I recently found Harmony doing something similar with his poetry. I've been making a point to try it out each week. I put myself on a 3 minute timer. I just love his technique. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqvAmlnJTfU&t=34s
I also think Jon Krakauer did this in a way. He would take tiny stories and piece them all together to explain and enhance the main character or central point. He's always completely compelling.
I didn't know who Harmony was, so thank you for introducing me! Watched his David Letterman interviews. Wild dude. And his movie Kids sounds fascinating. I'm gonna watch that this weekend.
My grandfather had a satellite dish twice his height across, so he could watch American college football games from Ontario when I was a kid. He clutched that remote control in a chokehold, flick flicking his way from game to game every ad break.
Would you consider Bret Easton Ellis’ work pointillist? Thinking of that quote attributing him as being “the voice of the MTV generation” and how MTV seems quintessentially pointillist with its non-stop cycle of music videos and quick, choppy editing and such to keep the viewer’s attention.
I'm reading The Rules of Attraction right now. I would say that one certainly qualifies.
It opens with this quote: "The facts even when beaded on a chain, still did not have real order. Events did not flow. The facts were separate and haphazard and random even as they happened, episodic, broken, no smooth transitions, no sense of events unfolding from prior events--"
Your story in Chelsea's workshop rocked. The 'dead kid' corner and all. You take one marginal aspect of that story -- the man for instance -- and you can built a book around him. Just say'n.
And jeez, I love that idea. I'm still not entirely confident that I get how to do this pointillism thing, but challenge accepted. I'll give it a try and see what I come up with.
I know you’ve talked about pointillism before, but for some reason this post really made it click for me. I haven’t been writing because I feel like I need the whole story in my head so I can start from the beginning. But that’s stupid, and impossible. I just need to write the scenes I know. Chuck, you goddamn genius!! I’m excited!
Drill down on one moment and get it right. That will create one perfect piece of the puzzle. Do each piece perfectly, and the puzzle will assemble itself. And it will create such a dazzling thing, something you could've never envisioned at the get-go.
Chuck, I'm fascinated with this Pointillism idea. But I'm confused. You said that a Pointillism story is created by piecing together specific details and anecdotes. Does the details and anecdotes have to fall under the umbrella of a central idea? Like the premise of a story? Because your channel surfing point made me think the details/anecdotes can be disjointed and totally random.
Hey Joe G. Creating seemingly random perfect pointilist stories can often have a common thread or not yet seen thread these stories can be pieced together in a way that can show different aspects of the overall story. Think when the transformers came together to make a Megatron or whatever that giant thing was. Also reminds me of Gestalt principles. Beautifully executed principles come together to create something greater than the sum of its parts.
Again, thank you for the book. It's been my distraction all week. Stunning how it's prompted the old empathetic me to reemerge and ask questions of people.
This information makes me very happy. Please forgive me for using Amazon.
And I'd bet a dollar that youre already the type of person he's talking about. Im trying to get better at asking people to elaborate on how they feel, and get at the values that drive them. Too used to trading anecdotes, but Im decent at getting quiet people talking.
And I moved. Dealing with offloading junk, and havent cracked the book in 2 weeks or so.
I feel that my life has been on a similar path as Camille's. Except, instead of a year in a TB hospital, it was 6 months at home during Covid. Lockdown was the best thing that ever happened to me.
This is a terrific lesson series, Chuck! Hate to veer way off topic, but I figured you’d be interested to know that Alien is getting a 45th anniversary re-release in theaters April 26th.
Looks like they’re running Stargate that day. I think Cinemark is working with the release company, so at least a couple of options in your area. However, the Hollywood IS running The Fog on the 21st. You lucky dog.
Channel surfing was still a thing in my country in the early 2000s before the internet became global. I remember turning the satelite dishe to Hotbird and flick through 500 hundred European channels. All sorts of wild art house movies. And porn. Loads of porn. That's when I was 7 or 8 years old.
Beautiful indeed. I also like to compare this literary Pointillism to Trencadís, a technique revived and widely used by Catalan Modernist architects and, particularly, Gaudí. I love the concept of creating texture, theme, and beauty, from broken or discarded fragments of disparate materials in a way that transcends structure. (Have you ever noticed the fragment of a doll embedded in the ceiling of the Park Güell Hypostyle Room, amongst shards of porcelain, pieces of crystal, and colored sandpaper?) Thus, they let patterns emerge in ways that couldn't have been predicted beforehand.
It took me many years to find out this is one of the best methods to tap into my innermost well and discover what I really want to talk about.
I'm happy to see that my intuition matches the vision of one of my literary heroes.
I knew nothing about Coral Castle (I'm not from the States). I've looked it up, though, and it looks intriguing! I'm going to investigate further and learn more about Leedskalnin. The mystery surrounding them resonates with elements from a literary mosaic/labyrinth I've been working on for some time now, which also involves monumental "outsider" art.
Read an anthology of Amy Hempel’s work a couple months ago (The Collected Stories) and was floored by the way simple language could have such an impact. Really great stuff, and different from how I’ve typically written. But, might I have a pointillism-ish story out there now? It’s a character I’ve always loved but didn’t know what to DO with. Wrote a scene 6 years ago…and another scene 4 years ago…and wrote 15 more scenes in the last year, all of which are now lumped into a serial novella where the character is sharing his thoughts with the reader via his personal journal. Maybe that’s a stretch on the pointillism concept, but it’s loads of fun to write. (it’s free on amazon/kindle if anyone wants to let me know what they think of it; just search for my name)
Also consider that Pointillism will allow you to insert different styles of information where needed. For example, an isolated Wiki definition of whatever. The reader is allowed to realize how such a new thing relates to the adjacent scenes of information. You can imply without being expository.
Ahh, now that's very interesting. My first thought: writing small snapshots of different people dealing with seemingly innocuous symptoms in their daily life (symptoms that are referenced, but not the focal point of each vignette) and, once you reach the point where readers care about the characters, you have a reveal by inserting a medical breakdown of the horrible affliction they all have, but don't know it. Then, you return to the banalities of their lives and never actually reach the point of them, say, falling victim to a viral hemorrhagic fever. The reader is left to wonder "My god...did they all die??" I'm more of a learn by doing person; maybe I'll tinker with something along those lines.
This concept definitely has an appeal to it, I just wonder if the flicker of resistance caused by jumping between scenes may hold back a reader from experiencing the desired effect. Among my circle of friends--albeit casual fiction readers for the most part-- I have noticed people prefer novels over short stories for this reason. They like the story once they're in it, but don't like the upfront investment of getting to know new characters/settings.
I like the potato chip metaphor, but there's something in the mental reset required when a reader is introduced to a new character that I suspect may keep this type of story from achieving that Tik-Tok effect. This probably doesn't apply to more schooled readers, but we're talking about the masses here so I just thought it was an interesting point to raise.
Consider that for each plot thread you only establish character/setting once. And often the characters share a setting, albeit at different times, so setting need not be created. And if some of your points or threads are faux-nonfiction -- fake Wikipedia articles, for example -- the form explains itself. Or fake newspaper articles like Stephen King used in 'Carrie.'
You're creating characters and setting far less than you'd imagine.
Ok that makes a lot of sense. I can see how the common thread of setting might mitigate that reset effect I was concerned about. It's like a continued riff rather than a total restart. Thanks for the clarification. I appreciate you taking the time to reply.
I recently found Harmony doing something similar with his poetry. I've been making a point to try it out each week. I put myself on a 3 minute timer. I just love his technique. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqvAmlnJTfU&t=34s
I also think Jon Krakauer did this in a way. He would take tiny stories and piece them all together to explain and enhance the main character or central point. He's always completely compelling.
Haven't seen any of his movies either. His work seems chaotic which is my brand of movies. Definetely need to check him out.
Kids and Spring Breakers are killer movies. Highly recommended!
I didn't know who Harmony was, so thank you for introducing me! Watched his David Letterman interviews. Wild dude. And his movie Kids sounds fascinating. I'm gonna watch that this weekend.
He's fantastic! Deep introduced me to him and when I saw "Curb Dancing" it hit me like a ton of bricks for some reason. So good!
The end of that film is...ick.
“People who have eyes sometimes act foolishly.”
What a brilliant way of making that point.
My grandfather had a satellite dish twice his height across, so he could watch American college football games from Ontario when I was a kid. He clutched that remote control in a chokehold, flick flicking his way from game to game every ad break.
Who knew he was teaching me about pointillism?
Don't forget Kentucky Fried Movie and Groove Tube. Channel surfing in movie form.
P.S. I met David Sedaris tonight! He is so kind! It was wonderful!
I adore Koyaanisqatsi! I often write to Philip Glass.
A few years ago I showed the movie on a big screen to the teenage kids of friends. They were floored.
What a gem this post. Thank you.
Would you consider Bret Easton Ellis’ work pointillist? Thinking of that quote attributing him as being “the voice of the MTV generation” and how MTV seems quintessentially pointillist with its non-stop cycle of music videos and quick, choppy editing and such to keep the viewer’s attention.
I'm reading The Rules of Attraction right now. I would say that one certainly qualifies.
It opens with this quote: "The facts even when beaded on a chain, still did not have real order. Events did not flow. The facts were separate and haphazard and random even as they happened, episodic, broken, no smooth transitions, no sense of events unfolding from prior events--"
Tim O'Brien, Going After Cacciato
And how the book begins mid-sentence; like you’re hearing a conversation amongst the cacophony of a crowd
Exactly.
Your story in Chelsea's workshop rocked. The 'dead kid' corner and all. You take one marginal aspect of that story -- the man for instance -- and you can built a book around him. Just say'n.
Wow, thanks, Chuck. That means the world to me!
And jeez, I love that idea. I'm still not entirely confident that I get how to do this pointillism thing, but challenge accepted. I'll give it a try and see what I come up with.
I know you’ve talked about pointillism before, but for some reason this post really made it click for me. I haven’t been writing because I feel like I need the whole story in my head so I can start from the beginning. But that’s stupid, and impossible. I just need to write the scenes I know. Chuck, you goddamn genius!! I’m excited!
Drill down on one moment and get it right. That will create one perfect piece of the puzzle. Do each piece perfectly, and the puzzle will assemble itself. And it will create such a dazzling thing, something you could've never envisioned at the get-go.
Chuck, I'm fascinated with this Pointillism idea. But I'm confused. You said that a Pointillism story is created by piecing together specific details and anecdotes. Does the details and anecdotes have to fall under the umbrella of a central idea? Like the premise of a story? Because your channel surfing point made me think the details/anecdotes can be disjointed and totally random.
Read the examples, please.
Hey Joe G. Creating seemingly random perfect pointilist stories can often have a common thread or not yet seen thread these stories can be pieced together in a way that can show different aspects of the overall story. Think when the transformers came together to make a Megatron or whatever that giant thing was. Also reminds me of Gestalt principles. Beautifully executed principles come together to create something greater than the sum of its parts.
Its divergent thinking, but for plot.
Again, thank you for the book. It's been my distraction all week. Stunning how it's prompted the old empathetic me to reemerge and ask questions of people.
This information makes me very happy. Please forgive me for using Amazon.
And I'd bet a dollar that youre already the type of person he's talking about. Im trying to get better at asking people to elaborate on how they feel, and get at the values that drive them. Too used to trading anecdotes, but Im decent at getting quiet people talking.
And I moved. Dealing with offloading junk, and havent cracked the book in 2 weeks or so.
The end of the book is perfect.
I feel that my life has been on a similar path as Camille's. Except, instead of a year in a TB hospital, it was 6 months at home during Covid. Lockdown was the best thing that ever happened to me.
This is a terrific lesson series, Chuck! Hate to veer way off topic, but I figured you’d be interested to know that Alien is getting a 45th anniversary re-release in theaters April 26th.
I'll look for it. Maybe at the old Hollywood movie palace in Portland.
Looks like they’re running Stargate that day. I think Cinemark is working with the release company, so at least a couple of options in your area. However, the Hollywood IS running The Fog on the 21st. You lucky dog.
As a ✍🏻📝 with a 🎨 🖼️background, your ⚖️ of minimalism to 🖼️🖌️🖌️🖌️ 🖼️ sure did 🧹🧹🧹☁️☁️☁️ and 🔐🔓my 🧠!
🙏🙏🙏
Channel surfing was still a thing in my country in the early 2000s before the internet became global. I remember turning the satelite dishe to Hotbird and flick through 500 hundred European channels. All sorts of wild art house movies. And porn. Loads of porn. That's when I was 7 or 8 years old.
Beautiful indeed. I also like to compare this literary Pointillism to Trencadís, a technique revived and widely used by Catalan Modernist architects and, particularly, Gaudí. I love the concept of creating texture, theme, and beauty, from broken or discarded fragments of disparate materials in a way that transcends structure. (Have you ever noticed the fragment of a doll embedded in the ceiling of the Park Güell Hypostyle Room, amongst shards of porcelain, pieces of crystal, and colored sandpaper?) Thus, they let patterns emerge in ways that couldn't have been predicted beforehand.
It took me many years to find out this is one of the best methods to tap into my innermost well and discover what I really want to talk about.
I'm happy to see that my intuition matches the vision of one of my literary heroes.
Your description reminds me of the Watts Towers.
That's correct. The Watts Towers are indeed acknowledged as another example of the trencadís technique.
Monumental "outsider" art -- the Coral Castle -- always floats my boat.
I knew nothing about Coral Castle (I'm not from the States). I've looked it up, though, and it looks intriguing! I'm going to investigate further and learn more about Leedskalnin. The mystery surrounding them resonates with elements from a literary mosaic/labyrinth I've been working on for some time now, which also involves monumental "outsider" art.
Read an anthology of Amy Hempel’s work a couple months ago (The Collected Stories) and was floored by the way simple language could have such an impact. Really great stuff, and different from how I’ve typically written. But, might I have a pointillism-ish story out there now? It’s a character I’ve always loved but didn’t know what to DO with. Wrote a scene 6 years ago…and another scene 4 years ago…and wrote 15 more scenes in the last year, all of which are now lumped into a serial novella where the character is sharing his thoughts with the reader via his personal journal. Maybe that’s a stretch on the pointillism concept, but it’s loads of fun to write. (it’s free on amazon/kindle if anyone wants to let me know what they think of it; just search for my name)
Also consider that Pointillism will allow you to insert different styles of information where needed. For example, an isolated Wiki definition of whatever. The reader is allowed to realize how such a new thing relates to the adjacent scenes of information. You can imply without being expository.
Ahh, now that's very interesting. My first thought: writing small snapshots of different people dealing with seemingly innocuous symptoms in their daily life (symptoms that are referenced, but not the focal point of each vignette) and, once you reach the point where readers care about the characters, you have a reveal by inserting a medical breakdown of the horrible affliction they all have, but don't know it. Then, you return to the banalities of their lives and never actually reach the point of them, say, falling victim to a viral hemorrhagic fever. The reader is left to wonder "My god...did they all die??" I'm more of a learn by doing person; maybe I'll tinker with something along those lines.
That's a great trick, too: Keeping the climax—the actual onslaught—implicit. No bangs, just whimpers. So true to life.
This concept definitely has an appeal to it, I just wonder if the flicker of resistance caused by jumping between scenes may hold back a reader from experiencing the desired effect. Among my circle of friends--albeit casual fiction readers for the most part-- I have noticed people prefer novels over short stories for this reason. They like the story once they're in it, but don't like the upfront investment of getting to know new characters/settings.
I like the potato chip metaphor, but there's something in the mental reset required when a reader is introduced to a new character that I suspect may keep this type of story from achieving that Tik-Tok effect. This probably doesn't apply to more schooled readers, but we're talking about the masses here so I just thought it was an interesting point to raise.
Consider that for each plot thread you only establish character/setting once. And often the characters share a setting, albeit at different times, so setting need not be created. And if some of your points or threads are faux-nonfiction -- fake Wikipedia articles, for example -- the form explains itself. Or fake newspaper articles like Stephen King used in 'Carrie.'
You're creating characters and setting far less than you'd imagine.
Ok that makes a lot of sense. I can see how the common thread of setting might mitigate that reset effect I was concerned about. It's like a continued riff rather than a total restart. Thanks for the clarification. I appreciate you taking the time to reply.