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More panel notes! I was planning to edit them only extremely lightly and then I fell victim to the desire to hyperlink.
Non-Narrative Fiction: Stories Without Stories
Sarah Pinsker, Kenneth Schneyer, Rich Horton (moderator)
Fiction in general has a long tradition of adding verisimilitude by including created documents, but speculative fiction has gone even further to tell stories entirely through footnotes, art gallery exhibit descriptions, FAQs, bibliographies, containment procedures, academic journal articles, technical instructions, posts on wiki talk pages, and more. What are the advantages and disadvantages of storyless storytelling? And how does it differ from epistolary fiction?
Sarah: "Where Oaken Hearts Do Gather", multi award wining last year, song and commentaries on song Ken: one of stories may be in panel description, art gallery descriptions Rich: did not include epistolary in description except as counterexample. very early way in English of writing novels, created documents. how does that differ formally or meaningfully from non-narrative things Ken: can we start by defining "narrative"? I think narrative, a voice that knows that a story there is to tell and is intending to tell that story, that includes unreliable narrators Sarah: everything I could think of still felt narrative, but ultimately maybe what talking, things in which story is forefronted: may have to look for traditional elements of story hidden in it, asking reader to do a little more work Ken: likes that too Rich: narrator narrates narrative; so these are things that don't know part of story, but narrative in my mind because still part of story. one other aspect: narrator is a personality, while examples here are technically not personalities themselves, just documents Rich: so going back to epistolary question: Sarah: don't think it does (Ken: me too), subcategory, figure out which is umbrella. in making my list, a lot of them were artifact stories of some sort, in epistolary, narrative is more overt Ken: Frankenstein is technically one long letter, but don't think of it in same context as First Impressions, draft of Pride and Prejudice Sarah: if first person narrator, always question of who story is being told to, implied audience; sometimes answered and sometimes meant to forget that part Rich: epistolary, narrator is a character; artifact stories, designed to plausibly simulate story that reader could find in the real world Ken: highlights artificiality of narrative, e.g., LotR narrative reminding constantly that time has passed since events. chaoticness of these stories, reader (something I didn't quite catch, maybe "has to put together like life"?) "Mars: A Traveler's Guide" by Ruth Nestvold (Goodreads), series of responses to queries to help system; don't even see queries, piece together what those are and why being asked, that's the story. negative space where story appears Rich: maybe that leads to reader having to construct real story for themselves. don't necessarily have any knowledge in flow of time in non-narrative stories. Mars: A Traveler's Guide do, responses sequential. art gallery descriptions, some indication because chronological catalog but still further separated. FAQ, no idea of time sequence. as writers who's done these, how difficult to make sure (or do you even try to) reader will be decode things like actual sequence? Sarah: looks like a puzzle to me and writes like one, moving things around on more axes than would in linear fiction. tend to try to make it so that a quick read will probably get some of it, second read will be rewarded. don't mind making readers work for it, sometimes people bounce off but if clues in right place. Lost, early on, had alternate reality game elements; WandaVision, in-show ads; give readers things that feel like within their reach to decode Ken: above involves what reader is doing in response to story, have committed self to position--Scalzi guest post three years ago--reading is interactive event in reader's mind, but most of the time readers think of selves as passive. so big advantage to him of non-narrative is that forces reader to be expressly aware of fact that making story, take responsibility for. (me: 253, order choose to click?) Sarah: Nicola Griffith described writing as running your software on the reader's hardware, in this case even more so. as reader, dopamine rush when figure it out is a pretty great thing, as writer strive to do that: have control over reader's brain, but also time travel Ken: but you don't have control Sarah: giving them the option Rich: almost all stuff talked about so far is short fiction. is harder to sustain at length? if so, why Sarah: comes to mind: House of Leaves; Several People Are Talking; S., conceived by JJ Abrahms and written by Doug Dorst, fake novel that is bulk of book, bulk of narrative is researchers talking to each other in margins, includes bunch of ephemera like napkins if buy. harder sell, even if can sustain interest for that long, publishers might be wary, plus may be more expensive (original House of Leaves, sideways, different colors etc) Ken: several novels where alternative documents play large role, Pohl's Gateway, interruptions by found documents throughout; Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell's footnotes; Brunner, Shockwave Rider, similar things interspersed. if right in attributing increased labor to reader, harder to sustain on novel level. but also, from own standpoint, run out of inventiveness; certain level of surprise that makes these non-narratives work, if art gallery thing was 10x, surprise would be long gone and sap energy out of Rich: could have whole panel on novels with lots of footnotes that are still conventional, JS&MN; something else missed. Pale Fire, hybrid, narrative section, long poem, whole series of footnotes. Ken: Always Coming Home Sarah: Fifth Head of Cerberus Sarah to Ken: when you approach something like this, do you get the hey-what-if-there-was first, or have an idea for story and only way can tell? Ken: former, definitely. "Levels of Observation," Mythic Delirium; just occurred to me, could you have story made of exam questions; didn't wind up being solely that, but for me always voice first. You? Sarah: usually some kind of puzzle, some idea that only way can see would work. what is this thing, what does it want to be; if could tell it linearly, probably would, but two things exist in concert Rich: no doubt that "Where Oaken Hearts" could not exist in any other way Sarah: two things: what would a murder ballad look like as a story, and how many layers could do; looking up Grateful Dead version of traditional song, people commenting on Genius who were just getting it wrong, saying acid trip but 400 years old Rich: kind of narrative that could find in different versions of folk-songs, how and why they changed Sarah: like to read notes on where different versions of Childe ballads came from, this version only ever sung one little old lady in Newfoundland, almost more interesting than songs selves sometimes Ken: re: puzzle: one of things have to be sanguine about, that gonna have readers who won't get it or assemble completely different story. among his beta readers, half said fantasy element was so heavy-handed, half said no fantasy element at all Rich: favorite examples? Ken: Gateway. "The Author of Acacia Seeds and Other Extracts from the Journal of Therolinguistics", Le Guin, still don't know quite what story is there, but rivets me Sarah: Le Guin does that to me a lot. "Walkdog," Samatar, essay by child with footnotes that get more and more pleading over story; Sarah Gailey, "STET"; Gordon B. White is creating Haunting Weird Horror; Carmen Maria Machado does it all the time, two examples, "Help Me Follow My Sister into the Land of the Dead", and novella of hypothetical SVU episodes. Rich: went looking for FAQ example: Dave Langford, comp.basilisk FAQ; Gordon Dickson, "Computers Don't Argue," series of letters trying to resolve late library book (Wikipedia) Sarah: Molly Gloss's story about Elvis and Jesse Presley's long and storied history as a duo Ken: Ken Liu's novella, The Man who Ended History, a Documentary, script format Sarah: give to students a lot of time as opening exercise for 400 level writing workshop, just so know can break rules a little bit, play game, what is you're looking at, why is this a story. start with Joyce Carol Oates, one-sentence stories. "why is this a story" is sometimes where the key lies Rich: another Samatar story, "An Account of the Land of Witches", keep building on refutations Sarah: Sofia and Carmen may be two who do it most and most reliably, so interested in how stories are told, maybe becomes a dare, how can this be a story, have I ever seen this before Ken: has several drafts in drawers where question is, can I construct story this way: maybe not yet Rich: Charlie Finley's first story, "Footnotes", just the footnotes, clever and really worthwhile q: Hand, Wylding Hall, other examples; cross-medium in some way, effort to translate to text something that's audiovisual or art piece, conveyed in different medium Sarah: has utter fascination with ekphrastic expression in general, is musician, tries to infuse music into fiction, is possible and part of same kind of puzzle, come back to again and again Ken: also when most writers have other thing that they do, like being musician, usually makes you conversant with certain way of expressing, so tendency to ask if can use what I know about other way of talking. inevitably wrote short story in form of appellate judicial opinion (me: not sure what this one is), form can write in sleep because was clerk, therefore can do things with it that other writer not as familiar with form couldn't. every writer has some other language they are conversant with, always possibility that that could be source of story q: talking about narrative voice versus found pieces, what about idea that someone has collected found pieces and put in particular order in piece of fiction, does that imply a narrator? Sarah: order is very important, would start with trying to decode that (me: I interpreted this question as, is there a narrator implied by the existence of a collection of found documents who isn't the author, but we were very close to the end here) Rich: Robert Coover, "Heart Suit" (published by McSweeney's); 13 cards, heart suit, shuffle and read them in order shuffled, all make coherent stories Sarah: friend who went to They Might Be Giants concert where performing all of Flood, but didn't perform in order, said really cool but wasn't Flood; been to a bunch of concerts like that, and don't play in order because order works for album isn't necessarily one that works for concert, maybe has a delicate ending or frontloads hits (me: I had Flood on cassette, so definitely thought of "side one" and "side two" as units). tricky thing is that need to have narrative flow and arc even if not necessarily sequential Rich: Choose Your Own Adventure; hypertext stories Ken: wrote one that has no narrative at all, series of individual nodes within mind of AI, piecing together and order didn't matter (this would appear to be "Neural Net," which was in Ideomancer and now is lost to time)notes!
I have read almost none of the things I've linked here, so I have much to look forward to!
+1 (thumbs-up, I see you, etc.)?
