multiple viewpoint fiction

Magic Bullet Theory Applied to Literature

AN EXPERIMENT IN APPLIED IDEAS

THE ODDS against easily solving the dilemmas the literary art finds itself in may well be astronomical. The question is: what are the alternatives? Continued artistic stagnation– writers recycling in tired variations the already been done? Domination of book markets by floods of AI literary slop care of hustlers producing hundreds of bot books, saturating Amazon and other outlets with their crap then bragging about it? A Big Five publishing establishment as devoid of ideas as the movie business, pushing out millions of copies of variations of generic fantasy, covering everything from medieval knights to space sorcerers, to unreal romances relying on caricatured situations and plots?

The solution is Breakout. Shock of the New. Creating a story or novel so different, accessible or exciting it will overturn the status quo literary world. But: how to do that?

FOUR TACTICS

1.) CLARITY. In this hectic age the writer no longer has the luxury of self-indulgence via endless sentences and paragraphs. The reader needs to be grabbed as quickly as possible through a sense of–

2.) IMMEDIACY. Stunning action or emotion from the first page. With an overarching sense of–

3.) RELEVANCE. Call it ideas, call it politics or polemics, the new story and novel need to be part of the culture’s greater conversation. Literature needs to matter. Recognition of reality– of social happenings which affect every one of us. This is no time to remain locked within aesthetic bubbles, a coterie of the insulated and protected, not recipients of economic body blows inflicted on the bulk of the public. NOT witnesses up-close-and-personal to class war including attacks on immigrants, the poor, the disabled and the homeless.

In 2012 I wrote an ambitious novel, The Tower, which sought to portray the beginnings of American disorder and collapse, depicting a variety of social and economic classes; influenced by the Occupy protests of 2011, as well as several previous experiences. A narrative of impending chaos.

4.) MULTIPLE VIEWPOINTS. The advantage of multiple viewpoints, whether used casually as in The Tower, or at a quick switching pace as in my political novella The Loud Boys, is to present a rounded view of a society or situation. To break out of the narrow linear “autofiction” perspective of so much of today’s literary writing. Removing tunnel vision in order to showcase an entire world.

Every one of these four components needs to work together, maximized, to create a breathtaking reading experience.

A path forward. Opportunity awaits! For the aggressive and the ambitious.

-Karl Wenclas

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “May Day”

RELEVANT FICTION

“A day late and a dollar short” as the old expression– possibly dating to Fitzgerald’s time– says.

TWO occurrences motivated this post, both involving New Pop Lit‘s Contributing Editor Kathleen M. Crane.

First was her inability to find F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel Tender Is the Night at any local library. A few libraries, we discovered, don’t carry any of Fitzgerald’s books. Second, Kathleen recently was at a physical therapist’s for a lingering knee injury. In talking to a young employee, Kathleen mentioned that we hoped to soon make an excursion up to northern Michigan’s Hemingway Country, staying at a hotel where he once lived and frequenting his hangouts. The therapist looked perplexed, had never heard of him.

Hemingway and Fitzgerald: the one-time glamor boys of American literature. Literary rock stars. Throughout our time growing up and discovering ourselves as writers in the latter decades of the Twentieth Century, for Kathleen and I, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway were the two larger-than-life figures of the art, combining charismatic personalities and compelling biographies with sparkling literary talent and an involvement in the greater world. Models for what American writers should be doing now.

An example of Fitzgerald’s involvement in the world was his 1920 novella, May Day— a multiple-viewpoint depiction of long-forgotten events on May 1, 1919, when anarchist demonstrations and riots, spear-headed by World War I army veterans, took place in cities across America. Fitzgerald ably weaves glimpses of the New York City riots with more personal stories– in his uniquely romantic literary prose style. The result? A multi-dimensional reading experience combining the “literary” with pop sensibility and a topical, here-and-now story. History-come-alive. Innovation, relevance, and style.

WHY can’t we produce this kind of work in 2025?

Karl Wenclas for New Pop Lit

Simultaneity

ABOUT 3-D THINKING

IS multidimensional fiction too far ahead of the crowd?

Possibly– as our brains have been wired from Day One into linear, two-dimensional thinking. The most lauded novelists– William Faulkner to Don Delillo– simply give us more of it: longer and longer sentences and paragraphs as the reader burrows ever further into the narrative. The text. Which has its appeal, no doubt, but shouldn’t be the only standard of value for literary products like the short story and novel.

One of the reasons perhaps why Aben Kandel and James Gould Cozzens are kept out of the canon is because their best novels– City For Conquest and Guard Of Honor respectively– are, at their core, multidimensional in design and effect. They throw entire worlds at once at the reader. Many of our best-trained literary experts and commentators can’t handle it.

NEW WIRING

The foundation of multidimensional fiction is 3-D Thinking. The ability to perceive and understand all sides of an issue, simultaneously.

Think of driving a car and seeing, directly and peripherally, everything happening around you. That person on a bike, on your right. Another person further ahead crossing the street. A speeding car passing you on your left, moving into your blind spot. Another coming up fast in your rear view mirror.

Unfortunately, most people driving on our streets have tunnel vision. Stand on a street corner and watch them. They stare straight ahead, oblivious to anything going on except that which is directly in front of them.

Or they’re staring at their smartphone.

3-D Thinking, by definition, also means increased compassion for other humans and their struggles, wherever they’re placed in society’s hierarchies. Not always easy to accomplish!

IS rewiring your brain worth the effort?

THAT’S the question. One I attempt to answer with my new novella, The Loud Boys, now available in ebook format at Amazon here, and at Kobo, here. (Print version coming soon.)

-Karl Wenclas