Doing things wrong
Doing things wrong
Alec Chilcott
In the 1996 movie Fargo the movie opens with the following text:
‘This is a true story. The events depicted in this film took place in Minnesota in 1987. At the request of the survivors, the names have been changed. Out of respect for the dead, the rest has been told exactly as it occurred.’
The same ‘true story’ disclaimer is presented at the beginning of each episode of the Fargo television series.
It’s a gripping statement, but, ultimately, a false one. It’s a small example of a writer bending conventions to create something. A stylistic choice that is clearly the ‘wrong’ thing to do. The small flourish changes the world that the story takes place from a fictional Minnesota to a realer-than-fiction Minnesota. Even though what’s shown didn’t really take place the disclaimer promotes the idea that the story isn’t unlikely to have happened. A simple addition misleads and manipulates the audience to accept that this is something taking place in our world, instead of its own universe.
If the Coen Brothers think it’s okay to blur the lines between fabrication and reality then there really isn’t much that you as a writer shouldn’t be allowed to do. The success of The Blair Witch Project predicated on deceiving the audience into believing what they were seeing was real. However, that was more a marketing stunt than any sort of artistic stance.
The point is, that as a creative you should be brave enough and have enough confidence in your ability and ideas to execute artistic flourishes with your endeavours. These flourishes or spontaneous expressions deserve to be above explanation or rationalisation.
This way of creativity could pessimistically be thought of as fashion over function. A genuine worry is the fear of falling into gimmickry to the point of exclusion. The audience who can’t, or won’t, follow your artistic vision should be thought of as cowards.
Mark Z. Danielewski’s novel Only Revolutions to me is a book made entirely of flourishes. It’s full of typographical quirks, dream-logic pacing and internal-rhyming patterns that come and go seemingly at random. It employs the use of the word ‘sobsloppily’. On the other hand: the plot is thin, the book only has suggestions of characters and the idea of reading a book upside-down to follow another character's perspective is absolutely a gimmick. It’s even embarrassing to read at times; sometimes I found it quite beautiful and poetic, sometimes it sucked real hard.
Here’s an exercise you can do from the comfort of your own bed. Listen to Lou Reed’s 1975 album Metal Machine Music and then give it a rating on a scale of one to five. Compare that score to music journalist Greg Kot’s ‘woof!’ rating, which was meant to signify dog-food. It’s an album of no rhythms, melodies or traditional song structure. It’s wildly hated. However, it is still not without artistic merit. It’s a formative noise release. One of the earliest releases by noise-artist Merzbow, Metal Acoustic Music, was inspired by Reed’s album.
This isn’t to say that you should go into your writing with the goal of making ‘the Metal Machine Music of novels’. For as excellent as that would be, I mean that you should not be afraid of creating something that’s fundamentally incorrect. There’s always a chance it will end up not working or perceived as a gimmick; but there’s also the chance that your impulsive expression could be the thing that makes your work stand above the rest.
Your artistic flourish could be as minimal as misspelling something, or employing sensational spelling, to completely forgoing traditional structure and form similar to how Lydia Davis’ The End of the Story operates. The saying ‘rules are meant to be broken’ is so passé, but truly consider just doing what appeals to you. Pretend your story is real, relinquish yourself from traditional structure. Genuinely trust in your own ability and your own taste.
I’ve also changed my mind—I’ve listened to Metal Machine Music again. You should absolutely strive to meet these creative heights.