# Experimental Fiction



## Violanthe (Dec 4, 2006)

What fiction have you read or seen that is experimental? Stories told in an out-of-the-ordinary way? Stories that don't stick to the traditional conventions of fiction? Have you enjoyed them? Do you seek them out on a regular basis, or reserve them for rare occasions?


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## HLGStrider (Jan 18, 2007)

I generally find this and enjoy it in movies more than books. I really got into "Lady in the Water" and "Stranger than Fiction" both of which I think were very unusual stories filmed in very interesting ways.

Let's see, experimental . . .

I really don't know what defines experimental. There is very little originality left in the world (I ought to start a discussion on unintentional plagurism), honestly, not because people are losing it but because so much has been done already. I don't know how many times I have started writing something and brought it up only to be told "Oh, like that author who wrote . . ." and more often then not I haven't even read that author. I got that with (I think) Terry Brooks during a creative writing class. I have never read Brooks. 

But that aside, I would say Kafka is experimental. So far I've only read "Metamorphisis" but I loved it. I don't even know why.

But if you go back, once upon a time wasn't Plato experimental? What about Plutarch? (I am probably spelling that wrong. Was it Plutarch or Peterach? or. .. ugh . ..). Shakespeare invented words and while he may be original for saying "Lonesome" I certainly am not. 

All I am saying is that with over 2,000 years of culture behind us (More than that, I suppose, but it is hard to piece together complete manuscripts from before that era . . . I know there are exceptions which gave us Aristotle and Caeser and several Eastern writers and the Old Testament), so many different cultures, and so many different ages, a lot has been done before. The best we can do is take a used art-form/template/plot line and throw a twist into it.

We've seen an ungodly amount of Mock-Fairy tales in the past. I am not sure who started this genre but it started out very well and hilarious and original (I'm going to take a leap and blame it on Shrek for popularizing it) then all of the sudden we get E. D. Baker and "The Brother's Grimm" and that new "Happily Never After" and "Hoodwinked" and I just want to pound my head into a wall and go back to where I could trust Gail Carson Levine to put a creative spin on old fairy tales with humor and love and leave the rest alone.


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