Hey everyone! Hope this finds you well (or as well as you can be, what with everything that's happening). Two questions regarding the same topic, and that is *drum roll* writing in different formats! You know what I mean - diary entries, newspaper articles, etc etc. Think The Three or Dracula or Carrie (about 70:30 straight prose/entry-style material). First question is, what do people think of that? I'm thinking of taking the Carrie approach, having most of my novel written in straight, past-tense prose, but I'd like to whack in a few segments where, for example, the format is different depending on if it's an audio transcript of an interview, or an old-timey letter, or, you know, other stuff. I've got a few ideas, and a couple reasons for doing so. But the question is do people feel like it's a copout? Is it effective or does it put you off as a reader? The second question is very specific to my story, all opinions and advice welcome and appreciated. Don't need a whole lot of context for the story itself, only that my main character has just moved into a new house. Oh, and he's an English professor so, books. When the moving guys won't deliver his furniture right to the house (they leave it a little way off the pavement) he compares it to that scene in Dracula where, you know, the wagon drivers won't go right up to his castle. Right off the back of this (and of course in a very natural way) he comments that the book wasn't that great because anything that isn't written in straight prose is a copout - then, bang, this leads straight into the next segment which of course is not written in straight prose. I thought it might be cool to get a little meta commentary in there like that, I know it's not hugely original but my main worry is that it would be too on-the-nose or would seem out of place (bear in mind this is a horror story). I'm trying to add a little more light-heartedness to my dialogue but I don't want it to carry too much into the narration. Anyway - thoughts? PS don't hate me, I love Dracula.
I guess my response is a double-edged sword. Do you aim this at a particular demographic? I'd go for it. What about the impatient reader, the one that doesn't remember Carrie? I wonder if they want to bear anything in mind. I love the idea of throwbacks and private jokes. I leave plenty of easter-eggs in my stuff. I guess the direct answer is that setup and delivery gets the buy-in. Sell the idea and a reader will follow you anywhere.
Great to hear from you as always. Target demographic to be decided, as always it's a case of write it, try to publish it, abandon it when I realise there is no demographic, and move on to the next - generally, I'm trying to stray away from the King stuff, so perhaps trying a Carrie-esque style isn't the way to go. Having said that I've grown to like the idea of playing with different forms of writing - it's a very simple story, straightforward plot, very character-based, so a little experimentation might be nice. Like you say, I guess it depends how well it's done.
Given what we see these days, well done and sell seem to have parted ways! LOL Take Avatar, one of Cameron's greatest romps. Prepostriculous! Cookie-cutter! Grippingly entertaining! Tropical methane breathers? Try Titan, maybe. Carbon-fiber? Hilarious! It was the characters that kept me in the story, that and the undercurrent of the thin plot. The planet revealed as a character in the story! All sell. Take a reader out of their cynical world and flash cool technology, only to show it all irrelevant in the grand scheme. It all comes down to character. I'm beginning to disassociate style from writing. Sell that style for that scene or for that character, not the writer. King is selling Carrie's style, not his. Sometimes it doesn't work for him either BTW.
