Creating Meta-Fiction
Year Zero by Nine Inch Nails: Writing Fiction for Digital Readers
"Year Zero" by Nine Inch Nails isn't just a record--it's a literal experience, and it can teach us a lot about developing fiction in an increasingly digital age.
Nine Inch Nails and its front man Trent Reznor’s CD “Year Zero”, a concept album, involved him building Websites, writing songs and creating videos. What he produced in the writing world would be called “Meta-fiction.” This concept, simply put, is fiction within fiction, an entire fictional world worthy of a devoted following dedicated to that fiction.
Some Websites start when a fan purchases a new tour shirt and notices that certain letters are highlighted. In the album's case it spelled out “I am trying to believe” and then the site Iamtryingtobelieve.com popped up.
The Website suggested a fake product, and flash drives (similar to a memory stick or portable hard drive)were found at Nine Inch Nails concerts, most often left abandoned in the bathroom. Whomever found the flash drive and installed it found a song with a phone number hidden it it that in one case contained a fictional message from the US President of Reznor's making.
More Websites began popping up, each one different, each one revealing a little more of the story behind Reznor’s album, his work of fiction. What can you learn from this? Guerilla marketing. Think outside the page.
This can be translated into a writer’s own work. Writers as a rule have a tendency to assume they must use only pencil and paper, however, this is no longer the case. Websites can provide a level of creative freedom that traditional book form can't.
Does a story have to be linear? Must there be a beginning, middle and end? For Renzor’s fictional Websites, there is no conceivable end or middle. The Website simply exists, and those who visit it digest the information much in the same way a reader would digest a short story. The only difference is that Reznor’s Websites have hotlinks. The pages are turned by clicking on links, which then tell another part of the story. The ending, ideally, exists on the album “Year Zero,” however each of the Websites can be viewed as a singular, stand-alone fictional entity.
Is an advertisement in the New Yorker the only way to sell your book? Creative guerilla marketing can make or break an author, and traditional methods of advertising can only go so far. Each writer must find a niche for their own particular work by harnessing the same creative energies they used to conceive the fiction in the first place. This might mean offering a free chapter online, or it might mean contacting message board moderators or setting up reading groups. Embrace new technology and make it work for you. Writers don’t always have to use paper.
