Thursday, July 14, 2011

Hyper-minimalism

I recently came across a blog post that was titled "Extreme Creative Writing Styles: Hyper-minimalism," and I had to laugh when I finished reading it, simply because the post in its entirety was, like its topic, composed of only a few short sentences. It described hyperminimalism as a writing style, followed by an example of said style:

"Something happened. A man with glasses was involved."

I'm not positive if the example the blog author gave was simply a line in a larger work, or a thing complete in itself, sort of like flash fiction or better yet, "the six-word story." But the line does what the author of the blog said it should do: leave as much as possible to the reader. 

I'm not sure I can get totally on board with hyperminimalism, myself. Minimalism is okay--Hemingway's "Hills Like White Elephants" comes to mind as does some of Sherwood Anderson's work. Minimalism is direct, simple, not too descriptive or qualifying. It leaves something to the reader, while giving  you an the essence of the person, setting, circumstance, etc. If it were to be compared to the visual arts, it might be like impressionism. But hyperminimalism? Ehh, I just need a little bit...more. Reading fiction is like traveling, sometimes like escaping. I almost feel as though hyperminimalism can't really give the reader a vehicle for moving out of his/her world into another one, ya know what I mean?

2 comments:

  1. Can't say I've heard of this but it sounds a tad dull! I appreciate a writer not spelling out everything like the reader is a fool, but give me something to chew on!

    Great post - You could link this up here actually!
    http://wordsinsync.blogspot.com/2011/07/all-new-weekend-creation-blog-hop-plus.html ;D Shah. x

    ReplyDelete
  2. If I wanted hyper-minimalism, all I'd ever read is Twitter :D

    ReplyDelete

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