It has the imprint of its creator on it, and that interests me much more than cookie-cutter Sally-kisses-Sam fiction.ĭo you move the characters like chess pieces, or do you let them move on their own and just follow along and write down what they do? So I always look at a piece of writing with one question in mind: Is this something that only this person, of all people on Earth, could have written? I think the best writing is unique. I also believe in the power of the individual. I am a big advocate of Ben Franklin’s idea that 'it is the first responsibility of every citizen to question authority.' It defies genre just as it questions everything else. Why do you write experimental fiction as opposed to other, more mainstream genres? Do you feel that experimental fiction fits you better as an author?Įckhard: Actually, experimental fiction is the only writing that is not a genre. This allows the reader to “see” the world in her or his own eyes as he or she would, but also detect it and feel for it as I would. As shown in my novel, I tend not to thoroughly describe my characters, except for certain defining features. I try to be lax when describing something, in order for the reader to get a feel to it themselves. That being said, I don’t try to make the visuals the most important method of relaying the story, rather I try to make the feel of it the most important. I am blind in the world of my writing, but still can detect what is happening around me.

I feel something going on, and I write it down.

Ulysses: I do not “see” the events take place as much as I “sense” them. Would you say the visual is your primary sense? When you are writing, do you “see” the events taking place? I love how your novel is filled with interesting visual details. I saw his point, started to connect my poetic impulses, and called it fiction. One of my teachers, after reading my poetry, said to me he wondered if perhaps my talent didn’t really lie in prose because, as he said, my poetry was so narrative.

In junior high and high school I must have written a thousand terrible poems.

How to Read by Eckhard Gerdes