political novels

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

A Political Novel

RATE THIS EBOOK!

CAN ONE MERGE LITERATURE AND POLITICS?

The Tower is a novel I wrote over the course of about five weeks in 2012, while I was living in Philadelphia. I wrote it as a prototype political novel– with pop elements– wanting to express my thoughts about the recent Occupy protests in Philly and elsewhere, but also drawing upon my experiences with an activist writers group in the previous decade. The chief subject of the book, however, was the city itself (which I was to shortly move from), presented in an unnamed, thinly-disguised version.

I posted the novel as an ebook at Amazon and Barnes & Noble, and then more-or-less forgot about it. Forgot about, because of the uncertain nature of my life– living out of a duffel bag in low-rent apartments– and because I quickly moved on to other literary experiments, including with various attempts at fast-paced multi-dimensional fiction. (The first of those being an ebook novella titled Assassination of X.)

Forgot about, that is, until I noticed a notably negative “One Star” review of The Tower at Amazon, posted in 2019. From one of the critics of that activist writers group I mentioned?

Now, The Tower is assuredly not a Five-Star novel (few outside Tolstoy’s War and Peace are), but neither is it a One-Star book. Based on the clarity of writing and the clash of ideas alone, I’d think it’d qualify at least for Two Stars from any fair-minded reader! (More about that review and the person or persons potentially behind it in a later post.)

I’ve decided to correct some typos in the book, added one sentence, and have dropped the price to the lowest that Amazon allows– $0.99 U.S.– and reissued it. Why? Because I’ve realized this 50,000-word prototype is at least as relevant today, at the end of 2023, as it was in 2012. The world if anything is even more chaotic; the gap between rich and poor today even more extreme.

CAN I then get a few honest reviews of The Tower, anonymous or not? I’ve always enjoyed debate and the clash of ideas. I also wish to know the work’s actual flaws– I assume they’re many– so I can avoid such missteps in future experiments. There are many things I’d do differently with the novel myself. So: fire away! Let’s get those Two-or-Three Star reviews going.

For those interested, click on the link: here.

Thanks!

-Karl Wenclas