What is a “Braided Novel?”
Friends and Readers,
Good morning from sunny Valencia, Spain where I’m waist deep in imaginary worlds and making good progress on my next two novels.
Valencia is the second city of my heart, and as soon as we landed, I felt all my stress float right out of my body. While we're here, I'll be doing some book research, focused on Valencia's annual cultural festival, called Fallas. (Pronounced FY-YAS)
Fallas lasts about a month, and it incorporates artwork, beauty pageants, parades, the sewing of traditional clothing, religious iconography, and daily fireworks. The festival culminates with an event called la Crema where the artworks are burned in a huge fiery spectacle all around the city. I'd love to set a murder mystery here, but I'm still in the research phase, so for now, that means taking lots of pictures, attending events, and scribbling down notes.
A couple days ago, the first pieces of the “Municipal Falla” arrived in City Hall Square on a flatbed truck. It's huge, and this is only one piece of it! 🤯
If you're curious about Fallas, here's a documentary in English that talks more about the festival and its history.
Let's talk about books! Today, I wanted to tell you about a type of story that you may not have heard of. It's called a “braided novel” or “braided narrative” and I read an excellent one recently.
What's a Braided Novel?
One of my favorite reads this winter was The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Nayler. It won the Locus award for best novel in 2023, and it's one of those books that are difficult to describe without giving too much of the story away. The book is speculative fiction (asking “what ifs” about the future) and the themes include: cyberpunk, marine ecology, anthropology, and artificial intelligence.
The Mountain in the Sea is a good example of a braided novel. Rather than containing a single story, it contains three separate stories. The novel alternates between those stories, weaving them alongside each other, and the connection is revealed only at the end. Think of that connection as being the tight rubber band at the end of the braid. There's a little snap of “aha!” as the different strands come together.
So what happens in the Mountain in the Sea?
- A scientist is invited to an island to assist in secret research.
- A hacker is hired by a mysterious woman to complete an impossible task.
- A man exiled from his home fights to survive.
For much of the novel, these stories don’t seem to intersect. We skip from one to the other, to the other, unsure of their connection. Braided novels require patience, and there are times when the stories are tightly connected, and other times when the connection is loose. In the end, I was glad I’d persevered because three distinct stories came together in a kind of tapestry.
A braided novel can do things that a traditional narrative cannot. We may see events unfold over the breadth of an entire society. Some braided narratives are told from different points in time, showing how the past, present, and future connect. A braided novel can have more than three strands, but three or four is typical. I’ve even heard George RR Martin’s Game of Thrones books called “braided”, because they often follow different groups for long periods of time before connecting them together.
Anyway, if you’re into cyberpunk, artificial intelligence, and anthropology, check out The Mountain in the Sea. It was a challenging read, but if you enjoy speculative fiction, highly worthwhile. Also, if you have a favorite “braided novel” – tell me about it!
Until next time,
Cheri B
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