Writers who excel at the Stream of Consciousness style

[sheablue]

Who are your favorites? Joyce? Virginia Wolf? I can't think of many others I've read that I feel do it well. It can be done really terribly, of course.

It's a style I'm fascinated by, because it is so hard to do. I just finished posting to my blog, and this latest entry is a semi-attempt at a stream of consciousness style, but I don't think I quite got there. It was fun to write, but I can't imagine writing an entire novel that way.

I would like to experiment with it more. Maybe I'll try a series of short stories. I think I have maybe a slight knack for it, or at least, my interest in it makes me want to really try. What I lack in talent I will make up for in passion!

Are there any Lit authors you have read who write this way, and do it well?

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Its the kissin cousin of schizophrenic word salad. Pop a handful of lsd and that oughta do the trick.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

•"How nice it'd be to come home to her
and sit by the fireplace and she in the kitchen
aproned young and lovely wanting my baby
and so happy about me she burns the roast beef
and comes crying to me and I get up from my big papa chair
saying Christmas teeth! Radiant brains! Apple deaf!
God what a husband I'd make!" WORD SALAD.

 

[sheablue]

Now, come on, JBJ, I know you know that I know that you know better than that. I think done properly, stream of consciousness still has sentence structure, and tells a story. It's just a looser, freer structure. It doesn't have to be a bunch of nonsense, does it?

Or maybe I'm not thinking of stream of consciousness? Like in my blog post, I'm telling the story of a sexual encounter, but I'm trying to tell it like it is happening, in the moment, and from an emotional point of view, not with a proper story structure. There are run on sentences and frags, but on purpose to add to the style and to create a mood.

Now, I am not asking you to read my blog and comment here, but if you're interested, feel free to comment there. Or not. Whatevs.

But, JBJ, do you understand what I'm trying to say? I know you have read and researched a lot of past authors and analyzed their styles, including Joyce, right? So I'm glad that you popped in. But I know you know more of this style than you are letting on. What do you really think? Is my thinking wrong? Am I really not thinking about true stream of consciousness?

 

[sr71plt]

I bypass stream of consciousness except as done in small drabs for a reason. I've just reviewed a story of mine going in an anthology where I see I used it when the protagonist was under the influence of drugs. But only for a paragraph. I don't shy away from using sentence fragments, though.

 

[RedMonkeyButt]

Who are your favorites? Joyce? Virginia Wolf? I can't think of many others I've read that I feel do it well. It can be done really terribly, of course.

It's a style I'm fascinated by, because it is so hard to do. I just finished posting to my blog, and this latest entry is a semi-attempt at a stream of consciousness style, but I don't think I quite got there. It was fun to write, but I can't imagine writing an entire novel that way.

I would like to experiment with it more. Maybe I'll try a series of short stories. I think I have maybe a slight knack for it, or at least, my interest in it makes me want to really try. What I lack in talent I will make up for in passion!

Are there any Lit authors you have read who write this way, and do it well?

I don't read a lot of stream of consciousness simply because it is so often done exceptionally poorly.

As for reading it on here, the only story I've come across that I liked was this one by cailano. It's in horror, and the stream of consciousness is from the POV of a very disturbed girl (young woman, whatever). I think this is about the only time I can handle reading an entire story in SoC because if the character is disturbed enough then the author can push the limits of the believable a little farther. Especially since even in modern times psychology is not a concrete science. There is plenty of room to play with the illnesses and symptoms.

 

[slyc_willie]

The best example that always pops into my head when anyone mentions "stream of consciousness" is Jack Keruoac. I think the undying myth about him was that he taped blank pages together so that he wouldn't have to reload the typewriter. Maybe that's just urban legend, but it seems to be repeated on blogs and other, older sources that refer to him. It certainly seems to make sense, since much of his work is an ongoing rattle of disjointed thoughts, memories and personal philosophy that fly for pages on end.

In one of my creative writing courses way back when, one of our assignments was to write in stream of consciousness style. We were given a random topic and told to "get to it" right away. I ended up typing -- on an old Brother word processor -- something around three thousand words in a single night about cows. Of course, what I wrote wasn't really about cows, but that was the starting-off point. I think I ended up going off on various tangents that included comparisons between cow's milk and a woman's breast milk, why cows don't have horns in most cases but bulls do, and what would happen if cows somehow gained the ability to speak. It was weird, disjointed stuff, and reading it afterward even I thought I had been on some sort of illegal pharmaceutical product.

But, hey, I got an A for the assignment.

 

[slyc_willie]

I don't read a lot of stream of consciousness simply because it is so often done exceptionally poorly.

As for reading it on here, the only story I've come across that I liked was this one by cailano. It's in horror, and the stream of consciousness is from the POV of a very disturbed girl (young woman, whatever). I think this is about the only time I can handle reading an entire story in SoC because if the character is disturbed enough then the author can push the limits of the believable a little farther. Especially since even in modern times psychology is not a concrete science. There is plenty of room to play with the illnesses and symptoms.

I have to agree with you about that. The nature of stream of consciousness writing is so random, jarring, and confusing that it really only seems to work -- at least to me and probably a good number of others -- in a genre in which mental illness, stupefaction, mental trauma or mind-altering substances is assumed or explicitly stated to be involved. We accept rambling words and strange tangents from someone off their rocker or juiced full of LSD. Hell, we'd expect it.

 

[TE999]

The best example that always pops into my head when anyone mentions "stream of consciousness" is Jack Keruoac. I think the undying myth about him was that he taped blank pages together so that he wouldn't have to reload the typewriter. Maybe that's just urban legend, but it seems to be repeated on blogs and other, older sources that refer to him.

Kerouac wrote (typed) the first draft of 'On The Road' on a 120 foot long roll of tracing paper sheets taped together he called 'The Scroll'. It's in a museum in Lowell, MA.

Here's Wiki on it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_The_Road

 

[slyc_willie]

Kerouac wrote (typed) the first draft of 'On The Road' on a 120 foot long roll of tracing paper sheets taped together he called 'The Scroll'. It's in a museum in Lowell, MA.

Here's Wiki on it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_The_Road

Ah, there you go. Thanks, Tom.

 

[SamScribble]

J P Donleavy does a very nice line in stream of consciousness. Check out The Ginger Man

 

[Darkniciad]

Someone in nudie chat once asked how the idea for the poofball haircut they give poodles came about. I launched into an hour-long origin story that involved a poodle in the room with a bunch of college guys getting stoned.

Of course, I completely lost the poodle somewhere at about the 25 minute mark.

Over a decade ago, and people still bring it up on occasion.

I enjoy doing them, although I don't know how good they are. The only one I've ever posted ( and it's cheated, because I tweaked the last couple of lines for a stronger ending before posting it ) was "Ride No More" as Les Lumens.

I should sit down some night and pound out a few to post on my website just for shits and giggles.

 

[slyc_willie]

It occurs to me that stream of consciousness writing is akin to giving yourself a 'Get Out Of Jail Free' card. You write anything and everything that comes to mind. It's one part unrepentant philosophizing countered by one part unadulterated bullshit. You can't go wrong. You don't have to claim ownership of everything you write, because it's all so random.

It's like popping open a six-pack of 'Free Reign.'

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Now, come on, JBJ, I know you know that I know that you know better than that. I think done properly, stream of consciousness still has sentence structure, and tells a story. It's just a looser, freer structure. It doesn't have to be a bunch of nonsense, does it?

Or maybe I'm not thinking of stream of consciousness? Like in my blog post, I'm telling the story of a sexual encounter, but I'm trying to tell it like it is happening, in the moment, and from an emotional point of view, not with a proper story structure. There are run on sentences and frags, but on purpose to add to the style and to create a mood.

Now, I am not asking you to read my blog and comment here, but if you're interested, feel free to comment there. Or not. Whatevs.

But, JBJ, do you understand what I'm trying to say? I know you have read and researched a lot of past authors and analyzed their styles, including Joyce, right? So I'm glad that you popped in. But I know you know more of this style than you are letting on. What do you really think? Is my thinking wrong? Am I really not thinking about true stream of consciousness?

Stream of Consciousness done right is improvisation of sublime quality. A very few gush out a clever sentence or two, once in a blue moon a Joyce launches a wonderful paragraph, and once in a life-time an e.e.cummings fills books of it. Most of humanity gets off a shot that misses the mark, and has to reload.

What I'm saying is, Stream of Consciousness is what a genius with the biggest box of Crayolas does. And the difference tween Stream of Consciousness and Word Salad is brilliant sense, experiencing something for what it clearly is.

 

[Ironiclaconic]

I can appreciate it in very short spurts, relaying a characters fragmentary thoughts and emotions in a crucial scene, or in something short and evocative like a poem, but when an entire book is written that way I want to gouge out my eyeballs.

I tried. Lord, I tried to read Finnegan's Wake and Tropic of Cancer, and other canonical examples of the technique, but it turns into an incoherent slog. I slowed down to read more carefully and think about each word, which caused me to lose track of the paragraph and structure, so I had to re-read those and then lost track of the fucking book. That's when I realized I wasn't supposed to understand it. I was supposed to ponder and debate and admire it's vacuous obscurity until all cognition had been beaten senseless and I would be just another lit crit zombie writing tortuous expository monographs that would assist me in eating the brains of the still-living. No! I cried. This is not fiction, but abuse!

And then I picked up Raymond Chandler, poured myself a scotch as sweet and strong as a baby on anabolic steroids, and all was right with the world.

 

[sr71plt]

This is not fiction, but abuse!

My thoughts too of any stream of consciousness works I've picked up and just as quickly put down.

 

[SamScribble]

My thoughts too of any stream of consciousness works I've picked up and just as quickly put down.

I think it depends on how aware you are that you are reading 'stream of consciousness'. Virginia Woolf, Philip Roth, Saul Bellow, Timothy Findley (among others), are able to use SOC as just another tool.

 

[sr71plt]

I think it depends on how aware you are that you are reading 'stream of consciousness'. Virginia Woolf, Philip Roth, Saul Bellow, Timothy Findley (among others), are able to use SOC as just another tool.

They didn't use it from one wall to another, though, did they? I use snippets of it from time to time too. Snippets.

What can I say? At the point that I find stream of consciousness annoying, I put the book down. If the book starts off that way and continues that way for four paragraphs, I drop it. I think it's pretentious and insulting to the reader. That's not really a "depends" type thing.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

I think it depends on how aware you are that you are reading 'stream of consciousness'. Virginia Woolf, Philip Roth, Saul Bellow, Timothy Findley (among others), are able to use SOC as just another tool.

Improvisations aren't created equal.

 

[Noira]

The only book I can think of for SoC is House of Leaves, which is freaky as shit and did it pretty well, I think, as well as many other weird non-conventional things. I can't say I'd like to read another book done in that style, though I have seen the odd bit of stream of consciousness done well, and indeed, I myself have tried it on, would try again, and favor writing that captures the specific cadence of the narrator. Not to an extent of stream of consciousness, but fragments, non-conventional grammar to some extent, sure!

Snips.

Much like the old adage of using language. Use sparingly, to increase impact. If your character says "fuck" all the time, when they say it, it loses impact. If they never say fuck, then they do say fuck, there's a rather lot more impact hearing a word come from them. If you use a trick all the time, when it really matters, it won't have the same impact.

So yeah, if you can make the English language roll over and do tricks, great! SoC writing is one of those tricks. One of many tricks.

Use wisely.

Sparingly.

Therein lies the impact.

I hold to my recommendation. House of Leaves. It's some weird horrific shit with odd page layouts that oh my god still come back in my nightmares, and unstable narrators and all sorts of weirdness, and it's pretentious as hell but if you're into stream of consciousness it's worth grabbing to take a look at.