: Re: Is it possible to write entirely abstract fiction? I've always wanted to write fiction, but I've been afraid I'd sooner or later be limited by my lack of exposure to the world (or having any

@Samaraweera193

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At the very least, this would be a huge challenge to make successful, and would likely garner only a niche audience if it ever made it to print. A lot of the substantive work of writing is putting the flesh on the bones, so to speak. People typically don't like interacting directly with abstractions. In fact, allegories, parables, and books like "Flatland" are all doing the exact opposite --taking abstractions and fleshing them out with narrative details. Even if this isn't your natural gift, however, it's a learnable skill, and one that you will likely need to master if you are serious about writing.

Your lack of worldliness, however, is a much less serious barrier. It just means that you'll probably be most successful writing books about non-worldly individuals like yourself, people who live sheltered bounded lives, but perhaps have rich internal lives. I imagine that group does a lot of reading, so there could be a built-in market from that point of view.

As far as whether anyone has done this successfully --it probably depends on what you define as success. I imagine some very experimental, avant-garde, post-modernist writer has tried it. I've also seen this done jovially, as a parody, in various places online. As far as actual published work I'm familiar with, none goes this far, but the closest would probably be among the following: Murakami's short story "On Seeing the 100% Perfect Girl..." Russell Hoban's Kleinzeit. Nabakov's Invitation to a Beheading. Jean Genet's Our Lady of the Flowers. Portions of Delany's Dhalgren. Joyce's Finnegans Wake. Auster's New York Trilogy. Mark-Jason Dominus' "Luis Briceno". Calvino's If on a Winter's Night a Traveler... and Invisible Cities.

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