Google complication in literature and you will get a ton of results about just that: conversations about manipulating that part of the plot that falls between exposition and resolution. However, in Michael Griffith's fiction workshop this summer, we're discussing complication in a broader sense. Griffith's advice is simple. Know where you're spending you're complication. It is perhaps too much to ask of a reader to manage a complicated writing style, complicated plot, complicated setting, and a complicated cast of characters.
"Orient your readers," Griffith says, "so that you can disorient them." We want to be disoriented, to be taken somewhere in a narrative we do not expect to go. However, to invest in a narrative we have to bank on some elements of a story being kept simple. Setting and simple plot seem most promising areas for complication savings. I say spend it on style.
- “The End” - July 23, 2014
- “Budgeting Complication” - June 27, 2014
- “Who Matters” - April 4, 2014
- “Sweet Refrain” - January 18, 2014
