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Craft Essay 3:
Mixing Forms

Ted Morrissey

In this essay I’m discussing the advantages — and joys — of mixing together various genres in a single piece of writing. I think it’s a great approach for at least a couple of reasons. First, all modes of writing inform and enrich each other. Consequently the writer who creates in various modes tends to produce work that is multilayered and engagingly sophisticated. Second, a single piece of work that employs more than one mode can be especially stimulating and enjoyable to read.

I see myself mainly as a novelist, but I work in other modes as well (sonnets, for example, and criticism in the form of academic writing and reviews). I’ve never written an entire play, but I have combined fictional prose with playwriting (I’ll explain). I like to mix forms together in the same work. Below I share a video in which I discuss some books and stories that combine more than one form. For now, I’ll describe some of my own work in which I combine various modes of storytelling — if for no other reason to reinforce the fact that I walk the walk.

I frequently have characters in my fiction who are writers, especially poets, which allows me to write material, especially poems, via their personas. I do this in several of my books, but most prevalently in An Untimely Frost, which is inspired by the possibility that Mary Shelley and Washington Irving entertained the idea of having a romantic relationship when the American author was living in London in the 1820s. I include several poems written by this or that character (really written by me of course), including some strictly rhymed and metered (iambic pentameter) Petrarchan sonnets by a character inspired by Edgar Allan Poe. It was great fun.

In the novel I also have the characters attend different kinds of performances: a bawdy musical, a puppet show for children, and an avant-garde performance of Romeo and Juliet. In all three scenes I represent the performances in the style of dramatic scripts, rather than describe them via prose. They were also great fun to write.

I’ve incorporated poetry and dramatic scripts into shorter pieces as well. Most are not available online; however, I can share two stories that are mostly fictive prose but end in dramatic form: “Scent of Darkness” (published originally in Black Denim Lit, then included in my novel Crowsong for the Stricken), and “Vox Humana” (published originally in Blue Lake Review, then included in Delta of Cassiopeia: Collected Stories and Sonnets). It’s generally considered bad form for a writer to explain their work, but I’ll share what my thoughts were regarding each story morphing into play form.

“Scent of Darkness” largely centers on a community preparing for the annual performance of a play about the founding of their town; meanwhile, a love affair disrupts the marriage of the protagonist, Rhonda Holcomb. Since the entire story is building toward the performance of the play, it seemed natural to have the climactic scene take place during the play, and therefore equally natural to write the climactic scene in the form of a play. The play is referenced elsewhere in the novel a few times, but only vaguely. I used “Scent of Darkness” to flesh out what this mythical play is actually like (I didn’t know myself until I wrote this story/episode). If you take a look, you’ll notice that each section of “Scent of Darkness” is labeled a scene, which I hoped was sort of like subliminal foreshadowing that the story was going to end in the form of a play. Who knows if it functions that way for the typical reader?

“Vox Humana” also ends in play form (and then some). It’s a longish story and my ambitions were, well, ambitious, so it’s difficult to talk about everything that’s happening in the final scene, which I’ve written in the form of classical Greek tragedy, including the Chorus. The story is about a Korean War veteran, Harry Gale, who is transforming into a poet, a poet inspired by Carl Sandburg’s Chicago Poems. By the end of the story (which, again, is in the form of a play), the Chorus is speaking nonsensical found poetry, poetry found among Sandburg’s Chicago Poems. Not to get too far afield, but I’m interested in Chaos Theory, and the idea that all things disintegrate into chaos before being remade into something else (overly simply put). Harry Gale is on the verge of becoming the poet Harrison Gale (a made-up persona), so his old world, his old self must disintegrate into chaos: represented by the storm of narrative modes at work in the final scene. Again, who knows if anyone reading the story picks up on any of this stuff? It doesn’t matter because I enjoyed thinking it through and writing it. (Incidentally, the story begins with an epigraph from the poem “Yuri Gagarin” by the poet A. E. Wilson, both poem and poet are my creations.)

The central point is that writers don’t have to confine themselves to one mode per story or poem or play. Shakespeare wrote his plays in poetic form as well as prose, but he also included musical numbers and scenes wherein the actor was expected to improvise with members of the audience (resulting in each performance being somewhat different from all the others). Incorporating various modes can make for an especially effective final product — and it can be a lot of fun to write!

Here’s a brief video in which I discuss some well-known pieces of literature that combine various narrative modes.

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Ted Morrissey’s novel excerpts, short stories, poems, critical articles, reviews, and translations have appeared in more than a hundred publications. Among his award-winning novels are Crowsong for the Stricken, Mrs Saville, and The Artist Spoke. Delta of Cassiopeia: Collected Stories and Sonnets was released in 2023. He is a lecturer in Lindenwood University’s MFA in Writing program, and also teaches creative writing and literature courses for Southern New Hampshire University. His craft essays have been culled from his lecture notes. Visit tedmorrissey.com and follow on Twitter @t_morrissey.

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