The Writer's Workout

Sometimes, the most memorable pieces of fiction are the ones that break convention. This can be said of Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves, which follows a manuscript about a documentary that doesn’t exist. It weaves the manuscript itself with the story of the person who found it after the original writer’s death, told through lengthy footnotes. At some points, Danielewski arranges the text in ways that require the reader to physically rotate the book in order to read it.

How you tell a story says everything. You want to keep readers invested in what’s happening and not lose their interest. It’s important...