Chunky Fiction

Chunky Fiction
By Ken Rolph

Should You Produce Your Novel as an E-book?

Imagine a fictional work produced in various formats, from the same set of words. Hardback book, paperback book, audiotape, e-book. Would you expect to pay the same amount of money for each format? Would you expect to buy them all at the same place and in the same way? Would you use each of them in the same way?

The way our thoughts and words are delivered to the reader/listener is not just a matter of containers. The form shapes the reading/listening experience to make it something different in each case.

When we sit in front of the computer screen we are doing one of two things: work or games. Fiction is not work and it is not games. People read fiction to step away from the world of work. Other kinds of writing will achieve greater success on screens, especially writing that can be read in small doses. There is a mismatch in nature between the concept of fiction and the concept of reading on the screen. I predict that novels as e-books will remain a minority interest, similar to audio books. A small minority is totally reliant on them. Some people use them some of the time. But they are not a mass means of delivering fiction.

If Not, Then What?

Some proponents of the digital world suggest that fiction can be taken in new directions online. The word “interactive” is usually attached to this. One example comes from Douglas Rushkoff, writer/publisher of “Exit Strategy”, claimed to be the first open source novel. “Stephen King flopped because he saw the online space as a distribution platform. Things will work here that are native to the interactive space. It’s not a place to distribute a book. It’s a place to create interactive narrative experiments. King failed because he was basically inaugurating a business plan, not a genre. There’s a terrific future for online narrative experiences. I wouldn’t call them books, though.”

Rushkoff’s “story” is a skeleton which readers can annotate. They can even annotate the annotations. So the resulting mass of text is as formless and chaotic as the Web itself. It is very difficult to experience the whole thing, whereas unity and completeness are desirable traits of stories.

The problem with new directions for fiction online is that we haven’t yet figured out what they are. Those who talk about “interactive narrative experiments” take one of three approaches. One is annotation, providing means for readers to add comments. Another is the choose-your-own adventure story that goes back even to print. The limitations of this format have been quite clear for some time. The third approach is to attempt to involve the reader in directing the story. This has yet to be achieved. Attempts at this usually fall back into games.

Most of these approaches have the goal of freeing the story from the tyranny of the writer and finding some way to involve the readers. The idea is that readers can create the stories they want. Any publisher with a slush pile can tell you how few people are actually capable of creating a story. People still see movies and buy novels in large quantities, so stories still meet some need that games don’t. Writer and reader may take part in the process of creating fiction, but not on an equal basis.

Product and Process

Writers write to make contact with people. To do this we lock ourselves away from people and work away at a product. At some future date we attempt to deliver this product to our readers. To assist in this a vast mechanism has developed. It consists of editors, publishers, typesetters, cover designers, illustrators, accountants, couriers, bookshop owners, travelling salespeople, reviewers, critics, librarians and others. This used to be what connected the writer to the reader. Now we understand that it also gets between the writer and the reader. Today, cyberspace provides other mechanisms. Some attempt to duplicate print production, yet only offer new forms of distribution. But digital delivery of a traditional format novel covers only part of the possibilities.

The combination of cyberspace and working digitally can be used to create a more direct connection of writer and reader. It offers new forms of interaction. Writing only looks like a solitary activity. Its final goal involves a group, at least a group of two (writer and reader). Instead of working away in solitude for some time and then delivering a product, we can invite the readers into the process of creating our fiction.

What is Chunky Fiction?

The key difference from the traditional publishing process is delivering smaller chunks of writing, over a shorter time frame, more directly from writer to reader. A chunk is shorter than a novel, probably shorter than a chapter. But denser. Denser in the sense that it is trimmed down to the essentials, yet full of references to other parts of the culture. Rather than try to present everything within itself, chunky fiction will enrich itself by allusions and references. This mirrors the way non-fiction chunks enrich themselves by hyperlinking to other information.

Some writers are already trying to turn their fiction into chunks. An example of this is “The Devil’s Larder” by Jim Crace (Viking 2001). This is billed as a novel. It is made up of very short chunks, usually two to three pages. All are around the theme of food, but there is no plot, no ongoing characters, no common settings or actions. It is not a novel, even though it is fictional. Reading must fill an available slot in the social life of readers. Sometimes the names give a clue to this. Potboiler fiction was something to read while waiting for the pot to boil. A contemporary version is the airport novel. You might call Crace’s book “microwave” fiction. I certainly read a number of his chunks over breakfast while waiting the two minutes for the porridge to cook.

You can have a book made of chunks. Or you can send them to readers electronically in smaller doses. You send out a chunk, the readers respond, and you write another chunk. You use the knowledge of the effect of each chunk in shaping the subsequent chunks. Contemporary soap operas guide their plots from carefully researching audience response. I’m not suggesting we will all be left writing and reading soap operas. But we might rediscover the serial. It was good enough for Charles Dickens. The material can be re-worked into a more coherent single form at a later stage. Move away from the single product and think of the process. You can still end up with a real book at the end of the process, if you want a product.

We can invite readers into the process while we are still writing. Instead of depending on a writers group, you can develop a readers group. You can use this group to preview aspects of the writing as it develops. For example, in naming a character. I have sent out a collection of possible names to a small online group. From the responses it was clear that one name was the most suitable.

Corresponding with people all around the world is cheap, quick and simple today. If you write for a global audience, you can involve people from other parts of the world. Misunderstandings and assumptions can be revealed earlier in the process, before they become set into the product. If I write about wattle, you can tell me what you think I mean.

Focusing on the process does not exclude the product. You can produce printed books as part of the process of interacting with the readers. Janet Evanovich writes Stephanie Plum (bounty hunter) stories. She allows her tens of thousands of readers to name her books. Hard Eight has “thanks to Ree Mancini for suggesting the title for this book”. Evanovich says: “I would have to work half a year to come up with all these names. It really is the lazy way to name your book. I am not nearly as clever as my readers.”

Many writers are trying to develop new ways of interacting with their readers electronically. Creating an e-book is not the way to do this. Most readers still want fiction as a printed book. A digitally based book makes handy raw material for print-on-demand publishing. Otherwise, if you really to reach your readers electronically, new forms of interaction are waiting to be pioneered.

Ken Rolph is an Australian writer. If he ever ventures on any chunky fiction, it will be found at his newsletter site.