Form Must Come First (Knausgaard)

[Katie-Ellen]

Thought I'd share this excerpt for consideration

Literature's sole law ...

...'everything has to submit to form.If any of literature's other elements are stronger than form, such as style, plot, theme, if any of these take control over form, the result is poor. That is why writers with a strong style often write poor books. That is also why writers with strong themes so often write poor books. Strong themes and styles have to be broken down before literature can come into being. It is this breaking down that is called 'writing.' Writing is more about destroying than creating.'

Karl Ove Knauusgard My Struggle 1: A Death In The Family.

He was writing about his early writing failures. We need to cut all Gordion knots, and deconstruct, I think he is saying. Like taking a jigsaw apart. We know what the picture will be once it's put back together, but our job, writing a novel, is to make the reader put the pieces together.

 

[Marc Joan]

Thought I'd share this excerpt for consideration

Literature's sole law ...

...'everything has to submit to form.If any of literature's other elements are stronger than form, such as style, plot, theme, if any of these take control over form, the result is poor. That is why writers with a strong style often write poor books. That is also why writers with strong themes so often write poor books. Strong themes and styles have to be broken down before literature can come into being. It is this breaking down that is called 'writing.' Writing is more about destroying than creating.'

Karl Ove Knauusgard My Struggle 1: A Death In The Family.

He was writing about his early writing failures. We need to cut all Gordion knots, and deconstruct, I think he is saying. Like taking a jigsaw apart. We know what the picture will be once it's put back together, but our job is to make the reader put the pieces together.

View attachment 1269

Interesting. Sorry to ask dim questions, but what is meant by 'form' in this context?

 

[Katie-Ellen]

I'd say, the way the story content is delivered. A fairy tale has a distinct form.

 

[Richard Sutton]

Now this is probably the uneducated approach, but often I allow the story to tell itself in draft and don't worry about the final form until the editing chore is undertaken. Maybe that's why my books don't sell in big numbers? Hmmm...

 

[Katie-Ellen]

The difference between a fairy tale and a novel isn't just length, but form. I think what he's suggesting is that a novel may open with a hook, but thereafter, you know you are reading a novel because it's not linear. It's a nebula that gradually coalesces in the mind of the reader.

 

[Patricia D]

I've read the quote and the posts and am still puzzled by form - I get it in poetry where a sonnet is one thing and a limerick another etc. but I don't see what it means in the context of a novel. Perhaps after another cup of coffee ...

 

[James Marinero]

I've read the quote and the posts and am still puzzled by form - I get it in poetry where a sonnet is one thing and a limerick another etc. but I don't see what it means in the context of a novel. Perhaps after another cup of coffee ...

I get what you say. I think that it could be a proxy term for 'genre' in this context. Or maybe it relates to another post I saw from @Sea-shore about chapter structure, but applied to the whole book. Certainly as @Katie-Ellen Hazeldine suggests - a fairy tale has a form - I see that form as having a bad character and a clear moral lesson that a child can understand.

 

[Katie-Ellen]

I think he's saying, for a novel to 'work', the writer has got to prioritise outline and structure, regardless of the story substance. Hence the arc and all that business. It's about shape and momentum.

 

[Marc Joan]

Oh, 3 acts or 5 acts, or whatever - is that what he means?

 

[Katie-Ellen]

I reckon. I recently read The Stopped Heart by Julie Myerson (horrible...evil never dies, though neither does love)

It had the form of that poem, The Convergence of the Twain. The one about the Titanic and the Iceberg...two people who never met in life, converge upon a crisis point. Myerson moves between viewpoints till at last the two people clearly see one another, a mutual ghostly encounter over a kitchen table.

The Convergence of the Twain by Thomas Hardy : The Poetry Foundation

 

[Patricia D]

@Katie-Ellen Hazeldine I'm beginning to understand - thank you for your patience and persistence.

 

[J. Rook]

The difference between a fairy tale and a novel isn't just length, but form. I think what he's suggesting is that a novel may open with a hook, but thereafter, you know you are reading a novel because it's not linear. It's a nebula that gradually coalesces in the mind of the reader.

It's a bit easier in music. Sonata form, for example, is agreed on. Any departure from that is seen as a departure, although in its turn the departure can become a new form. Fugue is an agreed form.
In literature, form seems not to be as fixed. Referring to what Katie-Ellen says, I have recently read a work in progress where the author changes the PoV with every chapter to express the exterior conflict between the main characters.
Perhaps Knauusgard is equating form in literature to those underlying structural elements which do in fact hold a written piece together; the basic arch-shape of a chapter, for example.
Thank you for the interesting post, Katie-Ellen.

 

[Richard Turner]

The difference between a fairy tale and a novel isn't just length, but form. I think what he's suggesting is that a novel may open with a hook, but thereafter, you know you are reading a novel because it's not linear. It's a nebula that gradually coalesces in the mind of the reader.

I very much like your phrase "a nebula that...." Form can also be convention. A certain opening will lead to expectations in the reader, and the writer will then use those expectations to both surprise and confirm. I like the musical analogy too. In all kinds of music, except free jazz perhaps, there is a strong underlying structure which helps us to respond to what the musician or composer is expressing, and the use of genre as a marketing tool is just as important in popular music as it is in publishing. There are so many artists clamouring to be heard that the consumer has to have some signposts to be able to choose what to consume. Is too great a reliance on genre a bad thing?

 

[J. Rook]

I very much like your phrase "a nebula that...." Form can also be convention. A certain opening heard that the consumer has to have some signposts to be able to choose what to consume. Is too great a reliance on genre a bad thing?

I think we need the genre concept. But perhaps genre is more to do with content than form. I like the reference to free jazz and the world of the great musical improviser. Bach/Mozart, Liszt etc were brilliant improvisers, but even in their improvisations they loosely held to the forms of music current in their day. Does the literary improvisatory expression appear in a "stream of consciousness"? And even in that type of writing, can one see the underlying form that Knauusgard seems to be arguing?

 

[Matnov]

I do not even pretend to have any clue what most of you are going on about but for me, it is all about making sure you have a definitive beginning, middle and an end and doing your utmost to ensure they all bear at least a relevance to each other. Throw in trying to add a least a modicum of a third dimension to every character who gets even a walk on part and I am struggling enough as it is.

Oddly enough I am finding myself drawn back to Ulysses and I find myself increasingly marvelling at the use of language with it all slowly starting to make a bit more sense in a convoluted sort of way but I know I am no Joyce (and not sure if I actually want to be) and think that the over-whelming majority of writers should stick to the basics. Basics is good. Basics works. And people like basics. I am increasingly convinced that this whole 3 act formula is part of our dna. That fiction is merely an extension of our lives which is why people enjoy reading/watching/listening to a whole range of creative entertainments that stick to that formula.

And I write to entertain. Both myself and my reader.

 

[Katie-Ellen]

I shared this quote because I had to stop and think about it, myself. Writing to entertain....there's no arguing

 

[J. Rook]

I do not even pretend to have any clue what most of you are going on about but for me, it is all about making sure you have a definitive beginning, middle and an end and doing your utmost to ensure they all
And I write to entertain. Both myself and my reader.

It's good to talk, though, isn't it? Look at what can be said about a football match!

 

[Madeleine Conway]

Putting my teacher hat on, I find 'form' one of the hardest elements of writing to explain. Let's take some examples here from books I'm teaching this year:
The Crucible - classic four act play, timeline stretches from spring through to autumn, each act ends in a climactic moment, culminating in the death of the protagonist, so it is tragedy...all of the elements I've mentioned there contribute to form.
Hamlet - classic five act play, again, a linear timeline stretching over a period of about three to six months, each act shows the protagonist resisting his projected arc, until he achieves maturity, then ironically dies at the point when he has actually come to terms with being alive.
Importance of Being Earnest - classic three act structure, social and romantic comedy using satire, parody and physical humour (the muffins) and culminating in marriage.
Antigone - classic Greek tragedy, but the apparent protagonist (the primary figure experiencing 'agon' or struggle) is in fact the protagonist, and the apparent antagonist at the start of the play (Creon who appears to be the Big Bad) is the one who experiences the real struggle, because at the start of the play, he is confident, arrogant and convinced of his right to rule, and by the end, he is a broken man, abdicating and thus losing what he valued so highly at the start of the play.

Knaussgard is on the money in certain respects, I'd say. I think characterisation is more important, to be honest, because it is the characters that we as readers remember, hold close to our hearts, but form is essential to shaping that characterisation. At the moment, for various reasons, I've put aside a series I've been working on for nearly a decade. I've written and rewritten the first volume many times, and it still doesn't work, because I haven't shaped the story in the right way so as to guarantee that my readers will fall in love with my protagonist. And when I say fall in love, I think I'm really talking about that memorability factor. If I look back to my childhood reading, the characters I fell in love with were Mole from Wind in the Willows, Harriet the Spy, Jane Eyre (especially as a young girl), Scarlett O'Hara, Holden Caulfield. I can remember very vividly that sense of complete devotion to these characters.

All of these characters are established in their natural settings, and then taken out of them and forced to confront demons of one sort or another. And that brings us on to form. We get to know them, and then we see them in extremis, and then we are on their side and we want them to win no matter what. And that is form...the setting, the conflict, the in extremis...

Sorry to bang on - I think it is a fascinating question.

 

[Marc Joan]

Putting my teacher hat on, I find 'form' one of the hardest elements of writing to explain. Let's take some examples here from books I'm teaching this year:
The Crucible - classic four act play, timeline stretches from spring through to autumn, each act ends in a climactic moment, culminating in the death of the protagonist, so it is tragedy...all of the elements I've mentioned there contribute to form.
Hamlet - classic five act play, again, a linear timeline stretching over a period of about three to six months, each act shows the protagonist resisting his projected arc, until he achieves maturity, then ironically dies at the point when he has actually come to terms with being alive.
Importance of Being Earnest - classic three act structure, social and romantic comedy using satire, parody and physical humour (the muffins) and culminating in marriage.
Antigone - classic Greek tragedy, but the apparent protagonist (the primary figure experiencing 'agon' or struggle) is in fact the protagonist, and the apparent antagonist at the start of the play (Creon who appears to be the Big Bad) is the one who experiences the real struggle, because at the start of the play, he is confident, arrogant and convinced of his right to rule, and by the end, he is a broken man, abdicating and thus losing what he valued so highly at the start of the play.

Knaussgard is on the money in certain respects, I'd say. I think characterisation is more important, to be honest, because it is the characters that we as readers remember, hold close to our hearts, but form is essential to shaping that characterisation. At the moment, for various reasons, I've put aside a series I've been working on for nearly a decade. I've written and rewritten the first volume many times, and it still doesn't work, because I haven't shaped the story in the right way so as to guarantee that my readers will fall in love with my protagonist. And when I say fall in love, I think I'm really talking about that memorability factor. If I look back to my childhood reading, the characters I fell in love with were Mole from Wind in the Willows, Harriet the Spy, Jane Eyre (especially as a young girl), Scarlett O'Hara, Holden Caulfield. I can remember very vividly that sense of complete devotion to these characters.

All of these characters are established in their natural settings, and then taken out of them and forced to confront demons of one sort or another. And that brings us on to form. We get to know them, and then we see them in extremis, and then we are on their side and we want them to win no matter what. And that is form...the setting, the conflict, the in extremis...

Sorry to bang on - I think it is a fascinating question.

Thanks for this. I'm still struggling a bit though. From your last para, it sounds like 'form' is practically synonymous with 'story'. I think I am missing something...

 

[Katie-Ellen]

Madeleine's first three examples in particular encapsulate it, I think. Structure, presentation (this could include that controversial element - person and voice) and pace/momentum.

 

[Marc Joan]

What aspects of the story are not form?

 

[Katie-Ellen]

A novel is one prose form. Memoir is another. Within a work of prose, theme, style, plot are subordinate to the form, according to this writer, Knausgaard.

What is he known for? A new form of non-fiction writing.

Perhaps we're getting confused. His quote began Literature' sole law, not a novel's sole law.

It seems not all memoirs are regarded as literature, but his very much are, and they are classified as fiction, too. Maybe that's the question; what does it take to elevate a memoir to literature? Where does non-fiction meet with fiction? Geoff also raised this question recently.

Knausgaard

 

[Marc Joan]

OK, having dug around on the internet, I think that I now understand what is meant by "literary form"-- but I'm not certain, as different sources offer conflicting views. If I'm right, 'literary forms' are the 3 major categories of written work, namely, drama, poetry and prose. Within each of these forms, there are several sub-forms; thus, within prose are fiction and non-fiction subforms; within the fiction sub-form are the sub-sub-forms of novel, novella, short story. Etc. If that is correct, form has nothing to do with genre, and (at least in the case of fiction sub-sub-forms) only relates to the conventions, possibilities and expectations associated with works of differing length. Example source: Literary Forms & Schemas - Examples

Are there any Eng Lit graduates or other experts out there who can comment on this interpretation?

 

[Madeleine Conway]

OK, having dug around on the internet, I think that I now understand what is meant by "literary form"-- but I'm not certain, as different sources offer conflicting views. If I'm right, 'literary forms' are the 3 major categories of written work, namely, drama, poetry and prose. Within each of these forms, there are several sub-forms; thus, within prose are fiction and non-fiction subforms; within the fiction sub-form are the sub-sub-forms of novel, novella, short story. Etc. If that is correct, form has nothing to do with genre, and (at least in the case of fiction sub-sub-forms) only relates to the conventions, possibilities and expectations associated with works of differing length. Example source: Literary Forms & Schemas - Examples

Are there any Eng Lit graduates or other experts out there who can comment on this interpretation?

Literary form is literally the shape of a piece of work - so haiku is a form. Equally epic is a form. When you start looking at genre, it is where there is a grey area, because it's a chicken egg stuff - does a genre conform to a certain form? To give you an example, if we are looking at eg. sword and sorcery style fantasy, from Malory onwards, we are looking at multi-character, extended time line and very long pieces of writing that cover mythical stories like King Arthur & Knights of Round Table right up to Patrick Rothfuss's Name of the Wind books, taking in along the way Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast and of course, LoTR. The form issue encompasses genre (sword and sorcery), structure (hero's journey archetypes), style (highfalutin, if there is humour, it is often laboured/surreal), themes - self-realisation of the protagonist charged with the impossible task/quest and various other areas that these books have in common. So when Knausgaard is going on about the supremacy of form, he's basically saying that every aspect of shaping the book is the thing that separates literature from bad writing. Anyone can string together 100,000 words, but not every one can extract David from the chunk of marble or build Middlemarch from 320,000 words. It's a variant on the monkeys typing Shakespeare issue.

Until very recently (I'd say post 1950s), writers didn't set out to write in a particular form or style or genre - that came looking for them. This has implications for us as writers, the main one being don't sweat form. Focus on writing the story you need to tell in the way that will communicate it most effectively.

This is my 2¢ as a student, reader and teacher of Eng Lit, and of course, an aspiring writer.

 

[Madeleine Conway]

Thanks for this. I'm still struggling a bit though. From your last para, it sounds like 'form' is practically synonymous with 'story'. I think I am missing something...

Story (or plot) is the events that occur during the course of the narrative. Literally, first this thing happened, then that thing happened, and it led to this, and either everyone dead, boo hoo, or yay, our problems are solved, let's get married/have a party. Plot is part of form but it is one element that contributes to form.

Think of a book like a puzzle of some sort - for me, when I write, I feel as though I'm playing 3-D jigsaws or building my own watch, something where each piece is individual and essential, but only works if everything else around it fits/flows. All of the strands that Knausgaard mentions go towards building a complete picture. But sometimes when you finish the jigsaw, you have a cheesy image of two Yorkshire terriers with ribbons in their fur, against a pastel pink silk background, and sometimes when you finish the jigsaw, you have the Temptation of St Anthony as seen by Hieronymus Bosch.

 

[Patricia D]

Reading these posts, I find myself dipping in and out of confusion, but I think I'm beginning to get it. I wrote a short story and asked a reader, whose opinion I respect, what she thought. She said - "This is not a short story; it's a novel." In other words, I was fitting my plot and characters into the wrong form. Aha! Slowly, the light dawns. It has taken a while, but I also understand @Madeleine Conway's first explanation about the different play forms.

Interesting discussion -

 

[Marc Joan]

Literary form is literally the shape of a piece of work - so haiku is a form. Equally epic is a form. When you start looking at genre, it is where there is a grey area, because it's a chicken egg stuff - does a genre conform to a certain form? To give you an example, if we are looking at eg. sword and sorcery style fantasy, from Malory onwards, we are looking at multi-character, extended time line and very long pieces of writing that cover mythical stories like King Arthur & Knights of Round Table right up to Patrick Rothfuss's Name of the Wind books, taking in along the way Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast and of course, LoTR. The form issue encompasses genre (sword and sorcery), structure (hero's journey archetypes), style (highfalutin, if there is humour, it is often laboured/surreal), themes - self-realisation of the protagonist charged with the impossible task/quest and various other areas that these books have in common. So when Knausgaard is going on about the supremacy of form, he's basically saying that every aspect of shaping the book is the thing that separates literature from bad writing. Anyone can string together 100,000 words, but not every one can extract David from the chunk of marble or build Middlemarch from 320,000 words. It's a variant on the monkeys typing Shakespeare issue.

Until very recently (I'd say post 1950s), writers didn't set out to write in a particular form or style or genre - that came looking for them. This has implications for us as writers, the main one being don't sweat form. Focus on writing the story you need to tell in the way that will communicate it most effectively.

This is my 2¢ as a student, reader and teacher of Eng Lit, and of course, an aspiring writer.

Thanks for bearing with me on this. I hate to continue being the thick one, but I still don't quite get it.

1. If form is the 'shape' of a piece of work - haiku or epic, as you said - then Knausgaard is saying that if you try to squeeze an epic into a haiku, it won't work. Or, to be slightly less silly, if you try to squeeze a novel into a short story, or spin a short story into a novel, you will similarly fail. But isn't this self-evident? You might as well say if you write a poem without attention to imagery or meter, it probably won't work. Hardly helpful of Mr Knausgaard?

2. Later you say that Knausgaard is saying that form - 'every aspect of shaping the book' - is what separates good literature from bad writing. But this doesn't actually tell us anything; if what makes a book good or bad is 'every aspect of shaping it' , it doesn't break down the process of constructing the book in any meaningful or useful way. How can anybody use that kind of all-inclusive statement to better their own writing?

I'd really like to see some kind of collection of schematics or infographics that lays out, for idiots such as I, exactly what the different accepted forms are and precisely how they differ from each other, e.g. in terms of structure. For example, perhaps a novel has a lead-up to the inciting incident and has several well-developed characters, whereas a short story might start at the inciting incident and have fewer or even only one well-developed character (I'm not saying that is the case, I am just speculating). I would have thought that, if 'form' is a useful concept for literary analysis, this would have already been done; and if it has not been possible to do it, then it is probably not a useful tool for literary analysis. But this is me coming at it from a naive / ignorant viewpoint -- I did not study Eng Lit at Uni. Also, I am a scientist by training, and I like to have terms clearly defined (otherwise chaos ensues), which may make me a bit more nitpicking than necessary. Apologies!

 

[Madeleine Conway]

There are loads of schematics - I mean seriously insanely loads of schematics out there on the inter webs for all sorts of different structures but in this case, I think the books I'd recommend are Story by Robert McKee, which I totally disagree with in many ways, but which lays out ideas in a way that allows you to disagree and is stimulating, and Save the Cat by Blake Snyder.

 

[J. Rook]

This is a great thread. Can it be put into a special folder on Litopiaf or future reference? Even if Katie-Ellen does not take it down, I cannot trust myself to remember the title of the thread, say in a year's time.

 

[Marc Joan]

There are loads of schematics - I mean seriously insanely loads of schematics out there on the inter webs for all sorts of different structures but in this case, I think the books I'd recommend are Story by Robert McKee, which I totally disagree with in many ways, but which lays out ideas in a way that allows you to disagree and is stimulating, and Save the Cat by Blake Snyder.

Thanks! These both seem to focus on screenplays, though?