there weren't interested in the experiment qua experiment. They were just writers whose stories didn't slot comfortably into any genre and who were therefore tagged as experimental.
I tried to push the conversation more in the direction of what I wanted by asking how the scientific method applied to the idea of experimental fiction, but this just got the sort of cutesy ideas about writing a story in the form of a scientific paper that I've been toying with for years and they seemed to think was novel. What I was really after was the idea of hypothesizing that a certain story technique might work and then trying it out to see if the hypothesis was correct. This is the method that guides my most interesting writing. It also guides most of my least interesting writing.
I've deleted more of my Yuletide story this year than I've left intact. Well, not deleted but cut and pasted into a rejected story file. I've also tried writing and then deleted two different story outlines. And that's because this story demands experimentation. It's requiring me to think of ideas I've never seen used in print before and pressing them into action. Many of them, I'm finding, have lain unused for a reason. Anyway, that's frustrating but kinda cool at the same time. Tell you what, though. I'm almost certainly not going to be done until I have the story outline figured out. This story requires a STRUCTURE. With two capital Ts.
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Music! Lately I have been listening to the Goldberg Variations. Wait, that needs clarification. I always listen to the Goldberg Variations a lot, they're one of those pieces that I keep coming back to because I keep finding more depth. But this time is different. This time, lately I have been listening to the Goldberg Variations on the accordion. Teodoro Anzellotti's recording. Wow, it is lovely and unexpected. Highest marks.
I grabbed Fretworks' recording of the variations for viol consort at the same time, but haven't had a chance to give it a very thorough listen yet because did I mention Goldberg Variations on the accordion???!!!
I tried to push the conversation more in the direction of what I wanted by asking how the scientific method applied to the idea of experimental fiction, but this just got the sort of cutesy ideas about writing a story in the form of a scientific paper that I've been toying with for years and they seemed to think was novel. What I was really after was the idea of hypothesizing that a certain story technique might work and then trying it out to see if the hypothesis was correct. This is the method that guides my most interesting writing. It also guides most of my least interesting writing.
I've deleted more of my Yuletide story this year than I've left intact. Well, not deleted but cut and pasted into a rejected story file. I've also tried writing and then deleted two different story outlines. And that's because this story demands experimentation. It's requiring me to think of ideas I've never seen used in print before and pressing them into action. Many of them, I'm finding, have lain unused for a reason. Anyway, that's frustrating but kinda cool at the same time. Tell you what, though. I'm almost certainly not going to be done until I have the story outline figured out. This story requires a STRUCTURE. With two capital Ts.
---
Music! Lately I have been listening to the Goldberg Variations. Wait, that needs clarification. I always listen to the Goldberg Variations a lot, they're one of those pieces that I keep coming back to because I keep finding more depth. But this time is different. This time, lately I have been listening to the Goldberg Variations on the accordion. Teodoro Anzellotti's recording. Wow, it is lovely and unexpected. Highest marks.
I grabbed Fretworks' recording of the variations for viol consort at the same time, but haven't had a chance to give it a very thorough listen yet because did I mention Goldberg Variations on the accordion???!!!