Experimental Fiction
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Experimental Fiction
An Introduction for Readers
and Writers
Julie Armstrong
For my Creative Writing students, past and present, at MMU Cheshire
Preface and Contents
Who the book is intended for and why
This book is for writers and readers of fiction, especially those who are studying, or have an interest in, experimental literary works. The aim is to enrich readers’ knowledge, understanding and appreciation of such works and to enable writers to heighten their powers of imagination whilst developing their craft.
The history of experimental writing, from modernism to the Beats, to postmodernism and beyond, will be traced. In addition, Experimental Fiction will analyse why the twenty-first century is a time ripe for change for the reader and the writer.
How the book is organized
Experimental Fiction: An Introduction for Readers and Writers has an Introduction, four sections – Modernism, Beats, Postmodernism, A New Era Dawning – and a Conclusion.
Introduction
The introduction will pose, and hope to find answers to, the following questions:
What does experimental mean?
What are the concerns of experimental writers?
What is experimental fiction?
What are the differences between traditional realist fiction and experimental fiction?
Why read experimental fiction?
How does a reader approach experimental fiction?
What criteria can be used for reading as a writer of experimental fiction?
At this moment in time, what criteria may writers and readers consider when they are deconstructing experimental fiction?
Alongside the historical discussion of each movement, at the end of each chapter there are creative writing exercises designed to stimulate writing experimentation and to introduce techniques which will help learning in terms of the practice of creative writing. References for further reading are also listed. Each section has an introduction.
Section One When Was/What Was Modernity(ism)?
Followed by chapters:
Form and Fiction
Worldview and Fiction
Gender Crisis
The City and Fiction
Dreams, Philosophy, Science and Fiction
Followed by Further Reading
Section Two When Were/Who Were the Beats?
Followed by chapters:
Beat/Music
Spirituality and the Beats
Sexuality, Drug Culture and Fiction
On the Road
Followed by Further Reading
Section Three When Is/Was the Postmodern Era?
Followed by chapters:
Identity in Flux
The Fictiveness of Fiction
What Is True/What Is Not?
What Is Real/What Is Not?
Giving a Voice to Other
Followed by Further Reading
Section Four A New Era Is Dawning
Followed by chapters:
Beyond Postmodernism
Changing Perceptions of Reality
Anti-Novels Built from Scraps
Electronic/Hyper/Interactive Fiction
Followed by Further Reading
Conclusion
The conclusion will pose, and hope to find answers to, the following questions:
How can writers engage in experimental writing practice?
What are the implications for the writer wishing to experiment?
Can this contradictory, complex world be represented by traditional-realist fiction?
Index
Having read Experimental Fiction: An Introduction for Readers and Writers and completed the exercises, readers and writers will be better informed and more skilful creative writing practitioners.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the following colleagues who have kindly supported me in the writing of this book: Ms Carola Boehm, Mr John Deeney, Mr Terry Fox, Dr Robert Graham, Professor Dick Hartley, Ms Angi Holden, Dr Meriel Lland, Professor Berthold Schoene, Ms Jo Selley, Ms Bev Steven, Professor Michael Symmons Roberts and Dr Jane Turner. Many thanks are also due to the team at Bloomsbury: Mark Richardson, Avinash Singh and, in particular, editor David Avital for his vision and rigorous reading of the manuscript.
I would like to thank my Creative Writing students, especially Context 1, 2 and Historical Perspectives students; this book is for you.
Introduction
What does experimental mean?
The word experimental is a contested and historically contingent term when applied to fiction. Many readers, writers and critics are unsure about giving fiction the label experimental, and as a consequence, there are many questions that need to be fully considered before the label can be applied to literary works. For example, if a writer is creating work in accordance with new – not pre-established – conventions of writing, can this fiction be classified as experimental? How can the actual experiment in a piece of unconventional writing be defined? Does fiction which expresses the writer’s restlessness with form and content be characterized as experimental? Does what was once labelled experimental in one historical period become mainstream fiction in another? Is experimental simply a label which identifies the next trend in fiction? Is fiction deemed experimental at the time of writing, or is it established as such by later generations?
Any new writing will owe something to the past and also something to the future in the shaping of ideologies and styles. However, it can be said, the novel is often a product of its time and place. Although, experimental literary works become comprehensible after their unfamiliar structures, forms and content have been conventionalized over time.
It can be acknowledged that there are writers throughout history whose intention is to experiment and create fiction that sets out to break new ground and deviate from traditional realist fiction. Virginia Woolf, for example, declared in her diary that she sought to experiment with her craft and, as a result, she discovered a new form for a new novel. Jack Kerouac also set out to experiment with his writing and to produce work that contested mainstream, middle-class America. He felt that his writing could not be fully realized through existing traditional novel conventions; they would simply not allow him to tell the story he wanted to tell. By creating his own rules or essentials, as he referred to them, Kerouac did not produce novels but a new prose-narrative form. He used technical devices of epic poetry, which, together with his spontaneous prose, revitalized his writing and resulted in the poetic sprawl On the Road.
And yet, it can also be noted that there are other writers who produce new works by simply expressing their own, often idiosyncratic personalities, in response to the internal and external worlds they inhabit. There are also writers who are creating works in order to make sense of the world and their place in it, and in so doing, they produce works which depart from tradition realist fiction, a form considered to be too restricting to express some writers’ thoughts and ideas. As a consequence, they create new forms, styles and genres of literary work. In addition, there are writers who consciously react against traditional realist fiction with the intention of creating work which will bring about self-realization and change in people’s lives, and in so doing
, they too establish new forms and content. All of the above writers will be explored in this book.
What are the concerns of experimental writers?
The concerns of individual writers are not always explicit. However, some writers have written essays or diaries or given interviews voicing their preoccupations and citing what their intentions are when creating fiction that opposes traditional realist fiction. Jack Kerouac, for example, stated in numerous interviews that he was preoccupied with writing that had feeling as opposed to craft. He favoured a spontaneous, improvised style, like jazz, a style that was fast, mad, confessional and suited the bohemian content of his work. Gertrude Stein conducted experiments to access the subconscious in order to research into the process of automatic writing. Later, she converted the data into new literary fiction. Other contemporary writers, such as the late Scottish- born author Iain Banks, created fiction considered to be thought experiments. In such works, fiction is a vehicle for a writer to investigate ideas and concepts – for example, the Culture series of fiction, which centres around the Culture, a semi-anarchist utopia, consisting of humanoid races managed by advanced artificial intelligence. The main themes of the novels, such as The Player of Games and The State of the Art, are the dilemmas that an idealistic hyper-power faces in dealing with civilizations that do not share its ideals and behaviour.
Jeanette Winterson has written about her desire to create fiction that addresses twenty-first-century needs. Indeed, many experimental writers, for example, William Gibson and Jon McGregor, despite being different, are both seeking to create new forms, techniques, content and styles to enable them to express what they want to express through their writing. They are looking for new ways to tell the new stories that they wish to tell. More traditional forms, styles and techniques are too restricting, simply not suited to the ideas and content they wish to explore.
Maybe it is important to seek out an author’s intention when writing a particular fiction in order to gain a richer understanding of the text? Maybe the fiction should stand alone? These are questions to be considered.
What is experimental fiction?
Some critics consider experimental fiction to be literary works that are in direct opposition to traditional realist works, whilst there are others who think that experimental fiction is inherently concerned with innovation and risk-taking. This leads to a further set of questions. Do writers set out to self-identify as experimental or are they responding to the changing social, economic, political and cultural times in which they are living? Therefore, is this fiction merely a reflection of these changing times and events or can it be classified as experimental fiction? How have/are writers related/relating to their lifetimes? Are they reflecting ideologies or rejecting them? To reject ideologies, do new techniques have to be invented and employed? And what counts as risk-taking, challenging, new and controversial in the world of fiction?
Firstly, in the hope of answering these questions, it is necessary to understand the differences between traditional realist fiction and fiction that deviates from this model – fiction that can be referred to as experimental.
What are the differences between traditional realist fiction and experimental fiction?
To answer this question, it is imperative to outline what each form of fiction is attempting to achieve.
Traditional realist fiction is attempting to
Reproduce the real world in the imagined world of fiction
Create an authenticity of the experience the fiction is attempting to portray
Convey a recognizable time scheme
Evoke a vivid sense of place
Have a clear hierarchy of discourses controlled be a privileged central voice
Display a coherent explanation of actions
Demonstrate immediacy
Entertain the reader
Set out a plausible sequence of events
Develop credible characters
Produce convincing dialogue
Utilize steadily rising tension and conflict
Engage a reader’s emotions and bring about empathy
Bring about closure
Experimental fiction is attempting to
Destabilize the real world
Subvert a sense of the normal
Introduce debates about the status of the text and the act of writing
Present different world views
Have free playing voices none of which is privileged
Engage with the moving play of signifiers to construct endless cycles of meaning
Employ intrusion into the text by the narrator and/or author
Experiment with form and typography
Develop new ways of seeing
Apply multiple discourses
Mix and/or subvert genres
Provoke the reader to consider ideas and concepts
Imagine alternative realities
Use metaphoric qualities
Engage the reader on an intellectual/philosophical level
Deny closure
As can be seen from these two models, there are differences, often opposing, in terms of what writers of traditional realist fiction and writers of experimental fiction are setting out to achieve; it is therefore useful to acknowledge these differences in terms of our role as readers, if not necessarily in terms of our role as writers.
Narrative is very appealing to readers; this is because it offers simplicity and predictability, which is comforting, unlike experimental fiction, which can be unpredictable, random and confusing. Experimental fiction departs from conventional expectations or Aristotelian principles: that a novel has a beginning, middle and an end, with steadily rising action and conflict that builds to a climax and then resolves – a closed text. These basic characteristics of traditional realist literature, which readers have been taught throughout their education, can be quickly and easily determined to enjoy engagement with a text. This is not the case for experimental fiction. Therefore, a reader’s response is sometimes one of frustration and even anger, leading to confusion and disengagement, as experimental works subvert expectations. And yet, experimental fiction is more like real life, in that real life is tangled, non-linear and complex; it refuses to be packaged into simplistic plots. Experimental works make more and new, sometimes baffling, demands on the reader. So why read experimental fiction?
Why read experimental fiction?
It can be argued that for their work and ideas to evolve and become more imaginative, writers need to move out of their comfort zone and challenge themselves by reading work that challenges them. If everything a writer reads is accessible and familiar, then their writing will become one dimensional and lack vitality. A real writer and reader is someone who does not put limits on themselves because to do so stunts growth. Writers who are aware that fiction is capable of doing much more than simply telling a story will become more accomplished, self-aware, insightful practitioners. In addition, by reading experimental fiction, a reader’s views on story telling will be revised and they will become more sophisticated readers, ones who have the tools and vocabulary to enjoy a richer, more diverse experience of fiction, which can be very inspiring and rewarding.
How does a reader approach experimental fiction?
When reading as a writer of any fiction, a reader needs to look at how the writing works in terms of craft, form, content and techniques. An awareness of the methods, procedures and strategies writers use can enhance the experience of reading and make it liberating, leading to a fuller understanding of fiction. If a reader is deconstructing fiction that has subverted conventional forms and practices, it is important that a new way of deconstructing work is employed. Clearly, the old way of approaching new texts is inappropriate. Readers need to engage with experimental fiction in ways in which they are not familiar; therefore, a different set of reading strategies are required for readers to read, interrogate and interpret texts.
Most literary criticism prior to the 1950s was author-centred until a number of
critics began to argue that attention should be focused on the text and not on the author. In his 1968 polemic Death of the Author, Roland Barthes claimed that it is language that speaks, not the author, and that the text leads a separate existence and the multiplicity of meanings which make up a text is focused on the reader, not the author. Barthes argued that there are two types of texts: writerly and readerly. In writerly, the reader is active. The work is non-linear, open and plural, and allows for play and invention, inviting readers to become participants in the production of meaning: an experimental work. In readerly, the reader is passive. The work is linear, closed. There is often a resolution: a traditional realist work.
Fundamentally, a reader approaching experimental fiction needs to suspend their autopilot expectations and discover new ways of seeing. Readers are required to become more active and less passive. There is often a denial of, even an attack on, a single unified meaning, and a move away from closure. Experimental fiction, whose aim is not necessarily to tell a story, is often ambiguous and challenges artistic principles; clearly it is writing that has different preoccupations from traditional works and these need to be acknowledged and understood.
What criteria can be used for reading as a writer of experimental fiction?
There are many fiction writing handbooks that demonstrate how a writer can read as a writer of traditional realist fiction – that is, by analysing the skills and techniques used by authors in order to develop and enhance their own craft of writing – but this is not the case for writers and readers of experimental fiction. It is intended that this book will address the imbalance by providing a tool that will enable writers of experimental fiction to develop their craft too. In addition, both readers and writers will discover insights and gain a deeper understanding and appreciation of literary works.
Readers and writers of experimental fiction have to take on a different mindset; they cannot approach experimental fiction in the same way that they approach traditional realist fiction. Indeed, the mindset readers and writers adopt will change over time as fiction inevitably does. As society changes, so do literary works, subverting their own structural and formal bases, altering our perceptions of what fiction and writing is, and can be. Lecturer in English and American Studies Tim Woods says, ‘What we think of the novel has lost its credibility – it no longer tells us what we feel to be the truth as we try to keep track of ourselves. There’s no point in pushing ahead with fiction … ’ (Woods, 1999, Beginning Postmodernism, p. 51). But, if fiction is exhausted, if it is impossible to write an original work, then surely out of this debate there emerges fiction which is concerned with these very notions and its own status.
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