Writing science fiction; non-standard formats...
As a comment to one of the fictional interviews I posted, Someone Anonymous wrote:
"This is at least the second example to appear here, after the glossary story. What other exotic forms of fiction are people aware of?"

Responses so far...

1. Glossary story; posts in this journal about this format are indexed at http://www.livejournal.com/tools/memories.bml?user=ozarque&keyword=Writin g+science+fiction%3B+glossary+story&filter=all .

2. From rozasharn:
"In a collection of Spider-man short stories, I found a story in the form of a museum catalog: the museum held objects Spider-man and the Joker had used in their intrigues, catalogued in order of use, with brief explanations of how they'd been used."

3. From houseboatonstyx:
"I haven't read this, but I think it may be online somewhere. I've heard it praised: people call it a story though apparently it's written as a conventional "Frequently Asked Questions" document" -- followed up by aquaeri writing that "It's at: http://www.ansible.co.uk/writing/c-b-faq.html . It's by David Langford, and first appeared in Nature in 1999."

Several comments have mentioned the "epistolary" story or novel -- a narrative made up entirely of fictional letters -- and that's certainly an example of non-standard format. I think, however, that it has been around so long that it no longer qualifies as exotic. The same thing would be true for sf narratives in the form of scholarly papers.

I can add to this two suggested formats that I'm not certain were science fiction (and for which I can't give you the references) but that I'm quite sure would work well as science fiction:

4. Story told entirely in e-mails. [This one has been done very successfully, by subscription, with the e-mail episodes going out just like ordinary e-mails.]

5. A volume of book reviews for books that have never been written and that exist only in the imagination of the book's author.

(Post a new comment)

	dsgood 2007-07-08 09:00 pm UTC (link)
	John Brunner wrote some Consumer Reports-style pieces on such things as time machines. (Reply to this)(Thread)(Expand)

(no subject) - leora, 2007-07-08 10:01 pm UTC (Expand)

	ditenebre 2007-07-08 09:01 pm UTC (link)
	4. Story told entirely in e-mails. [This one has been done very successfully, by subscription, with the e-mail episodes going out just like ordinary e-mails.] Serial publishing of his stories certainly worked for Charles Dickens. Imagine if he'd had access to email ... (Reply to this)(Thread)(Expand)

(no subject) - dale_in_queens, 2007-07-08 09:50 pm UTC (Expand)

(no subject) - foms, 2007-07-09 04:42 am UTC (Expand)

(no subject) - dale_in_queens, 2007-07-09 11:38 am UTC (Expand)

Another story written as blog entries - rozasharn, 2007-07-09 06:50 am UTC (Expand)

Two more - rozasharn, 2007-07-09 07:07 am UTC (Expand)

(no subject) - bionic_valkyrie, 2007-07-08 10:04 pm UTC (Expand)

	redbird 2007-07-08 09:08 pm UTC (link)
	Bard Bloom is writing a fantasy story in the form of a LiveJournal, complete with comments enabled and the first-person narrator replying to comments, at sythyry. (Reply to this)

	(Anonymous) 2007-07-08 09:10 pm UTC (link)
	5. sounds a lot like A Perfect Vacuum by Stanisław Lem. /bkhl (Reply to this)(Thread)(Expand)

(no subject) - nolly, 2007-07-09 06:52 am UTC (Expand)

(no subject) - juuro, 2007-07-09 01:08 pm UTC (Expand)

ashnistrike 2007-07-08 09:31 pm UTC (link)

Tangential, but: I don't know whether you were at Wiscon this year. The two guests of honor wrote an epistolary GOH speech consisting of e-mails and postcards to each other, tossing postcards out into the audience as they finished reading each letter. It was one of the more delightful speeches I've ever witnessed. Are these unusual forms all subsets of the category: "stories that asume the reader lives in the story world"? I'm thinking, in less unusual formats, of books such as Susannah Clarke's Jonathan Strange & Mister Norrel (which assumes the reader is an upper-class woman in Napoleonic-Era-With-Magic England) or Jo Walton's Tooth and Claw (which assumes the reader is a cannibalistic Victorian dragon). All of which, essentially, turn both reader and author into additional characters. Are there any non-standard formats that aren't, essentially, artifacts from alternate universes? And my contribution to the list: Neil Gaiman and Gene Wolfe wrote A Walking Tour of the Shambles, which is a travel guide for a Chicago neighborhood that (we hope) doesn't actually exist. (Reply to this)(Thread)(Expand)

Reader in story-world - elfwreck, 2007-07-09 04:41 pm UTC (Expand)

Re: Reader in story-world - vvvexation, 2007-07-10 12:52 am UTC (Expand)

	queeninnarnia 2007-07-08 09:34 pm UTC (link)
	In Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov, the author writes in two different personas: one persona writes a long poem, the other persona writes an introduction and notes to the poem. In the course of the notes, a different story is told than in the poem. (Reply to this)

wandering_cat 2007-07-08 09:40 pm UTC (link)

Another format that I attempted last November, during National Novel Writing Month, was the "LJ novel," in which I created numerous LJs for fictional characters, and had them interact with each other. The premise was somewhat SF-ish (a suicide is given one month of post-death access to LJ to try to save the life of someone else) but I was unable to finish it as planned during the allotted time of NaNoWriMo. I would be curious to know if anyone else has attempted the "LJ novel" format. (Reply to this)

elfwreck 2007-07-08 09:42 pm UTC (link)

There could also be stories written as a set of court documents--an arrest ticket, a motion for trial, motions to dismiss, depositions, trial transcript, final judgment, and so on. I don't know of any of those; I would assume that most writers aren't familiar enough with the format to do it convincingly. I believe I have seen stories (but can't recall any specifics, so I might be mixing them up) that are other sets of documents--a receipt, complaint form, appointment book entry, and so on. But it's possible I've never seen a story comprised *entirely* of those, only stories that included them in addition to "normal" story text. Diary entries as stories are as well-known and common as epistolaries, but they are a different format. (Reply to this)(Thread)(Expand)

(no subject) - foms, 2007-07-09 04:46 am UTC (Expand)

	redbird 2007-07-08 09:47 pm UTC (link)
	Two short-shorts in the form of "errata slips" for an Encyclopedia Galactica, by Edward Wellen, published in Asimov's: --Errata Slip, September-October, 1978. --Errata Slip Nubmer Two, November-December, 1978. (Reply to this)(Thread)(Expand)

(no subject) - lianneb, 2007-07-18 04:01 pm UTC (Expand)

	morgan_dhu 2007-07-08 09:51 pm UTC (link)
	Joanna Russ wrote a short story composed of phrases from an interstellar tourist guidebook, called "Useful Phrases for the Tourist." It's collected in The Zanzibar Cat. She credits Samuel Delany and members of the Clarion Workshop for the concept. (Reply to this)

leora 2007-07-08 10:05 pm UTC (link)

Oh, and of course, Choose Your Own Adventures... stories where you have multiple paths written out and can follow varying ones. Which would work even better on the web with links than flipping to page 67 and such. A long time ago I started writing one I never finished, putting it online, and included things like fake usenet posts, including fake spam when you are using the character's computer. If you get too interactive it starts to cross over into a computer game, although a good argument can be made that a lot of roleplaying games these days are stories. And as the cut scenes get longer, you really do have a bit of a movie aspect to them. (Reply to this)(Thread)(Expand)

(no subject) - godkin, 2007-07-08 11:20 pm UTC (Expand)

(no subject) - kelsied, 2007-07-09 07:31 am UTC (Expand)

(no subject) - leora, 2007-07-09 08:03 am UTC (Expand)

(no subject) - kelsied, 2007-07-09 05:00 pm UTC (Expand)

dteleki 2007-07-08 10:59 pm UTC (link)

Another variation on the "epistolary" story: "A Bundle of Letters" by Henry James. Exactly one letter apiece from various people at a boarding-house in Paris, writing to their respective friends and families about their experiences there; except that the writer of the first letter gets two letters in the story, the first one and the last one. I published a short-short ("Carpet Bugs") that presents the results of somebody doing a Search for technical-support documents on a futuristic hardware store's website. The unnamed searcher is apparently having trouble with house paint that was purchased from the hardware store. The paint is composed entirely of nanobots. The novel that I'm writing is basically a vastly enlarged version of this sort of thing -- a Google-search story. I'm also writing a short story that consists entirely of a sales brochure by a future post office, explaining how various hazardous items may and may not be shipped by mail, such as phoenixes and mummies. I've also got a "court-document" story in the works, about a federal lawsuit against a fraudulent manufacturer of supernatural products; the fun thing about these forms is that I can base them on actual real-life documents that are in the public domain, in some cases lifting entire sentences out of the originals with little or no change. Some of John Brunner's novels have been compared to TV scripts. One of them, I think it's Stand On Zanzibar, includes a pop-music video. Norman Spinrad's A World Between contains a large number of political attack ads. These are video ads. They aren't the entire book, though. Stanislaw Lem has done the "book reviews of non-existent books" thing twice that I know of -- A Perfect Vacuum, and One Human Minute. I recently read a story that was one half of a tech-support phone call to a company that sells supernatural products. ("Are they giving unearthly moans, and covered with green slime? Yes? Then I'm afraid that what you have isn't wraiths, it's revenants. That's a different banishment spell. Wait a sec while I check the appendix...") (Reply to this)

Electronic literature journeyrose 2007-07-08 11:24 pm UTC (link)

Electronic literature is a new form of literature that depends on the computer. People have done interesting works fusing links, images, sounds, video with text. Bill Bly's We Descend (Eastgate Systems--buy the disk)http://www.eastgate.com/catalog/WeDescend.html uses archived notes and lectures to explain what happened to our society--an extended Canticle for Leibowitz with a lot of twists. Accounts of the Glass Sky by M.D. Coverly http://califia.us/glasssky/ (read online) My datafeeds http://www.deenalarsen.net/datafeed excplores a universe where people sense heartbeats There are also text "games" which are novels such as Winchester's Nightmare by Nick Monfort http://nickm.com/if/wn_web.html The electronic literature organization directory has many more works http://directory.eliterature.org (Reply to this)

	drasecretcampus 2007-07-08 11:24 pm UTC (link)
	Ballard's "The Index", told in the form of an index to an imagined biography. (Reply to this)

ladyvorkosigan 2007-07-08 11:38 pm UTC (link)

Not sci-fi, but Anonymous Lawyer, by Jeremy Blachman was a book that was recently released done entirely in blogposts and the occasional e-mail. What makes it interesting is that it started out as a blog that updated regularly from the point of a view of a fictional hiring partner at a major law firm (it had a disclaimer saying it was fictional, but there was widespread speculation as to the author's identity/its accuracy anyway). Pretty cool. (Reply to this)

	crossfire_ 2007-07-09 12:11 am UTC (link)
	For one issue of his comic book series "Rising Stars," JMS did an entire issue in the format of an issue of Newsweek. (Reply to this)

ruthi 2007-07-09 12:36 am UTC (link)

Geoff Ryman's novel, 253 . it describes passengers on a London(UK) underground train. "interactive web novel 253: a novel for the Internet in Seven Cars and a Crash, in which 253 people sit on a London tube and are each described in 253 words, won the Philip K. Dick Memorial Award for best novel not published in hardback." -- http://www.arts.manchester.ac.uk/newwriting/about/geoffryman/ I've never read all of it, I read some about some passengers and follow some of the links and then wander off to other web-pages. There are so many. *** The scrolling 404 ('file not found' in webspeak) http://www.aquarionics.com/writing/name/4_oh_4 Is a good one. (Reply to this)(Thread)(Expand)

(no subject) - kelsied, 2007-07-09 01:17 am UTC (Expand)

(no subject) - aquarionical, 2007-07-09 06:25 am UTC (Expand)

	kelsied 2007-07-09 01:12 am UTC (link)
	I can't help thinking of livejournal memes such as Rabbit Hole Day or the End of the World meme that went around a while back... Some WONDERFUL stories have come out of those. (Reply to this)(Thread)(Expand)

(no subject) - kelsied, 2007-07-09 04:59 pm UTC (Expand)

	geojlc 2007-07-09 01:42 am UTC (link)
	Avi wrote a story called The Truth that was a combination of memos, scene snippets, letters, diary entries and other formats to tell a very compelling story with a surprise twist at the end. I would highly recommed it! (Reply to this)(Thread)(Expand)

(no subject) - geojlc, 2007-07-09 01:44 am UTC (Expand)

	magid 2007-07-09 03:02 am UTC (link)
	It's an epistolary novel, but I have to mention Ella Minnow Pea, because it's a progressively lipogrammatic epistolary novel, which actually mostly works. Also, there's The Thackery T. Lambshead Pocket Buide to Exxentric & Discredited Diseases, a compendium of short pieces by a variety of authors. (Reply to this)(Thread)(Expand)

(no subject) - magid, 2007-07-09 03:02 am UTC (Expand)

delurker 2007-07-09 04:22 am UTC (link)

There's the wonderful website Preserve Us From the House of Clocks, a clock museum website well worth reading. Each clock is catalogued, and each catalogue is a story. Here's an excerpt: The Cuckold's Clock HOC222756 (On indefinite loan from Scotland Yard's Black Museum) Exhibited in the Rogue's Gallery This clock is a material witness to three grisly episodes of domestic violence. To say that the clock is in any way to blame would be a foolish and superstitious accusation, but none-the-less the deaths of Lizzie Barlow, Ruth Harriet and Charlotte Brooke all occurred beneath its innocent white face. Charlotte Brooke's relationship with Sir Henry Cope was proved in court to be beyond reproach and yet still there are three (repaired) bullet holes in the clock's body, three dead women, and three young men with life sentences, currently enjoying her Majesty's hospitality. Young couples are not encouraged to browse. -- Capt.S.S. Hendley (Reply to this)(Thread)(Expand)

(no subject) - kelsied, 2007-07-09 07:24 am UTC (Expand)

(no subject) - delurker, 2007-07-09 09:09 am UTC (Expand)

	nolly 2007-07-09 06:58 am UTC (link)
	There's a short story in Starlight 2 in the form of a scientic report -- a journal article, basically. It is suffieciently well done that I have occasionally had to remind myself that it's fiction, not actual research. ("The Congenital Agenesis of Gender Ideation" by Raphael Carter) (Reply to this)

(Anonymous) 2007-07-09 07:43 am UTC (link)

Oh! How could I forget! For published works, Steven Brust and Emma Bull -- their Freedom and Necessity. As I recall, diary entries, news clippings, letters... a whole mishmash of different perspectives, with some wonderful gaps and contradictions..... Very cleverly done. Also, not Sorcery and Cecilia (which was a straight across letter-exchange less relevant to this conversation, though I love the story dearly), but the sequel, which was The Grand Tour. Both by Patricia C. Wrede and Carolyn Stevermer, but I seem to recall that the second one also started pulling in newspaper clippings and other perspectives... though I don't actually own that one yet, so my recollection is hazy. And I get all three of the above books just ... mixed, as far as the style goes. Not the stories, but the way the stories are told..... Wow. Reasons I should never try to compose a post at 1am. (Reply to this)(Thread)(Expand)

(no subject) - kelsied, 2007-07-09 07:43 am UTC (Expand)

(no subject) - (Anonymous), 2007-07-09 03:16 pm UTC (Expand)

dteleki 2007-07-09 08:11 am UTC (link)

How did I ever forget?... Isaac Asimov's short story, "The Endochronic Properties of Resublimated Thiotimoline". By that time Asimov had been writing professionally for nine years and was shortly to face the challenge of writing up his research as a doctoral dissertation. He feared that the experience of writing readable prose for publication might have impaired his ability to write the prose typical of academic discourse, and decided to practice with a spoof article (including charts, graphs, tables, and citations of fake articles in nonexistent journals) describing experiments on a compound, thiotimoline, that was so soluble that it dissolved in water up to 1.12 seconds before the water was added. -- Wikipedia article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thiotimoline (Reply to this)

	http://elaine-andraste.livejournal.com/2005/08/22/ houseboatonstyx 2007-07-09 09:18 am UTC (link)
	Here's some great blog-fiction. I hope it's fiction. http://elaine-andraste.livejournal.com/2005/08/22/ (Reply to this)

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