Readercon panel: "My Secret (or Not-So-Secret) Story Structure"

[kate_nepveu]

Description:

Michael A. Burstein (M), John Crowley, Thomas M. Disch, Greer Gilman, Pamela Zoline

There's a small group of novels with overt organizing structures, like Thomas M. Disch's 334, John Brunner's The Squares of the City, John Crowley's Ægypt, and (most famously outside the genre) Ulysses. We suspect that this is the tip of the iceberg

Comments

[stealthmuffin]

You probably know this already, but the Italo Calvino reference is to The Castle of Crossed Destinies, which is an amazing exercise in storytelling with an imposed structure.

[rosefox]

If on a Winter's Night a Traveler was also mentioned in some detail.

[kate_nepveu]

I don't have an memory of that, which surprises me because I at least know the structure of that one, so I would have expected to say to myself "ooh! something I know!" when it was mentioned.

Do you recall what it was mentioned with reference to?

[rosefox]

It was fairly early on, part of the whole beginning-middle-end thing; tomsdisch used it as an example of beginnings without middles or ends.

[sartorias]

Excellent panel notes on a difficult and no doubt fast-talking group. You did a good job with Greer, I think.

[kate_nepveu]

Thanks!

[norilana]

Very interesting panel wish I'd been there... Let's see, my own Dreams of the Compass Rose is structured in a very complex semantic pattern, that of a compass rose actually. A star-burst. A static fountain of circulating water, if you will, that begins in the end and ends at the beginning.

[kate_nepveu]

I'm afraid I'm not familiar with the book, so this is where I ask you dumb questions:

Do you use the journeys of the characters to trace the pattern, or something else?

It appears from the title that the Compass Rose is an important element in the book itself? If the characters are tracing that journey, are they aware of it?

Is it an overt or covert structure?

[norilana]

Hey, no prob, pretty much everyone is not familiar with this book

[kate_nepveu]

Very intricate indeed. I think I can see what it does for the work; do you find that it does anything for you as a writer, especially in relation to what was mentioned by the panel?

James D. Macdonald talks about outlining his stories as Celtic knots, which is not overt but may be a bit similar; see http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=7987 and search "knotwork".

[ex_greythist387]

Fascinating, and thanks. I'm trying to tamp down thought (time for sleep!!), so I'll need to reread this later.

(The Irish alphabet-like structure ought to be ogham, though if it was tree-based perhaps someone was thinking of the elder futhark (Norse), some of whose letters are (or begin) names of trees. Ogham and futhark lack curves, for the most part, which makes them good for scratching with a point into a twig or carving into stone. I'd be interested to know whether Gilman cited the alphabet in question--)

[rosefox]

I was also assuming it was Ogham, which I've heard referred to as "the tree alphabet" because each letter (or pattern) is linked to a tree as well as a phoneme.

A bit of searching turns up this fairly comprehensive reference, though I'm used to seeing the short lines at angles rather than horizontal.

[nineweaving]

It's ogham. Davenport says that "Joyce found this alphabet in a book with the serendipitously Homeric title Ogygia, published in Latin in 1785 by Roderic O'Flaherty, antiquarian."

Nine

[ex_greythist387]

Ah! Thanks very much.

[kate_nepveu]

I was hoping you'd weigh in.

I remember you mentionign a possible difficulty with getting the pacing to match up between the two parts of _Ha'Penny_; are you able to talk about what the alternating POV got you as a benefit there, or why you wanted to use it?

(And now I want to re-read _Tooth and Claw_ and look for the structure! If only I had time . . . )

[nineweaving]

You should have been on that panel. I wish you had--it would have been brilliant.

Nine