okay, so i'm getting ready for work a half hour or so ago and i had a major brainstorm which was so epic i actually was giggling with delight. but i want to check it with cooler heads and see if it sounds as promising to others as it does to me. So, I'm writing this novel which turns on the death of a trans woman and an old-school sheriff who isn't really interested in solving it - and the local reporter who won't let it go. I've been looking for a way to flesh it out in order to fill the gap between the actual death and the days following, and the critical mass point in which the tension explodes towards the climax. At the same time, I've been reading Michael Crichton's "Next" in which he reuses a technique I first say used in some Heinlein works - inserting supposed "news articles" and so forth between the chapters in order to broaden the scope a bit. It occurred to me that I can do that in this story, not only with the news stories my hero writes, but also with things like private chat logs, and social media postings making reference to the various events in the story. I'm sure that's been done but i've not seen it but i'm sure I can use this to great effect in terms of providing insight into some of the characters that would be otherwise difficult to exposit. Thoughts?
Yep. Perfectly solid expository device that does what every expository device should, which is to say, not feel to the reader like an expository device.
You might take a look at James Ellroy's novel American Tabloid and/or its sequel The Cold Six Thousand. He uses some of the techniques you're talking about. There are memos, letters, newspaper articles, and transcriptions of telephone calls/surveillance recordings. I can definitely see how using social media (Twitter, Facebook, etc.) or e-mails could give additional, interesting viewpoints to the story.
Speak English! Aren't expositories those medical things you put up your butt to instead of taking the medicine orally? Don't see how that would be a page turner. Could be why I'm not much of a reader.
