~primer~

TIO: So what do you think of that book?

Reader: Oh, this? I'm not sure, I just picked it up. Its seems kind of colorful...
...have you read it?

TIO: Sure. I'm the author.

Reader: [looks at the front cover] Really? Hmmm....ok...if so then tell me what the narrator does at the end of the second story, when he relaxes in the bar.

TIO: [looks up, sighs in thought] Ok...he opens up his backpack and takes out a books and begins reading about the dialectical nature of scientific theory development.

Reader: [nodding while reading along from the second story] yup. Interesting, so do you mind if I ask you a few questions?

TIO: [makes a 'please go ahead' type gesture]

Reader: What is up with the plot? It seems like most of this is sort of...stream of conciousness. But not really. Whats going on with that?

TIO: Well..writing an interesting story is hard. A good plot arc takes too much planning (I think). I'm not really interested in that anyway. What I am interested in is the relationship between fictional plot arcs, settings, conflicts, and their real-world counterparts. Here's the basic idea: In a story things usually happen for a reason, in an almost religious way, as if the characters were bound by to fate by the author for the purpose of making a point to the reader. Conflicts that are vexing to the human condition, symbols and cultural cues that are easily recognizable help paint a coherent temporal landscape in which the characters may flourish or perish as the 'point' may dictate.

Reader: So you reject all that and try to do some existentialist sort of thing?

TIO: Sort of/not really. I'm interested in that elusive relationship between the literal and the literary; between a chaotic, yet semi-ordered reality, and a carefully structured fictional plot. I want to know in what way the 'plot' of my life is identical with the plot of some story. How is 'reading' a life similar to/different from reading a story? Can life have meaning like a book? would that require God to be the Great Author? what about self-created meaning? There is something existentialist about this but....its different. The baggage that the existentialists brought with them has been discarded, particularly the epistemology. But we need not discuss that here. The 'point' (lol) is that in books and life there exists meaningful patterns and chaotic, noisy randomnimity; free choices and actions bound by physical necessity. I want to know the relationship between these things. And I'm investigating that here by exploring the boundary between the pointless and pointful aspects of the narrators life. I also like to play with humorous, abrupt transitions.

Reader: Your punctuation sucks. And you make up stupid words unnecessarily. Go away.

TIO: OK.

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