The Philosophy of Literary Creation — Part 2
by Dominic Ward
(part 1 was published in January)
Style is the ingredient added at the conceptual stage of a work that makes or breaks the whole enterprise. Some writers emphasis style more than others, which is just a come-on. Style is inherent to a work, whether you talk about it at your book launch or not. And the chosen style for your work can decide how well it is received by critics.
Great writers have their own style, honed and exasperated-over for years on end. Often, these styles harken from the very marrow of the writer themselves, inimitable. In this way, most notable writers can be recognized by their signature use of grammar, punctuation, and vocabulary alone. Other writers alter their style to suit the content of their book, such as Dan Brown, Peter Carey and Pynchon. A great talent for mimicry and a good sense of the zeitgeist is needed for this approach to succeed.
How does it start for me? It starts with the shell of an idea. This may have come from a line I’ve heard on the radio, a day-dream, or from something expressed by another author. I have many such ideas — few excite my sensibilities enough that to last beyond the memory of the day they came to be. However, the few that have the claws to stick around begin then as tumbleweeds, rolling along on the winds of thought, picking up bits and pieces as they go, snowballing from a single straw eventually into a whole workable concept. I might at this point begin jotting down quotes or lines I imagine would fit in with it. After the inertia of the tumbleweed has taken it out of my control, it comes time to plan everything, to gain a little of that control back. I plan out everything chapter-by-chapter, sequencing things as simply and in as much detail as I can. I let my intuition inform this process of planning, trusting to my gut the placement of the mechanics of the piece.
I write in a style I have termed ‘fragmentation’, whereby the work is written in fragments, or segments, with each segment representative of the larger themes contained in the work so that the work need not be read from left-to-right, but rather it may be opened at random and read from any page. This style dictates that I know my subject very well, that at all times I am linked sub-consciously to each individual fragment. The failure of one segment to contact with its fellows publishes the ultimate failure of the work itself.
Dominic Ward currently has a novel and poetry in print. Balloon Cotton Bush was published by Small Dogma mid-2009 and represents a risk taken in literary development. He lives in Brisbane, Australia, with his partner and two children.
