Unstructured Narrative

Many writers have experimented with non-standard, or unstructured narrative styles. Some to varying but undeniable degrees of success – some mixing reality and fancy like Hunter S. Thompson, others displaying a non-linear narrative like Kurt Vonnegut, still others jumbling everything up in what can be argued to have no sense whatsoever but an irresistible rhythm and poetry like William S. Burroughs, etc. – others not so much.

Recently I read a manuscript by a colleague who was attempting to write in this way, a science fiction novel using made-up slang and many alien concepts and constructs. What annoyed me was she took the time to explain these as they came up in her narrative, in a manner that began to read more like an archaeological text from the future beyond her story than an actual plot. She was worried that readers might grow frustrated with so many references they may not understand, with the time-travel aspects of her story that had effects occurring before their causes, etc.

I was put in thought of the first time I read Frank Herbert’s Dune, a far-future scfi classic in which nearly every construct, reference and context was foreign to the reader. Herbert never explained or defined these things in the narrative (though there was supplemental material at the back of the book, including a glossary, that did so to some degree.) In spite of this, the book is one of the most beloved and treasured books of literary, never mind scifi, history.

Trust your readers, they are smarter than you might fear. I told her to, instead of explaining these things, just write. In a variance of the old writer’s saw show-don’t-tell I told her to try showing through context the meaning of things the readers must understand to follow the plot and appreciate its nuances, but to leave the rest be. Let them imagine for themselves what certain slang words might mean.

She recently signed a three-book-series deal based on this submission.

Certainly there are readers out there who don’t want to have to think when they read, who don’t want to be challenged or to figure things out for themselves. But I submit the vast majority of recreational readers love exactly that – to be challenged to follow a non-linear timeline, or to read on to discover the meaning of things that may not be clear from the very beginning. Trust your readers, and don’t fear to give them something to ponder on and puzzle.