How I manage my 'experiments in style' UPDATE: this post is now open to all

A 'Behind the scenes' post

Intro

My ‘experiments in style’ posts seem to be quite popular, so I thought I’d write about where I get the ideas from and also how I manage the process. If you’re not familiar with these experiments, you’ll find an up-to-date index here.

At the moment I have a list of 138 ideas to try out, of which I’ve published 30. I’m not sure I’ll be able to use all the ideas. Some of them will be very difficult, if not impossible, given that each experiment uses the same story¹. And some of them will be possible, but possibly not very good. We’ll see. One of the challenges I face is a self-imposed rule that all the versions have to make sense, even if “sense” is interpreted rather loosely.

How it all started

But how did this project come about, and how am I managing it?

Some years ago I read about a book called Exercises in Style, by Raymond Queneau. I had to buy it straight away! That link is to a review I wrote. In the book Queneau, who was a founder member of the Oulipo, took a simple incident and then described it in 99 ways.

Cartoonist Matt Madden also took up the idea, as I wrote about here.

I loved the idea, and thought I’d like to try it myself. In each case, the basic story, or template, is very simple. In Queneau’s case he sees an interaction between two people on a bus. In Madden’s version he goes downstairs to get something from the fridge and his wife asks him what time it is. My story (true, as it happens) concerns my banging my head in the middle of the night and then going to the local hospital a couple of days later just to check that I hadn’t done any lasting damage.

Interim evaluation

I’m really enjoying doing these experiments, and have committed myself to publishing one every Sunday at 16:30 UK time. Readers seem to enjoy them too. Several times people have said something to the effect of “This is the best one/funniest one” yet, which is nice to hear but which raises the bar somewhat: I have to keep doing better than I did the previous week!

Jody Sperling, who writes and podcasts over at The Reluctant Book Marketer ‘stack very kindly said:

The exercises in style post alone will make any serious writer better at the craft.

I hope so. It’s certainly made me better as a writer, unless I’m merely deluding myself. But hopefully it has helped others as well, as readers. The reason is that what I’ve been doing, in a show-don’t-tell kind of way, is demonstrating why some things are not so great in writing. I do that by taking things to extremes. For a few examples, check these out:

Passive tense version. We’re always advised not to use the passive tense. What happens when you do?

Cliché version. We all know, or should do, that clichés are bad. To me, they indicate that the writer is either lazy or unoriginal or both. What’s the effect when you lay it on with a trowel?

Footnotes version. Footnotes are meant to be helpful. But what about when they start to become intrusive, or pointless, or both?

There is also the aspect that writing in different styles is helpful for getting the writer into the mindset of different kinds of writer. Here are a few examples where this is the case:

A cautionary tale for children, in rhyming couplets.

Corporate statement version.

Newspaper report version.

Getting ideas

Where do the ideas for these experiments come from? Sometimes people suggest ideas to me. But mainly I have either been taking writerly pronouncements to the extremes of simply rewriting the story for a different audience, which automatically changes the style (or should do).

Keeping organised

So how do I keep this seemingly ever-expanding project under control?

At the moment, there are three very different answers to this question.

Very organised

In terms of keeping track of the ideas, I’m very organised. I keep the list in a Word document that resides online. Each time I publish a new experiment, I use strikethrough formatting to cross it off. I know I could simply delete it, but I prefer to have a visible record of what I’ve done.

Part of my EIS document.

Creatively unorganised

As far as deciding which one to do next is concerned, it all depends on my mood and what mode of creativity I’m in. And, if it’s likely to be complicated, how much time I have in which I can work on it. It’s very serendipitous, but it works for me.

Thoroughly disorganised

Unfortunately, instead of drafting the articles in Word and keeping them in a folder, I’ve been writing them directly into Substack. Yes, I have made a backup of all posts, but the EIS ones are not all in one place.

I’d like to rectify this, and I’m going to have to bite the bullet one of these days and copy and paste each published experiment into its own Word document, and keep those in an online folder called, I suppose, EIS. Then I shall have to start being sensible. As a general rule, it takes a lot of time to get everything in place before you start a project, whether it’s decorating or writing or going on holiday, but then it’s relatively plain sailing. It’s a rule I usually adopt — but not this time.

Perhaps admitting that I’ve made a very expensive (in terms of time) faux pas in the mistaken rush to publish is not the wisest thing to do. However, I believe a glimpse behind the scenes should include the errors too.

Thoughts?

1. It would be less restrictive if I could write about anything. For example, creating a palindrome from the story strikes me as infinitely more difficult than simply making up a palindrome-friendly sentence.