Ed Williams, of the Literary Arts Allied Collective , used to run a writing exercise emporium, if I might call it that, called The Scrivenery. I discovered it late thereby missing many creative romps trying to (1) decipher the literary examples and (2) come up with a response to the exercise. It was all in fun and regardless the outcome, well worth attempting..
In April 1997, Ed came up with a doozie. IMO. Reading the background and examples I was left with my jaw hanging, feeling like an early ancestor first gazing upon fire. The subject was Metafiction. The wise ones among you may already know what that is. I've excerpted some of Ed's explanation and examples to give you an idea. (Let me tell you, the man does not rest! And there is no end to what he can come up with.) BTW, Ed put The Scrivenery in hiatus, but a Texas breeze whispers that it may be resurrected in the near future, wearing different clothes. Here, in Ed's words:
As we do from time to time, April's exercise will center just outside
conventional fiction and explore what Salman Rushdie meant when he said,
"But as I
worked I found that what interested me was the process of filtration itself."
Metafiction,
in style, theme, or content, investigates its own medium and process.
As a prefix, meta- has remained essentially unchanged in its transition
from Greek to
Latin to English. Derived from the preposition meta which literally means
"in the midst
of," "among," or "after," the combining form as used in English generally
has one of two
connotations: a changing of position or form, as in metamorphosis, and
"after" or "over,"
as in metaphysics. Both meanings are appropriate here.
Metafiction and metadrama are nothing new. You see glimpses of it in Shakespeare
when
Hamlet talks of the tendency of actors to overact, or when Cleopatra, now
aware of
Ceasar's intent to lead her to Rome in triumph, reminds the audience of
the child actor
speaking the lines. You see it, too, in Northanger Abbey when Jane Austen,
in a direct
authorial address, tells you, the reader, that the book has few pages left
so the problems
of heroine and hero must soon be resolved.
Generally speaking, in pre-twentieth century literature metafiction was
an occasional
device, not a thematic basis for examination. In the last half of the nineteenth
and early
twentieth centuries metafiction all but disappeared. The resurgence of
metafiction is
recent. One book that rekindled interest in it is Kurt Vonnegut's 1968
Slaughterhouse-Five. Not only does the author himself appear as a character
at the
beginning and end of the book, but there is much self-referential discussion
of fiction. In
chapter one is a commentary on the writer distorting reality to fit into
the conventions of
"good story"; in chapter five is a discussion of both the good and the
bad consequences
of published fiction; in chapter nine is a stab at pretentious critics
and writers who take
fiction too seriously
If you are familiar with the ground-breaking style of Slaughterhouse-Five,
a style that
employed a machine-gun-rapid presentation of short segments--not necessarily
scenes;
some as short as a few words--that flitted across chronology and location,
you will see
the metafictional at work in these lines where a Tralfamadorian explains
the nature of
fiction on his planet:
Each clump of symbols is a brief, urgent message describing a situation,
a
scene. We Tralfamadorians read them all at once, not one after the other.
There isn't any particular relationship between all the messages, except
that
the author has chosen them carefully, so that, when seen all at once, they
produce an image of life that is beautiful and surprising and deep. There
is
no beginning, no middle, no end, no suspense, no moral, no causes, no
effects. What we love in our books are the depths of many marvelous
moments seen all at one time.
April's assignment, within a limit of 600 to 700 words, is to explore introducing
metafiction as a technique into your work. The subject matter is of your
choosing, as is
your interpretation of how metafiction will be used: either as a device,
like Vonnegut's
paragraph describing Tralfamadorian fiction, or as a thematic undercurrent,
one possibly
exposing the interconnectedness of reality and our description of reality,
as with Calvino's
If on a Winter Night a Traveler or with Rushdie's unreliable narrator in
Midnight's
Children.
© Ed Williams, The Literary Arts Alliance 1995-1997, dba The Scrivenery
practical Press
Okay, now go off and take a shot at it. I came up with Instant P.I. as a lark. The fact that I was even attempting the exercise was so funny to me that I let my screwball mind have at it. So, here was my response to Ed's challenge. And they accepted it!
Instant P.I.
by
Louise GuardinoMy name is Marcy. Marcy Stembrenner. I'm a P.I. If you don't know what a P.I. is, then move on. I'm in an era that says I must come in a series, I must be smart, tough, and, if I'm to get a script option, good-looking. It's that or be a hobbyist nosybody who by mere good luck and intuition solves the crimes the cops are, what?--too dumb, too distracted, to solve? As a cozy heroine I can have a foible or two. I can be pleasantly plump, forgetful, or old.
I say hogwash. I'll be what I am: Marcy Stembrenner. I'm not a character acting at the whim of an author in search of a contract. I exist, as is, in this time, this space. I come with my own identity, my own energy. My motto: Take me as I am or get out of my office. Time is short. Let's move on.
I was clipping my toenails when Miss Corporate America (one-piece pinstriped powerdress) came striding in looking like she'd rather be in a nest full of snakes.
"You Stembrenner?"
"Yep. What can I do for you?" I slipped my feet back into my loafers.
"Get me background on one Joseph Gruhn, currently employed by Marston, Lavin, Grimwald, and Smuck." And she hadn't even sat down, yet.
"How deep do you want it?"
"Back to when he crawled from his mother's womb."
"That'll be a hundred an hour plus expenses." Double my normal rate, but, hey, you dress flashy, you pay the price.
"Get on it." She wrote a quick check and dropped it on the desk. It was for eight-hundred. "Retainer. I'll check back with you tomorrow."
The fashion plate was M. Kennedy Monroe. Bet the boys called her Kenny. I checked with the bank. The check was good. I got right on the case.
There wasn't much to Joseph Gruhn: born in Worcester, Mass., twenty-seven years ago to a former teacher and her CPA husband. Two siblings, all without records. Top of his high school graduating class; summa cum laude, Brown University; top five percent of his Yale Law School class; interned at State Supreme Court.
It's amazing what people will tell you when you infer you're doing a background check for a government agency. Especially if you contact the ones who might have been in competition with your subject.
Mr. Joseph Gruhn was rumored to have paid for legal briefs, been intimate with one of his women law professors, and bought his way out of a drunk driving arrest. Nothing concrete or monumental, however.
I told Monroe when she called that I needed to spend a few hours through the weekend to get her a complete
profile.
"No later than Monday," she said, and hung up.
Joseph Gruhn lived in a townhouse complex. It wasn't easy grabbing his recycle bin and retrieving his garbage from the dumpster without being obvious. Wearing green coveralls, billed cap, and plastering an Environmental and Hazardous Waste Services placard on your car door helps.
One thing led to another. A receipt from a pet store and assorted junk mail clued me in. Joe Gruhn was a runner, was interested in the stock market, and owned at least one ferret.
And he was romping with Mrs. Grimwald on Saturday afternoons.
Monday brought rain and M. Kennedy Monroe, this time in a tailored navy dress.
I laid it all out for her: fact and rumor. I thought learning of Gruhn's affair with his boss's wife would spark a flash of anger. M. Kennedy Monroe smiled. She paid me my due and took the photos (and negatives) with her.
A P.I.'s life can be boring. And mine is only momentary. I needed some spice.
Saturday. I'm staking out M. Kennedy Monroe's place. She leaves for work (Marston, Lavin, Grimwald and Smuck) and returns home at two. Shortly after, Jay Grimwald arrives. Hours pass.
Another P.I. is staking out Monroe's place. We chat. He is square-jawed, dark-eyed, and smart-mouthed. Pheromones flow. He has a van. Existence is short. We climb in back. What more is there to say?
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"Instant P.I." is copyright © 1997 by Louise Guardino