abstract writing

carpocrates

This is not a piece of fiction but I'm really interested in what other people might think of this point, as writers particularly.

We're now familiar even to the point of being comfortable with abstract art, abstract photography and abstract film but no one seems to eb able to accept the idea of a pice of fictional writing about anything other than a narrative between characters.
Sure, there are exceptions you can mention. But the idea of writing something lik the description of a staircase, for, say, eight pages, if well enough written, if communicating enough, I think is completely valid. You'll never see that published though. Does anyone else agree that there's suc a mental block with people when it comes to reading. People are far too heavily conditioned. There must be thousands of writers out there with incredibly rich, vibrant and original styles absolutely boxed out of publication for being original.
In my opinion, real progress in writing is totally stifled by this. Books by nice, comfortable people like Zadie Smith are lauded, and well they may be, but only for ack of anything really gutsy and challenging out there.

People will accept anything from artists and anything from film makers but not an ainch is given to the writer. Does this annoy anyone else maybe trying to break into new ground?

Da Bounca

In all fairness, who wants to read an in depth description of a staircase.
You could write about how the staircase feels when someone walks upon it.
Or how the staircase describes the people that use it by the way in which they climb the stairs.

Seriously though, you dont have to write about crap to be abstract.
A lot of poetry is abstract like.

carpocrates

And why would anyone want to look at a picture of a staircase? Yet galleries are full of them. There can be as rich and expressive use of words and rhythm in prose as anything visual you could come across. This is not solely the terrain of poetry. It's valid in its own right and totally ignored.
People don't appreciate enough the quality of prose they read. They take it for granted so long as the story moves along. Readers should be educated to savour every word, should it be well written, and draw pleasure from the writing, not just the narrative.

Writing about the people that use the staircase defeats the entire purpose.

I know that a lot of poetry is abstract, but I'm really just talking about prose here.

el_tiddlero

i would argue that every instruction manual ever written is in fact abstract writing in that they are generally well written and also completely fictional!!

Shad0r

Apples and Oranges! Your argument is based on art but you are trying to force it into a business based scenario. Published writing is business not art, and the creative artistic process while it may be solid and arty up until a writer approaches a publisher, it ends as soon as that businessman gets his grimy paws on it! If it helps think of the art in an art gallery as still being art...

Also the market for art is very specific and small in number. The market for published writing is much more of a mass market.