Style: An excuse to post something dreadfully convoluted and/or pretentious?
Look at me! Isn't my writing just so edgy!
I have long enjoyed the differing writing styles authors employ in their work. To me, “voice” is one of the most powerful aspects of someone’s writing, whether it be a lyrical turn of phrase, use of figurative language, Spartan moderation or richly detailed indulgence, straightforward prose or poetic lyricism.
However, at least three times in the last few weeks I have encountered a fanfic written in a style that I find totally confounding. Let us just call it, the NON-CHRONOLOGICAL story, a story that does not follow the traditional template of linear exposition - rising action - climax - falling action form (ye old fashioned and predictable beginning-middle-and-end) but rather jumps all over the place with each scene being completely out of temporal sequence. Furthermore, there are no helpful transitional words to clue you in to when and where you are in the narrative… you only realize you are out of time when you encounter a mention of something that already happened or hasn’t happened, requiring the reader to continually restructure the plot and events as they read.
Now, I realize that there are story structures that do not arise from the European traditional of a sequential format and are more fluid in terms of time. I have always found them interesting to read, but they are not what I would choose to read for pleasure, as they require an amount of concentration I don’t usually expend upon my personal entertainment choices. So perhaps these authors are just experimenting with a style outside the norm, but I see no indication that this was the intent - no author’s notes about experimenting with the narrative structure, no heads up that this fic might require you to keep restructuring the story in your head as it leaps all about, nothing to suggest there is anything unusual about the story at all.
And yet, it has to be deliberate. No one accidentally writes a story that is completely out of sequence, unless they merely write down scenes as they occur to them, with no concerns with liner structure and leave it that way without revising. I have to admit, my first drafts of stories might be a bit haphazard, but I do clean them up before posting. And these are not poor writers. If they had been, I never would have bothered plowing through their very convoluted pieces, seeking some sort of resolution. Nor does this unusual style appears to be serving theses stories is some way. There is nothing unique I can discern in these pieces which is better served by a non-linear style... no information which needs to be hidden or revealed at a different point to maintain the integrity of the stories...no particular aspect that require a non-sequential reveal...
So what is up with this?
Are these writers deliberately trying to induce headaches? Are they challenging their readers to stretch their thinking by having them personally have to break apart the story in their minds and reorder it? Or are they just trying to create some sort of impression of avant-garde superiority by breaking all the rules and then thumbing their noses at their readers? Frankly, my impression is more the latter.
I have to admit, I am puzzled.