Form

You will  notice that the study of literature involves considering aspects of form. But what is form?

There are a few ways we talk about form in literature

The first is to identify the category of the writing. It is the naming according to the category or type or style.

Examples include the major categories of novel, poetry, play, film, short story, novella, short film, article. There are subcategories of genre, for example, comedy, tragedy, horror, romcom, sci-fi. These categories share certain conventions that we agree determine what the type of literature is.

The second is to look at structure, that is, how a piece of writing is shaped. For a high school essay this would be an introduction, three paragraphs presenting an argument supported with evidence, and a conclusion. For a play it may three Acts. For a poem, it may be a sonnet or haiku or limerick, which are forms of poetry determined by their structure.  

Every piece of writing either begins with content or form. Sometimes writers start with content (the ideas or something to say) and need to decide upon the form. Other times, writers start with a form and create the content.

All writers make decisions about organising their material. You can talk about the organising principles in terms of form - anything that provides structure, be it a motif, repetition, rhyme, or how the text looks on the page. You can also include strategies for an argument or organisation of a narrative, such as change of voice or tone, looking backwards or forwards, reference to an authority or data, using analogies, or appeals to logic or emotions. 

For examples of playing with form see the work of Australian writer Ryan O’Neill who writes stories of relationships as a list, or as a series of book reviews. He demonstrates constrained writing such as the use of word chains, lipograms, pangrams, univocalic, cento, palindromes, snowballs and abecedarius in his book The Drover’s Wives: 99 Reinterpretations of Henry Lawson’s Australian Classic. See also 99 Ways to Tell a Story: Exercises in Style by Matt Madden which presents one simple story told in 99 graphical forms.

Coming soon: Words for Words