Frank Chimero (and hurry off right now for a while to enjoy reading some of his writing if you do not already) was interviewed on his design process for the making of Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five poster.
What caught my eye was, when asked about his favorite part of the book, his attention went to process. That, and I felt as if I’d written this myself:
To be honest, I intensely love the parts of the book that are about writing the book. It operates on such a meta level, but it’s so satisfying. It sets up the book as a flawed story with flawed characters, written by a flawed man in a flawed way. It sets your expectations immediately, and there’s a sense of honesty in that, whether the occurrences at the beginning of the book actually happened or not. It’s Vonnegut dancing a dance for 30 pages that only he can do. It’s engrossing.
Whenever I read anything at all, I can’t help but use a kind of methods filter. I see mostly words, sentences, and paragraphs that show process, work, how people think, how people see. How do they write? What do they organize? When do they struggle? Where is it messy? Sometimes I see methods more than story.
