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Someone recommended to me the science fiction novel Stand On Zanzibar, and I'm enjoying it a lot. So much, in fact, that I'd like to adopt some of its techniques for my WIP. (Which is the spirit in which the person recommended it to me.)
John Brunner, in Stand On Zanzibar, duplicates the style of literary writer John Dos Passos, who had distinct sections with continuous narrative, interwoven vignettes, and a montage of context-providing information. Both of these authors borrowed this from the 'mosaic writing' style of Harold Innis. The key quote referring to the Innis mosaic writing technique is from Marshall McLuhan: "Faced with information overload, we have no alternative but pattern recognition."
That's what I want -- short sections of immersive mosaics that subtly provide exposition, by forcing my readers to use pattern recognition to piece together fragments of my backstory.
The only problem is that I don't know how to do it.
Oh, I could blunder forward and use Brunner's example as a template. But I thought I'd ask here first, on the off chance that an authority can give me some pointers. Anyone have any tips on mosaic writing? Has anyone tried blitzing their readers with so much information that they are forced to feel it, rather than commit it to comprehensible memory?
If this question has everyone confused, I might attempt some examples in a SYW forum and ask for opinions.
John Brunner, in Stand On Zanzibar, duplicates the style of literary writer John Dos Passos, who had distinct sections with continuous narrative, interwoven vignettes, and a montage of context-providing information. Both of these authors borrowed this from the 'mosaic writing' style of Harold Innis. The key quote referring to the Innis mosaic writing technique is from Marshall McLuhan: "Faced with information overload, we have no alternative but pattern recognition."
That's what I want -- short sections of immersive mosaics that subtly provide exposition, by forcing my readers to use pattern recognition to piece together fragments of my backstory.
The only problem is that I don't know how to do it.
Oh, I could blunder forward and use Brunner's example as a template. But I thought I'd ask here first, on the off chance that an authority can give me some pointers. Anyone have any tips on mosaic writing? Has anyone tried blitzing their readers with so much information that they are forced to feel it, rather than commit it to comprehensible memory?
If this question has everyone confused, I might attempt some examples in a SYW forum and ask for opinions.