{"id":22197,"date":"2022-11-11T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-11-11T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jerichowriters.com\/townhouse\/?p=22197"},"modified":"2022-11-11T14:00:00","modified_gmt":"2022-11-11T14:00:00","slug":"experimenting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jerichowriters.com\/experimenting\/","title":{"rendered":"Experimenting"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week\u2019s \u2018flat-pack\u2019 email was, on the face of it, a right old mess.<\/p>\n

Most of my emails (including this one) take the form of short articles, the kind you might read in a newspaper. They start with a thought, develop it, and end up with some kind of conclusion. Nearly always, I try to make sure that the emails are going to be useful.<\/p>\n

And last week? Well, the whole thing was a jumble.<\/p>\n

There was no visible sequence. Yes, there was some actual advice in there (Roughly: \u201c50,000 words doesn\u2019t make a novel\u201d and \u201cthink of Nanowrimo as a way to establish strong writing habits.\u201d) But there was also a lot of apparent nonsense \u2013 an anecdote about a friend tempted to give her publisher the 100,000 words they\u2019d requested, but \u2018haven\u2019t had time to get them in the right order.\u2019 A couple of bits of housekeeping. Some misdirection nonsense about flat-pack parts missing the right sort of bolt. And so on.<\/p>\n

Now the crisp logic of Normal Life says that such an email ought to be a failure. Why would people want to pick through a mess when they could have a nice straightforward A to Z type read like everything else in the world<\/em>?<\/p>\n

On the other hand: we\u2019re creatives, right? If we adhered closely to the crisp logic of Normal Life, we wouldn\u2019t be writing books or reading these emails in the first place. There\u2019s something about the subversive which appeals to us. Last week\u2019s email generated more than one reply suggesting that I write a whole novel in a kind of flat-pack form. (My reply? Yep, honestly, I\u2019d love to.)<\/p>\n

But flat-pack novels? There aren\u2019t so many of those, are there? I think I\u2019ve read only two genuinely flat-pack novels \u2013 The Unfortunates<\/a> by BS Johnson, and Dictionary of the Khazars<\/a> by Milorad Pavic. The first of those is literally a book in a box. There are 27 chapters in total, each one separately bound. One of the chapters is marked as being the first, another one is marked as the last. Apart from those two, you can read the chapters in any order you fancy. The thing is a meditation on friendship, loss, football and (I guess) the randomly associative nature of the human brain.<\/p>\n

The second book is presented dictionary-style with three mini-encyclopaedias (one Jewish, one Christian, one Islamic) presenting information on a people called the Khazars over various different time periods.<\/p>\n

Neither book has a plot. I personally didn\u2019t finish either book, nor was I especially engaged by either.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t think the BS Johnson book ever sold much. The Khazars book was certainly fashionable but I seriously doubt that most people actually read it.<\/p>\n

Oh yes: and if your covering letter to a literary agent tells them that your work is experimental, it has already moved 85% of the way to the dustbin. First bit of actionable advice for this email: please don\u2019t tell an agent that your novel is experimental, even if it is.<\/p>\n

Maybe experiments are only for emails to creatives. Maybe for everything else we just need to stick to existing templates.<\/p>\n

And look \u2013 second piece of actionable advice \u2013 mostly the answer to that is just a YES. Stick to the formula. The formula for writing a good book already offers tons of flexibility. It\u2019s not like writing a good book is easy. The recipe is not exactly easy to follow.<\/p>\n

Especially if you\u2019re not yet published, I\u2019d urge you to get a regular novel right and published, before you start to mess around with the template.<\/p>\n

But \u2026<\/p>\n

If you do want to rough fiction up, then please do. Examples:<\/p>\n