How do I write a philosophical novel?

satyesu

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I've had the horrifying realization that there's a big hole in my novel's story. Here is the condensed version of the concepts - or, perhaps, the hypotheses - I want to explore with a plot:


  • Matter, energy, spacetime - what we consider reality - is perception, subjective mental constructs.
  • That perception isn’t by consciousness; self isn’t consciousness. It’s what’s beneath it.
  • The laws of the universe come from these unconscious observers, and observers are governed by the laws that emerge.

    I have Act 1 figured out, but the part where I want to talk about this stuff is a big blank space to me. I don't know how to build a story around it besides having my MC's somehow have epiphanies. Is that the only way to write a philosophical novel? I read Zen and the Art of Mtorcycle Maintence​ and, while I loved it, I feel like it was sort of an essay with bits of a narrative plopped in it.
 

Elle.

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My advice is to stop asking multiple questions and start writing. It feels like you trying to have it all worked it out in your first draft — you won't and at the end of the day you cannot edit a blank page. So get yourself a first draft and then you can worry about shaping it into you have in mind and what you want to incorporate.

I hope this helps.
 

satyesu

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I'll try to put one foot in front of the other. Thanks.
 

indianroads

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Avoid an info dump - and be light handed with the philosophy, and deal it out in chew-able chunks.
 

Nerdilydone

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Think of like you're a physics professor writing a textbook. You have to use images to explain the physics concepts. Do this with your philosophical concepts, and then make the characters in each concept the same. Or you can go the series of short stories route, but that's not necessary. Have a reasonably intelligent MC, a supporting character who knows nothing but ordinary life, and then a supremely intelligent individual who only comes at rare and particular times to explain the things that have to be explained. By having variations in the level of intelligence of the characters, the characters have to explain to each other, and therefore the audience, what is going on.

Consider the short story structure and do examples bit by bit, and then knit it together. Or something like that.
 

angeliz2k

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Don't plan the philosophy into the book. It should be a kind of background to the story, a sort of tonal underpinning. It shouldn't be too evident or else you'll come across as smug and preachy. It's a bit like doing the research for a piece that requires it: you want/need to have that backing, but the reader doesn't need to see it.

ETA: I'm pretty sure what you're talking about here is theme.
 
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lonestarlibrarian

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Have you ever read The Diamond in the Window? In that case, it was a kids' novel that wanted to convey Transcendentalist philosophy in an accessible way, and it worked really well. It wasn't subtle, but it was thoughtful and literate and could be appreciated on multiple levels. Younger kids could read it as an adventure fantasy and blur past the philosophy, but more thoughtful kids (and adults) would recognize what else was going on.
 

satyesu

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Bookmarked. Thanks. And thanks for your post, too, angeliz.
 

dickson

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I've had the horrifying realization that there's a big hole in my novel's story. Here is the condensed version of the concepts - or, perhaps, the hypotheses - I want to explore with a plot:


  • Matter, energy, spacetime - what we consider reality - is perception, subjective mental constructs.
  • That perception isn’t by consciousness; self isn’t consciousness. It’s what’s beneath it.
  • The laws of the universe come from these unconscious observers, and observers are governed by the laws that emerge.

    I have Act 1 figured out, but the part where I want to talk about this stuff is a big blank space to me. I don't know how to build a story around it besides having my MC's somehow have epiphanies. Is that the only way to write a philosophical novel? I read Zen and the Art of Mtorcycle Maintence​ and, while I loved it, I feel like it was sort of an essay with bits of a narrative plopped in it.

Mathematics is not philosophy, but two famous mathematicians have written on the psychology of innovation in mathematics, with similar observations: Poincaré and Hadamard. Both find a pattern of sustained fruitless work on a difficult problem followed by a kind of averted vision in which other matters take precedence (in Poincaré's case, military service) followed by an unexpected apprehension of the solution. Often as not, the realization is a calm, rather than dramatic, one.

There can, however, be fireworks when the scales fall from the eyes. Many years ago I was sitting in a monthly meeting of the Royal Astronomical Society listening, if memory serves, to a talk on X-ray astronomy when I had a sudden and unexpected realization about a problem I was working on, and experienced the full esctatic response.

One hears of a flash of insight, or an intense illumination. These are not inaccurate as metaphor, in that the rest of my sensorium briefly faded into insignificance, and I experienced a rush of endorphins.

The intensity of the experience need not have a relation to the depth of the insight; what matters is that the insight feels unexpected: The solution was so damn obvious, and had been, so to speak, sitting next to me quietly waiting to be noticed. I guess you could describe it as an extreme-and extremely pleasurable-startle response.

Hadamard's book is a fascinating read, reprinted as The Mathematician's Mind: The Psychology of Invention in the Mathematical Field Poincaré's book, quoted by Hadamard if memory serves, was one of a series of popular books he wrote in the early twentieth century; I'm not aware if they remain in print.
 
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SAWeiner

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The most important thing is that your book is readable. Don't be hammering your readers over the head. Make sure your writing style is relatively easy to understand. Also, think how you can make the book entertaining. I still remember how painful it was to read Immanuel Kant in college as part of Columbia's core curriculum. If your book reads like Immanuel Kant, it will not be a success nowadays.
 
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litdawg

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I'll add also that it's best to think through plot mechanics in which the philosophy becomes integral to the developments. In other words, rather than conversational set pieces with epiphanies, the key philosophical notions have material effects on the ways characters interact with each other and their society/environment. Additionally, the metaphoric pattern of your philosophical insights can be scattered throughout your story in the manner discussed by Henry James in his famous short story, The Figure in the Carpet. Critics have made much of the story as an expression of his novelistic methodology.