Short stories with fractured narratives?

Chop Logic

Hey.

I'm working on a story right now with a fractured narrative. I feel like I haven't really read enough stuff like this to be doing it properly though, so I come to you guys.

Wikipedia and google was useless basically.

What are some short stories, or just stories, that have a fractured narrative or at least have the story told in kind of an unconventional way?

Something shorter would be preferable, I'm already swamped with school and this is a side project of mine, so I kind of doubt I'd have time for a novel.

Thanks.

Nappuccino

Check out Sherman Alexie's collection The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist Fight in Heaven. Most stories in there are fractured in some way... but some stories are way more fractured than others.

I have to leave for class but I can post more specifically about it later if you want.

Chop Logic

Anything you would recommend to someone interested in fractured storytelling or any sort of strange way a story is told I would be really interested in. The only limitation is that I don't really have time to go through a novel.

Salinger's nine stories could also be an example of what I'm talking about.

Thanks, I'll check that book out. Basically I am trying to do some weird shit with a comic book I'm writing and I feel like if I found some good examples of short stories told in an atypical or strange way I could kind of clarify what I'm going for.

Hahnsoo1

If you are at all interested in Shadowrun, then the novelette "Into the Shadows" may be up your alley. It has an overarching story that told through markedly different short stories all written by different authors (well, 9 stories by 7 different authors). One of the very few Shadowrun novels that I'd recommend to anyone to read (most of them are utter crap).

bsjezz

i'd recommend peter carey's collected stories - not only are his short stories wonderful, he's particularly playful with literary style and modes of narration.

not sure i can pinpoint a 'fractured narrative' but that also depends on what you mean by that - mutiple narrators? chronology shifts? prominent framing?

Chop Logic

Yeah, I just mean any sort of, "this story is told in a strange way".

Rikushix

Maybe "The End of This Whole Mess" by Stephen King? Kinda fractured.

Didgeridoo

Collection of short stories by John Barth called "Lost in the Funhouse" is pretty dang fractured. Good, though.

badger2d

Hm, thought I posted here yesterday but it apparently didn't go up. Anyway, look for Donald Barthelme short stories. Wildly off the beaten track in terms of narrative, and also wildly varied in what that means. They tend to only be a few pages long, each, which sounds good for you too. He's considered a "writer's writer" because of how he toys around with the very concepts of narrative and story.

Solvent

bsjezz wrote: »

i'd recommend peter carey's collected stories - not only are his short stories wonderful, he's particularly playful with literary style and modes of narration.

not sure i can pinpoint a 'fractured narrative' but that also depends on what you mean by that - mutiple narrators? chronology shifts? prominent framing?

As someone who is not down with literary terms "fractured narrative" is a little bit foreign to me. However, Peter Carey's 'Collected Stories' are awesome. And from reading them, I came to the judgement that the author's mind is a little bit fractured. They're definitely unconventional.

Maybe not helpful for what you specifically want, but worth checking out anyway...

JebusUD

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naked_Lunch

?

WiseManTobes

Here's some Neil Gaiman short stories, ( one of the kings of making strange awesome)

Gaiman Short Stories

darksteel

Maybe House of Leaves.

Or for short stories, I've always liked In a Grove. This is in the public domain, so here's a copy: http://www.feedbooks.com/book/4205