Steve Martin, One Day And Other Literary Gimmicks

The Daily Beast:

Those live-action newspapers from the Harry Potter books and films—with moving and talking images on the page instead of old-fangled still photographs—don’t seem like a stretch today. They’re more like a prototype for the near future. Soon we’re likely to see a first-rate literary novel written expressly for the iPad or whatever higher-tech device comes next.

Read the whole story: The Daily Beast

Comments

[Amber Troska]

10:11 AM on 04/22/2011

It may be gimmicky, but I liked One Day. I think their story would have been oppressive without the one-day-out-of-each-year structure. Granted, the fact that something at least somewhat significant always happens on the same day every year is the weakness of the structure, but if it didn't work that way the story wouldn't go anywhere.

And to be nit-picky, the pictures in the newspapers of Harry Potter didn't speak, they only moved. Yes, I'm a nerd, and I like it.

[ssrelso]

02:15 AM on 04/22/2011

I am ashamed that I forgot to mention the immortal Fernando Pessoa and Jorge Luis Borges in my previous list.

[ssrelso]

02:14 AM on 04/22/2011

Great authors don't use gimmicks, they transcend them. Sadly, with the passing of Jose Saramago, there are precious few great authors left in the world, and none of those remaining employ much in the way of gimmickry. Thomas Pynchon may be the only one left. Beckett, Joyce, Flaubert, Melville, Laurence Stern, Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis, Jose Saramago, etc - they did not use gimmicks. They changed the medium.

To analogize, a high school jazz band bringing in an electric guitar for the heck of it is a gimmick. Miles Davis employing an electric guitar to create In a Silent Way, B*tch's Brew, and the Jack Johnson Sessions is the very highest expression of art.

[NoWayMan]

12:24 AM on 04/22/2011

good writing and storytelling are necessary no matter what the medium. no matter how many gimmicks you use. duh.

Caryn James needs to read Neal Stephenson, and specifically Diamond Age. he covers the idea of how technology will effect the novel and how storytelling will evolve.

to write an article on the how storytelling is changing along with technology and use harry potter as your starting point just means you're about 20 years late to the conversation.

[DallasDon]

06:19 PM on 04/21/2011

Certainly; What a stupid question.