So I do a lot of pointless reports at work, as close to filling out a form as writing can get. I was wondering if a short story (or maybe longer) might work if it was written in that fashion.
"On May 1, 2013 at approximately 14:37, EST soandso entered the business of insertnamehere..."
Just a random thought.
It could definitely work. I've read a few stories like that. In "I Am An Executioner" by Rajesh Parameswaran there is a short story about a spy who logs seemingly insignificant info on her "target". Since it's classified info, all the names and locations have been replaced with the word: [redacted]. It was a very interesting approach, I thought.
I would totally read that.
I think so, and I've used the technique myself. In one (unpublished, not quite finished) novel, I describe sex tapes as evidence in a court case. It has (in my opinion, or at least it's what I was going for) the effect of being both clinical and voyeuristic. I got the idea from reading Invisible Darkness by Stephen Williams. He writes about the Paul Bernardo/Karla Homolka murders, including the tapes they made that were supposed to be used as evidence but got lost for a long time (allowing Karla to cut a deal). The way he describes the tapes is seriously creepy, especially when you consider even the jury didn't watch them.
Hmmm
Kind of like Dracula being done in journals/diaries... Only not so dry and boring and wordy.
Could be an interesting series of short stories, even, that goes into a big story? Like a spy putting things together and rooting out a secret of some sort, or a series of seemingly unrelated events that culminate in a great bank heist years in the making?
@Thuggish - Dracula was an epistolary novel, with lots of flavor depending on whose journal it was. Which isn't bad, just not what I was thinking of.
I am thinking that I come up with a story, and do everything I can to keep it like a police report. Sort of the opposite of those books were no one cares about the plot, but try to make the wording very pretty.
and do everything I can to keep it like a police report.
Very ambitious. That kind of bureaucratese can put a meth maniac on a peaking ephedrine/crack cocaine binge to sleep.
I could see thinking something like that was different and neat to read, but then I could also see it soon getting old. I'd do it but keep it short, or else just use the reports now and then in the regular story. JMHO.
I was thinking that dialogue and a really good plot might help with that, but yeah don't want to drag it out.
I wrote a story using (what I think is) a fully unembellished, natural, first-person voice. The whole thing is a monologue, told as someone actually might tell it. I don't know if you could say it's totally stripped of flavor, but it has no more flavor than I felt the narrator could/would impart if speaking.
EDIT --- Which is to say I think it can work. Also J. L. Borges managed to create interesting and almost totally impersonal bits of fiction which lack "literary" flavor, i.e. they're about the facts and implicit ideas, not the "writing," (though one could argue that any writing is about the "writing" even when it's utterly dry.)
The idea is sort of a reaction to that, the over focus on the writing. I won't say it is not important, and that plot is the dark lord of all, but it seems like so many folks are afraid to just tell a story. It is also a personal challenge thing, since that is how I have to write reports at work, and I want to find some way to make the way of writing I've used most in my life creative and fun for at least some people.
Why limit it to police reports? You have those, you have newspaper articles, mission briefings, business memos...
You know, it could be fun to mix them and have different accounts of the same thing, maybe the author and reader get an inside laugh at how one guy said there were three guys in black shirts, the other swears they were white, that kind of thing. maybe we never do find out which one it was?
I love the idea of doing the opposite of the prettily-worded books with crap plots. Those, and the movie equivalents (read: too many special effects), are just. so. terrible.
good plots, though, are hard to kill.
It's entirely possible and I think you can pull it off if you keep it fairly short. I've read stories written entirely in military jargon or corporate speak. Police reports tell a story using jargon like ATPO (at the time and place of occurance) Perp....You could also facor in the memo book the cop carries for notes which could be your embelishment. Get familiar with police reports online and just do it like real life but better.
I was a cop for 5 years. I'd be happy to read any draft and tell you if I buy it or not. You were extremely helpful with my story. I'd like to return the favor.
@Thuggish - Well two reasons. One, having fun with the writing style is the exact opposite of what I am trying to do. I want to remove every bit of that stuff I can, get out of the way of the plot. Switching those isn't a bad idea, but it feels like a different type of special effect. Two, if am I going with the whole unreliable narrator I'm creating false tension thing and distracting from the plot.
@Eddie - That would be great, but I was thinking more the writing style than the jargon. That make sense?
