Fixed Forms for Narrative
Prepared by Bruce Holland Rogers, in collaboration with David Galef, Robin Hemley, Ron McFarland, Robert Shapard, and Barbara Lefcowitz
Presented as a panel at the 2005 conference of the Associated Writing Programs in Vancouver, British Columbia.
We see two main classes of narrative fixed forms: the abstract and the organic.
Abstract fixed forms are analogous to the fixed forms of poetry, such as the sonnet or the sestina. That is, a sonnet can be described according to an abstract listing of its technical characteristics: fourteen lines of iambic pentameter with a fixed rhyme scheme, abab cdcd efef gg for the English sonnet or abba abba cdecde for the Italian sonnet.
An abstract narrative form specifies one or more technical elements. Here are the "rules" for some such forms. (Followed by the originator of the form, if known)
1. The Sixty-niner. A story of exactly sixty-nine words, not including the title. The title must not be extraordinarily long. (NFG magazine)
2. The Three-Six-Nine. A set of narratives consisting of three thematically related sixty-niners, each with its own title and with an overall title for the entire assemblage. (Bruce Holland Rogers)
3. The Word Loop. A narrative in which the last word of each sentence is also the first word of the following sentence. The first word of the story is also the last word of the story. (Bruce Holland Rogers?)
4. The Prose Sestina. A narrative of seven paragraphs in which six words recur in each paragraph in the same order as dictated by the rules of a sestina: 123456, 615243, 364125, 532614, 451362, 246531, 652431. The paragraphs are of about the same length, except for the last paragraph, which is half as long as the others. (Ron McFarland)
5. The Fibonacci Sonnet. A narrative consisting of two paragraphs. The sentences of each paragraph are of a set number of words as determined by the Fibonacci series. One paragraph is one sentence longer than the other. Or to put it another way, one paragraph goes one step deeper into the Fibonacci series. The Fibonacci count in either paragraph can count either up or down. Thus, a Fibonacci sonnet could consist of a first paragraph of nine sentences and a second paragraph of eight sentences, with the word count for each sentence in order being 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34; 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21. Or the first paragraph could be ten sentences long and the second paragraph eleven, with the word-counts for each sentence being 55, 34, 21, 13, 8, 5, 3, 2, 1, 1; then 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89. (Bruce Holland Rogers and Ron McFarland)
6. The English Prose Sonnet. A narrative of fourteen sentences. The final word of each sentence slant rhymes with the last word of another sentence corresponding to the pattern ababcdcdefefgg. Furthermore, each sentence must contain an internal slant rhyme with that sentence's final word. Also, the last two sentences must perform some movement in the narrative which is akin to the function of the concluding couplet in a traditional English sonnet. That is, the last two sentences must summarize the story, or cast the story in an ironic light, or subvert the story, or do anything else that constitutes a strategic shift. (Bruce Holland Rogers)
7. The Prose Villanelle. This is a prose piece that in some manner attempts to emulate the villanelle rhyme scheme of nineteen lines...
A1 b A2, a b A1, a b A2, a b A1, a b A2, a b A1 A2
...with a corresponding nineteen paragraphs. The interpretations for how the paragraphs of the prose villanelle should "rhyme" varies tremendously. The most common interpretation is that in the paragraphs that correspond to the villanelle's exactly repeated lines (in a poetry villanelle, the A1 lines are precisely identical to one another, as are the A2 lines to one another), some exact or nearly exact or at least recognizable repetition take place. So in some prose villanelles, paragraphs 1, 6, 12, and 18 (and also paragraphs 3, 9, 15, and 19) contain some exactly identical sentences. On the other hand, in some of Barbara Lefcowitz's more recent prose villanelles, part of the mystery and pleasure of reading the piece is figuring out what the author has, in her view, "repeated" in the designated paragraphs. (Barbara Lefcowitz, Rick DeMarinis)
8. The Symmetrina. In brief, a symmetrina is a thematically related series of shorter narratives that starts with the shortest stories, builds to longer ones in the middle, and then in a symmetrical fashion walks back down the story lengths to shorter stories. Of all the abstract fixed forms given here, the symmetrina is the most baroque. See separate page for a full account of its rules. (Bruce Holland Rogers)
9. Do-It-Yourself. Any set of technical rules can constitute a newly invented fixed form. This includes ad-hoc forms for classroom assignments, such as these: "Write a story---complete with a beginning, middle, and satisfying end---which consists entirely of dialogue without dialogue tags." "Write a story that consists entirely of questions." "Write a story of 1,000 words that shifts the point of view from one character in the beginning to another a character in the end, and do this so subtly that the reader is not jarred by the change."
Organic fixed forms
When a writer tells a whole story from beginning to end in the form of alumni class notes, that is an example of an organic fixed form. The most common organic fixed form in literature is probably the epistolary narrative, which borrows its “rules” from letter writing. Any organic form borrows the conventions of the form of writing that it hijacks or mimics in order to tell a story. Here, the writer's objective is to find interesting forms in the extra-literary world. The model can be anything from how-to instructions, warning labels, e-mails or public notices to legal documents, obituaries, police reports or sacred texts. If the resulting writing merely parodies some document, then it may be clever and amusing, but it's not really an organic fixed form narrative. The objective is to use the organic form as a medium for story telling.
Bibliography
For the 69er:
Any issue of NFG magazine, published in Toronto, Ontario.
For the 369:
Rogers, Bruce Holland. "Three Soldiers.” The Cream of the Flash, Fifth Annivesary edition of The Vestal Review, 2005.
For the prose villanelle:
Demarinis, Rick. “Romance: A Prose Villanelle.” Borrowed Hearts: New and Selected Stories, Seven Stories Press, 1999.
Lefcowitz, Barbara F. "Helena's Coins." A Risk of Green, Gallimaufry Press, Washington, DC, 1978.
Lefcowitz, Barbara F. "Unrecognized at the Airport." Black Moon, Baltimore, (serial date unknown).
For the symmetrina:
Guthridge, George. "Nine Whispered Opinions Regarding the Alaskan Secession. The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, July 2004.
Rogers, Bruce Holland. “The Main Design That Shines Through Sky and Earth.” Polyphony 1, Wheatland Press, TK.
Rogers, Bruce Holland. “Dead White Guys.” Polyphony 2, Wheatland Press, TK.
Rogers, Bruce Holland; Vukcevich, Ray; and Arrow, Holly. “The Train There’s No Getting Off.” Polyphony 4, Wheatland Press, TK.
Rogers, Bruce Holland; Bishop, Michael Bishop; Layne, Deborah; O’Neill, Susan; Galef, David; Garcia, Victoria Elisabeth Garcia. “We Shall Not, We Shall Not Be Moved.” Indiana Review, Summer 2005 (in press).
For organic fixed forms:
Cooper, Lucas. "Class Notes." Sudden Fiction, Gibbs M. Smith, Inc., 1986.
Matthews, Jack. "A Questionnaire for Rudolph Gordon." Sudden Fiction, Gibbs M. Smith, Inc., 1986.
Hemley, Robin. “Reply All.” Another Chicago Magazine, number 143, 2005.
Further examples of fixed form stories are included in Brief Brilliance: How to Write Highly Compressed Stories (working title) by Bruce Holland Rogers. In manuscript.
The Symmetrina: A Fixed Form for Prose Narrative
Rules for the form:
A symmetrina is a work made up of thematically linked shorter narratives. It has these characteristics:
1. A title which refers to the common theme but does not name it directly.
2. At least seven sections, each with a title of its own.
3. The first and last sections are written in the first person.
4. The second and second-from-last sections are written in the second person.
5. All other sections are written in the third person.
6. Sections each have a length that is a multiple of n words. The proportion of sections is determined by any mathematical sequence, such as doubling (1n, 2n, 4n, 8n...) or the Fibonacci sequence (1n, 1n, 2n, 3n, 5n, 8n...). After counting up to the longest section in the middle, the sections count down again toward the end. In revision, the sequence may be re-ordered for effect, so long as the symmetry is maintained. That is, in a Fibonacci symmetrina of eleven sections, the third section of 300 words may be switched with the fourth section of 450 words, so long as sections nine and eight are also switched. However, the first-person and second-person sections must occupy the first/last and second/penultimate positions, respectively.
7. The number of words, n, can have any value and counts actual words, not typesetter's approximations.
8. Words in titles do not count toward the section's total.
9. At the writer's option, the story may somewhere contain a number which names the value of n. In one of my symmetrinas, the value of n is 250 and a character pays a bus fare of $2.50.
10. At the writer's option the middle section can be shorter than the sections on either side of it, as long as proportionality and symmetry are maintained. For example, word counts of 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600, 3200, 1600, 800, 400, 200, 100 are acceptable, but so are word counts of 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600, 800, 1600, 800, 400, 200, 100. That is, a middle section of 800 words is allowed to replace one of 3200 words.