My introduction to The Micro Novels of Tory Seller

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What is a micro novel, you ask? A poem? Another exercise in avante garde dipshittery?

nov·el1

ˈnävəl/

noun

a fictitious prose narrative of book length, typically representing character and action with some degree of realism.

So a micro novel would be what?? Let’s turn to another word before we begin the exploration.

ko·an

ˈkōän/

noun

a paradoxical anecdote or riddle, used in Zen Buddhism to demonstrate the inadequacy of logical reasoning and to provoke enlightenment.

Bob Seager, Zen Buddhism, The Easter Bunny, well, we’re still lost. Let’s take a look at the mind behind the micro novel. Without further adieu, let’s descend into an introduction to the enigmatic Tory Seller himself.

I met Tory in San Francisco a few years ago. I’d been invited down for an all expenses paid writing gig. A script was coming together for HBO about a hippy commune, and while it wasn’t exactly my genre, it was close enough. Tory was one of the other writers, a bearded, quiet, very stoned guy, but friendly enough. We got to work.

By day two it became apparent that this was not, in fact, an all expenses paid gig, nor was it going to HBO. Unfortunately, this coincided with other bad news. My agent at the time was an absolute cretin. He lost my new novel, and I had to use Tory’s computer to rescue a copy from my sent email. I then had to use his computer to finish it a second time. The novel was Deadbomb Bingo Ray. I did this in Tory’s car as we rolled around late night San Francisco, working night after night in the halo of weed he surrounded himself with. He waxed on and on about the local hookers, parakeets, experimental music, Australia, glue, what have you, and we became friends. My then agent went on to misplace the publisher’s contract, so I was stranded for another week. It was then, while we were living off Tory’s food stamps and sleeping on couches in the lobby of a recording studio, that I was first introduced to the micro novel.

Each segment was crafted, and not in a pedantic, fussy way. Tory was not operating in the quiet of his home at night after he’d worked all day in a bookstore or an office. This was not engineered in a cafe workshop or his mother’s basement either. He was in motion, a strange hybrid of outlaw and surfer, with a generous helping of The Dude in his character profile. The snips, the condensed microsities, had been streamlined in a Beat fashion, shorn of verbiage, adjectives, dead weight, live action, conjecture, structure, all of it. They were encapsulations distilled by momentum, sculpted by roads, delivered through spiritual digestion.

Another week passed while my agent fumbled the money for the novel. I was stranded for one more week before I finally bypassed him. In that week, I watched Tory create, and I’m glad I did. It was an amazingly involved process, and unique in my experience. A novelist sits. Thinks. Writes for hours. Repeats. A micro novelist does something very different.

Creating the micro novel, any of them, involved driving. Tory talks to himself, even when you’re in the car with him. He stops and stares at things. He writes on napkins. He takes notes on his phone. The micro novel is alive because of it.

Read these in the car. Read them on the toilet. Read them on a train. Mutter the words under your breath as you do, and consider them from various angles. Memorize your favorites and repeat them to people at awkward times. Leave your copy at the airport when you’re done, or give it to your boss for Christmas. Because that’s what this is. It’s a gift from a stranger to a stranger. Quickly now! Turn to the next page and-

Jeff Johnson

Portland, Oregon 2018