Has anyone experimented with writing, or has anyone read, a story which has a format that isn't your typical first/third/whatever regular novel format? We all know what a regular novel looks like, but how about less conventional approaches? For instance, my current WIP is formatted - for the first 21 chapters, anyway - as a court document comprised of witness testimonies. Each testimony is written in first person and tells a short sequence of events that they were a party to or witnessed; they're personal and micro-level stories, but there are 65 of them in total and they all come together, with recurring characters, to tell a much bigger story with global implications. Then the last 3 chapters are written in a conventional novel style, which ties it all together and provides a conclusion. I love unconventional stuff. Has anyone ever seen a novel written in a really cool or unique way, or do you have thoughts on such things?
Lemony Snicket's Series of Unfortunate Events is written in the second person. It makes for quite the impact on the reader, bringing you into the story as a participant whether you consent or not and deepening the emotion of helplessness and hopelessness which seems to be the aim of the series.
Flipped (cant remember the author). He writes from the boys POV for half the book. Then you flip the book upside-down and read the other chapters from the girls POV. It was a book i read in middle school. These kinds of experiments are typically done for younger readers. I havent come across anything too experimental in adult fiction in terms of format. I think readers of a certain age are too impatient lol. There are adult "choose your own ending" books in my library, but they dont get many chekouts (the most recent one was a romance where you choose your own happy ever after). Then there is another adult book written like a series of text messages, formatting and text-speak dialogue and emojis. That one has never gone out and is probably going to get deactivated from our catalogue because its just not that popular amongst adults.
For shame, that is, I think! I find experimental stuff to be exciting and fun. That Flipped book you mentioned sounds awesome in premise! Ooo second person, I forgot that was even a thing! How fun! I remember a friend of mine in middle school loving those books; I'm an adult now but I'll at least look into these books!
House of Leaves goes crazy with strange formats. There's another story going on in the footnotes. There's a "secret code" chapter. There's chapters written in strange directions across the page, tilted at an angle and such. I highly recommend that book if you like weird dark-fiction. It's one of the rare books I found to be genuinely scary. It fulfills the requirements of true horror: The protagonist cannot possibly overcome the sinister forces. They are not a mere inconvenience. They are forever.
ooh! theres another one that sort of like this. only it was unintentional. my coworker told me about it: theres this mystery novel that had been misprinted way back when (i forget the year). but its evolved into a challenge. if you can solve the mystery IN the novel, as well as put the pages back in the correct order (there are no page numbers) then you win something. so far, no one was been able to do it. my coworker and a friend of hers entered in the challenge. i dont think she was able to figure it out either.
Now THAT is cool and sounds like something I'd find in a dream after downing a fifth of vodka, hahaha. LOL how fitting that this misprint happened to a mystery novel of all things!
I can't find the thread (of course), but @Xoic once suggested writing a story such that the words themselves (as shapes) coalesce into a mosaic-type image. He can explain it a lot better than I just did, but it's a fascinating idea.
Awwww hellll yeahhhh, now that's cool! Combining written art with visual art, thereby creating a multi-faceted art piece and not just a book. I love it!
I forget what it's called, but it's a printing term. A page does exist as pattern, black shapes on a white surface, and sometimes there are distracting shapes running through it. Some are called rivers, that's the only one I remember. I recall it was on a Bakkerbard thread, or no, one he had responded on one about typesetting. Not really like what they're talking about up there, though it might have served as inspiration for more deliberate formatting choices.
I forgot to mention the work which inspired my own current WIP - The 2020 Commission Report on the North Korean Nuclear Attacks Against the United States. It's a 2018 speculative fiction novel (now that 2020 is in the past, it has retroactively become alternate history) about a North Korean nuclear attack on the USA, formatted as a US Senate document which investigates the events. It was a very interesting read!
There was this but not sure if it's the same thing: Mysterious Stranger by David Blaine but everything was planned from publication. It took 16 months from release for someone to solve it and win the $100,000 prize but I'm not sure if that was due to clues being revealed off the page. All the clues and the solution
I think sometimes powerful stories need to me told in powerful ways, meaning outside the conventions of what we're used to. I just want it to feel like there is absolutely no other way to tell that story. I'm known among my writing friends for being a little avant guard, but for me it's more about subject or style and structure to some degree. For what the OP is doing, I think there's too much front loading with 65 testimonials before getting to where the story was actually written. As a reader I might read one or two before skipping ahead. That's not to say you can't do this, but just be aware that a reader might do that. Maybe you break it up more or cut the number way down? I don't know. It's just something to think about.
If you did that, you'd be missing so much context that you'd immediately go back to where you were and read them all.
That's what you would hope, and maybe you're right. I just think you might want to give this a little more thought. Again, I'm not saying you can't pull it off. I'm just saying this could be passed over by publishers in you don't get it just right, so keep it in your mind as you're writing the story. I wish you luck with it.
The 65 testimonies provide a progressive plot with recurring characters and deep themes that become immediately apparent. It's not just 65 random people talking about unrelated things.
A Visit From the Goon Squad has a chapter that's a Powerpoint presentation. Kind of funny, because if I remember right, it's from the POV of a kid. So it's written like a school report. And that was the 2011 Pulitzer. So let's all do the same! (Not really, haha. Let's let that technique stay where it is. It's a great book though.)
imagine the potential of terraforming as a narrative device once we discover enough rocky planets to toss around like marbles
Do you mean Cain's Jawbone? If so that wasn't a misprint, working out the order was part of the puzzle. There's another one being written now by the last guy who was able to solve it.
I need to ask my coworker She told me one evening and asked me if I wanted in, but I wasnt interested so I didnt inquire any further about the author or anything else. Yeah, Mark Danielewski's books have a wide range of formatting. What you shared looked familiar to me and this morning I just so happened to be pulling low circulating items and his books are on the list. His "The Familiar" volumes (5 of them) are ALL on the deactivate list. Volume 1 hadnt checked out in 3 years, Volume 2 in 4 years, and the other volumes have not been checked out since we got them in 2018. Sooooo.... the unconventional formatting isnt that popular [in my library]. Spoiler: "The Familiars" formatting personally.... i'd get distracted with all of it. I fall into the group of people who would just get annoyed with the story if all the pages were different like this. I'd want people to pay attention to the meaning of my words, not what the words are doing on the page.
Yeah, that would get really annoying after a while. I decided once to investigate various kinds of illustrated books/graphic novels/comic books etc, and my diagnosis is that you have to switch between two different modes to move between reading words and looking at picture, and it's always jarring. It breaks the smooth flow of both. And the weird formatting seems to cause the same kind of problem, it's like it reads more as image than words. But if it requires turning the book sideways etc, or worse yet, continually rotating it to read a stream of words written in a spiral (I've seen that done) it gets way too annoying. These are gimmicks that block what should be a smooth flowing experience.
Word of honour by Nelson Demille is sort of like this, telling the story of a war crime via the means of a court martial that aside there’s been any number of books formatted as emails ( e by Matt Beaumont being the first) and Kesha da sket was formatted as text messages ( having been originally written in text format before becoming a book) anything can be done with enough skill by the writer, but unusual formats tend to limit readership especially where they are very dry like court documents
