It’s interesting to me (and also shows how miles apart we are intellectually) how DFW wrote his first book (Broom of the System) to explore the ideas of Wittgenstein and Derrida, to be a kind of conversation. A main character who is terrified by the Wittgensteinian notion of “the limits of your language are the limits of your world”, how (apparently, I haven’t actually read it!) she’s very preoccupied with this, with fearing that she’s just a character in a story. And how it ends, and etc
Of course, Circumstantial luck here - his mum was an English teacher, his dad was a philosophy professor, he went to a very good liberal arts college, he was very smart and raised by very smart parents.
But, as I kind of grapple with becoming kegan 4, I can see how this would be really interesting to do (as would Writing from the POV of “parts”). Like, holding two opposing worldviews within yourself, and being like “ok, I’ll write a story that has one character who holds worldview x, and the other with worldview y”. Writing dialogues. Marathe and Steeply in Infinite Jest.
Obviously there are fiction writers whose job is writing fiction
But I think also writing fiction to explore ideas could be a cool thing for non-professional fiction writers
I think it’s much more evocative and likely to stick in your brain long term. Gets your emotions involved, spatial memory, makes you care
Actually, DFW talked about this in an interview I listened to yesterday. How undergrad writers he’d teach would do all kinds of fancy technical stuff but he’d be like “this is vaguely interesting but I don’t give a shit about your characters”. The trick is to have really compelling characters and also to explore great ideas
Some examples that come to mind
Scott Alexander does this a bunch (I haven’t actually read much of his stuff, but I’ve seen him do it frequently in the few things I’ve read)