Story and Plot

Every now and then I pull off the shelf one of my favorite books on writing. Recently I've been thinking about John Gardner's observation that it's better to be a little slow in making up your mind if you're going to be a novelist. Don't rush to find an answer or fill in a blank in the story line. Slower is better than speed when it comes to letting ideas develop. When I first read this, I was relieved because my mind does take a while to bring all the threads of a narrative together.

 

One of my bad habits is thinking a story is done before it is. The original idea excites me, so I rush to get it down on paper, but near the end I tend to falter and wonder about the ending I've come up with. Instead of setting the story aside at once, I tend to tinker a little and then write to the end. Sometimes that works, but often not. I'm liable to come up with a much better ending if I set the story aside for a couple of weeks or wait until a better idea comes along. That can take months. This is a lesson I have to remind myself of every time I think I've finished something.

 

Katherine Anne Porter said she didn't begin a story with intent for its meaning or significance, but discovered it at the end. She's talking about finding the organic wholeness of a story rather than imposing one on it. Some call this theme or "meaning" of a story, but whatever the term, it is the vision we see when we step back and see the whole. I too hang out in the camp of the discoverers, waiting to hoist my binoculars for the grand view after I've reached the top of the mountain.

 

My copy of Stephen King's book On Writing is dog-eared (and don't complain to me about marring a book by turning down corners; a book is to be read and used and loved). I especially like his discussion on the difference between plot and story. "Story is honorable and trustworthy; plot is shifty, and best kept under house arrest." He goes on to describe an exercise that is designed to force the writer to be as honest as she or he can be, knowing that without honesty no story is worth the time.

 

When I'm working on the final draft of a novel I have to ask myself how honest have my characters been? Have they admitted, if not to others, then to themselves what their deeper motivations are, their goals and what they're willing to do to get there? Have they admitted to something unattractive, even offensive in themselves? Have I shown them in every aspect, letting the reader decide how to feel about them? We are heavily socialized in this society, and sometimes getting to the truth is harder than we imagine. We're not used to it in daily life. But we have to find it in fiction if our stories are not going to fall flat.

 

These are my thoughts as I contemplate 312 pages of my current WIP. I know the whole "plot" is there, and that all the threads come together. What I'm wondering about is something deeper, more organic. Have I captured a vision of an authentic life, and will readers recognize it? This morning I'm standing on the top of the mountain, binoculars raised, scanning the landscape.

Random Thoughts on Plot

Some writers begin a mystery novel with a full idea in their heads—who are the main characters and what is the thrust of the story, the theme, and the climax. I wish I could do this; it would make my life so much easier. Not even in a short story do I know where I'm going. My recent story in Mystery Weekly is an example.

I’ve been struggling with my current work-in-progress because the characters keep going off in tangents. That’s supposed to be a good thing for a writer and a story, but in this case, it’s only frustrating. After several pages, sometimes chapters, the characters fall back into line and I’m left with a lot of pages I don’t need and don’t fit. Occasionally I can salvage some of those extraneous scenes and turn them into a short story, but usually I file them at the end of the draft and leave them there.

Recently I came across a mystery novel that was all plot—no excursions, no digressions, no descriptive passages to flesh out a location or person. It was all plot. There’s something to be said for this—it kept me turning the pages wondering where other parts of the story would come in. Halfway through I had a good idea who the killer was. By the time I reached the next to last chapter I knew. Was I right? Yes. Did I care? No.

A crime novel may be based on plot, reliant on a structure, or formula if you prefer, to tell a particular story, but in my view the best ones go deeper than a superficial sequence of events, as riveting and surprising as those may be. A good mystery novel leaves me nodding in admiration. A great one leaves me weeping, real tears falling for the depth of feeling the writer has created. This kind of story is not easy to write, but we all know when we’ve come across one in our reading. We finish the book wishing we could write something as good, admiring far more than the plot or turn of events.

Following tangents, letting characters meander perhaps uselessly for pages, is one way of discovering where the novel is or is not going, and if that’s what it takes to get to a deeper place, then so be it. It’s frustrating but worthwhile. The story that is slick and quick offers little compared to the ones that make us think and feel. Plenty of wonderful writers give us such stories to admire. The Long Callby Ann Cleeves is the most recent one of these I’ve read. There are others. Meanwhile I’ll struggle with my manuscript, pushing the characters to tell me more so I can reveal more to the reader.