The Cut-Up Method: William S Burrough's Guide to Creative Writing
- kahansudev
- Oct 30, 2022
- 2 min read
What is Cut-Up Writing?
The cut-up technique is a process of taking a text, cutting it up into pieces, and then rearranging the pieces to create a new text. Many writers have used this technique, but the one in discussion in this article is William S Burroughs.
Who is William S Burroughs?
William S. Burroughs, was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, painter, and spoken word performer. He is one of the founding fathers of the Beat Generation and is well known for his novels such as Naked Lunch and Junky. For a taste of his poetry recitals, check out the videos below. Trigger warning, it is dark stuff.
He is also considered by some as the father of Punk Rock, but the reason we are talking about him in this post is because of the cut-up technique he used to write his trilogy known as The Nova Trilogy.
The books in this trilogy are:
Why Would Some One Use This Method?
Though this form mimics the stream-of-consciousness style of writing, is quite the opposite in its essence. It is not so much about the cathartic flow of thought, rather, it utilizes the idea of synchronicity.
The frame of mind of the artist has to resonate with the piece of writing to be able to cut it up and add it to their paragraph. It calls for the writer to surrender control in terms of navigating or directing their sentences, and is simply left to their opportunistic optimism and to the mercy of the mathematical probability of finding the right sentence that shall propagate and translate the writer's idea and frame of mind.
Hence the results are often surreal.
Why Do You Need to Know About This Technique?
With AI entering the writing field, it is a bit unnerving for us writers: "What if the AI writes better than us?". But, if you are one who can't help but write, and writing is your only means to life, AI can't take your creativity or soul away. There are several ways of using it.
And one way to utilize AI to continue creating groundbreaking works of literature is the cut-up method.
If you've already tried this method out for yourself, please leave a comment below and let me know how it went. Also, feel free to share your piece.
If you are going to try it out, let me know how it goes.
And to end this post I shall leave you with a clip about this method from the master himself:
Kahan J Sudev
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