Writing Ergodic literature
- Thread starter beholding
- Start date
Stuart Dren
Active Member
What ergodic works have inspired you?
beholding
New Member
House of Leaves and Hopscotch, primarily, but I'm planning to read quite a few others to see how they're put together.
Ergodic literature - Wikipedia
I never heard of it either. It's not a genre, but a nonstandard narrative form. Like hieroglyphics or Choose Your Own Adventure and a bunch of other examples listed in the wiki.
Can't say I've ever missed with it. It's such a broad, catch-all category, I'd want to know which elements in particular you'd want to use and why. I suspect had most the authors had a good reason for doing it, whether artistic or aesthetic or whatever.
Dogberry's Watch
Active Member
House of Leaves is my favorite book of all time. I absolutely loved finding things in it.
In terms of me exploring the form myself as a writer, in my opinion, it takes a very specifically structured logical madness to create that kind of thing. I think it can border obsessive thinking on the "what if" for every possible outcome of a story, and while that idea appeals to the chaos center in my mind, the part that requires cohesion in most aspects is appalled.
To be really honest, I know nothing about this, but saw the House of Leaves reference and immediately had to be a fangirl.
Stuart Dren
Active Member
Seems like solid picks.
To me it's the kind of thing in which an attempt at a particular method it's what's inspiring the creator. Categorization as atypical is what comes later. So of course you would be unsure how to plan one out, because there is possibly no idea yet.
However, requiring additional participation from the reader beyond reading and turning pages linearly is at least a mission statement to begin with. According to Wikipedia, the author of Hopscotch wanted the reader to feel like a "true co-conspirator." Hopscotch (Cortázar novel) - Wikipedia
I could imagine a simple practical example: revision. That chapter where the POV spoke to Nancy? Nancy actually wasn't there that day. It could be a prompt for the reader to return with a more discerning eye, noticing that it was odd how different Nancy's manner of speaking had been in that chapter, try to compare it to other characters.
Attempting to determine who the POV characters are could be another example of basically demanding that the reader flip back and forth between chapters, possibly requiring notes in margins, that kind of thing. Likely with the objective of solving a mystery of some sort.
The possibilities are as endless as your imagination. Though I have one absolute answer for one of your questions:
Just start. This is a challenging undertaking for any artist. It demands particularly rough drafting. A lot is not going to work. Even write the story the normal way first if that helps, giving you something to craftily butcher.
Similar threads
