Shadow of Malabron: edited trailer

The newly edited (and improved) trailer for The Shadow of Malabron, by the amazing Chris Hill.
A trailer for The Fathomless Fire will be coming soon!

The Greatest Plot Ever Told

I think the best way to illustrate what I see as the difference between story and plot is (surprise surprise) by way of a story:

Long ago, when I was a little boy, I always looked forward to the end of the day, because that was when my father would tell me a plot.

Most kids hate bedtime but I loved it, because my father was such a wonderful plot-teller.   

“It’s plot-time, Dad,” I would shout when the clock struck eight. I’d hurriedly brush my teeth, put on my pajamas, and hop into bed. Then Dad would come into my room and sit on the edge of my bed. 

How vividly I remember the comforting scent of tobacco from his knitted sweater (he smoked a pipe, much to my mother’s dismay, and then one day he just quit, cold turkey, and started competing in marathons). I remember the deepening winter twilight outside the window, and the feeling of being safe and cozy in my bed mingling with the exciting certainty that I was about to be swept away into the abstract realm of narrative schematics.

Sometimes I asked my father for the same plot I’d heard the night before, and sometimes I’d ask for a new one. Dad was very good at setting the plots out clearly and concisely so that I could follow the narrative sequence without the hindrances of mood, atmosphere, evocative sensory detail, tension, suspense, or anything else having to do with style and imagination.

Before he began, Dad would always hem and haw for a bit, pretending that he just wasn’t feeling very structuralist tonight. I would protest and whine, and then at last, once he’d got me sufficiently fired up, he’d finally give in and start to tell a plot.

“This is the plot of The Sword in the Stone,” Dad would state in his most clinical and detached voice. “The protagonist is Arthur. The exposition is as follows: as a baby Arthur is given to Sir Ector to raise in secret so that no one will know the child is the son of King Uther. Arthur grows up in Ector’s household. One day Sir Ector and his son Kay travel to London for a tournament. Arthur goes along as Kay’s squire. The inciting incident occurs when Arthur forgets Kay’s sword. There isn’t enough time for Arthur to run back to the camp to get the sword. Then he sees a sword sticking out of a stone in a churchyard. Protagonist breaks taboo: Arthur pulls out the sword and gives it to Kay. Sir Ector recognizes the sword as the one from the stone and asks Arthur how he got it. Kay lies and says he drew out the sword (minor setback). Then Kay admits that Arthur did it. They return to the stone and Arthur puts the sword back and draws it out again. The news spreads and people gather to see what’s going on. Other knights try to draw the sword, but only Arthur can do it. There is much anger and confusion, creating mounting tension leading to the turning point, when Merlin the magician appears and announces that Arthur is able to draw the sword because he is the rightful heir to the throne of England. A new equilibrium is reached, with the protagonist elevated in status.”

What a wonderful plot. One of my favourites. I asked my father for that one many times, and each time I’d sink down into my pillow, letting the pure temporal logic of a well-constructed sequence of narrative events carry me toward sleep…

Okay, I’ll stop there before my own story puts you to sleep.

 Image from Henson's The Storyteller

Most of the time all we want is to enjoy a good story. We don’t think about plot. We don’t care how it works. It just does.

But if you’re a reader who also wants to write, then you might want to study the way your favourite writer grabbed you and kept you hooked from beginning to ending. And one of the most important elements of story for grabbing and holding the reader is plot. So study plot. Make a plot outline or a plot diagram of your favourite book. Make plot diagrams of your own writing. Sometimes an outline or a diagram can show you why a story of your own isn’t quite working (maybe there’s way too much exposition at the start, or you’ve placed the crisis point too early, or too late, or there is no crisis point -- the story just peters out...)

But my advice is not to get too caught up in plot construction, in sticking to a pattern of inciting incident, rising action, climax, falling action, etc. That’s the road to formula, to a story without surprise, without risk, without life. Usually it’s best to just trust your story instincts (we all have them; we’ve been absorbing Story all our lives).

There’s so much more to a good story than a sequence of events. No one ever really said “Tell me a good plot.”

To my blog readers: if there are any other elements of story that you would like me to talk about, let me know.

Story vs Plot

When I was starting out as a writer, one word that bothered me more than any other was plot.

I knew a story had to have a plot (well, most stories I liked seemed to have one). But I wasn’t good at coming up with them, and that weighed on me. Whenever I sat down to write a story of my own, I never started with plot. I started with an image, or a memory, or at most an idea. Then, as the writing went on, I’d be struggling to do other things, like getting to know my characters or choreographing a scene or putting words together with beauty and precision, the way my writing idols did.

I usually put off thinking about plot as long as I could. The idea of it seemed too mechanical, too structured for the messy, meandering, intuitive way I got a story onto the page. And I thought that my way was wrong -- that I should be good at plot, that it was vitally important. And that belief blocked me and oppressed me as a writer.

I liked the word story a lot more. Story was something I felt I knew, deeply and intuitively rather than as an intellectual abstraction. Like most people, I’d grown up being told stories, reading stories, making up my own stories (often to get out of trouble, or start some). Even today, if someone starts to tell a story, I can feel the kid in me relax into that calm readiness to listen.

At some point as a writer I remembered this truth: that story lived deep in me in a way that plot didn’t. Eventually I stopped worrying so much about plot. What I was doing was telling a story. Or growing one, maybe. That seemed a better metaphor. A story is something that grows. 

And I also began to notice that short stories didn’t necessarily need a lot of plot, that in fact they were often better without much of it. 

Novels were a different matter. When I first started writing a novel I discovered that plot was more important to think about, but not too soon, and not too much.

Now when I write I still try to put off thinking about plot for as long as I can, and just let the story grow. I know that sooner or later I’ll have to grapple with plot. But it’s not really a struggle anymore, it’s more like a useful tension. Plot is part of the process. Or maybe it’s the bones, the skeleton in whatever the story is growing to be. 

Image by T Wharton

 

To a young person who wants to write, letter # 2

To a young person who wants to write

Letter # 2,

Dear X,

In my last letter I talked about just plunging in and writing. You might say That’s crazy. You may have heard or been told that you should always have an outline first, a plan for what you intend to write. Well, yes, that might work just fine for some writers, but in my view, too much planning (or too soon) is one of the main reasons why so many people get discouraged and give up on writing.

That’s what I found when I was starting out, anyhow. The first time I tried to write a novel, I plotted it all out ahead of time, like I thought I was supposed to. I came up with a detailed outline, but when I actually tried to write the novel, I found I was  bored with my own story. I already knew everything that was going to happen (and it was a pretty clichéd plot, too). There was no excitement of discovery, no mystery, no surprise. No fun. And so I soon gave up on it. I thought I just didn’t have what it took to write a novel.

Then a wise teacher showed me that there are other ways to write. You can start with something that has no plot at all. You can start with almost nothing, with an image, even just a word that intrigues you. If you just keep writing, and trust in the creative process, that word or image or plotless fragment will grow, and take shape, and become a story.

When I write something I want to be its first reader. That is, I don’t want to know too much about what’s going to happen or where the story is going to take me. I want to be surprised. I want to find myself wondering how are the characters ever going to get out of this mess? That’s how I keep myself interested and energized for the long haul of the writing journey.

Once I’ve got a lot of the story written, then I usually find it helpful to create an outline. I can use it to keep track of what I’ve got already and to sketch out the possibilities of where I might go from here.

Outlines can get us stuck in one narrow idea of what our story should be. That kind of narrow focus may be just fine if you’re writing a how-to manual, but novels and stories need to breathe. They’re imaginary worlds. An imaginary world is not about should, it’s all about could. Give your story, your world, room to grow. Let it take you to unexpected places.

Outlines and plot synopses are useful tools. For some writers, they’re indispensable. You might be that kind of writer. If so, that’s great. Ignore what I've said and just keep going. But planning and outlining is not the only way to get a story started. There might be some other approach that works better for you. The only way to find out for sure is to try different methods, and to keep writing.

Here’s a site with some more good writing advice. Here's another, with links to other resources and short videos of author Neil Gaiman and others offering writing advice. 

And X, here's a question I ask my writing students: what are some of the aspects of writing you have the most trouble with? Creating believable characters? Dialogue? Coming up with a good plot? Let me know what you'd like some specific advice about and I'll address it in another letter.

Image by T Wharton

To a young person who wants to write

To a young person who wants to write.

Letter # 1

Dear X,

If you want to write, then just write.

It doesn’t matter if you don’t think you have good ideas, or you think your writing is awful, or you can’t think of something to write about. If you have the urge to express yourself in words, go with it. Just get something out onto the page. This is just the rough stuff – no one else has to see it. You can always fix it up later, or not. No one else ever has to read your rough work if you don’t want them to. You can trash it, you can delete it as soon as you’re done (although I would advise against that – you never know when you might want to have another look at something you’ve written).

People sometimes get two very different things mixed up: being a writer and getting published. You don’t have to be published to be a writer. You just have to write. It sounds corny, I know, but writing really is its own reward. Ask just about any creative person and they’ll tell you that real joy and fulfillment comes from the creative act itself and not whatever recognition or fame one might earn from it. A lot of people say that it’s going to get harder in these changing times for writers to earn money from their work. Do you think that’s going to stop anyone who wants to write from writing? I don’t.

So that’s my first bit of advice to you: just write. Just start, then keep going. Don’t stop to edit yourself or criticize yourself. Just write. Just start, then keep going. Time yourself and see if you can write non-stop for five minutes. Then the next day try seven minutes. Then ten minutes. Do it every day.

You don’t need a plan. You don’t need an outline.

You don’t even need a subject to write about. If you can’t think of anything to write about then just start writing about that: “I can’t think of anything to write about today because I'm sitting here in my room going stir-crazy and have no idea what to write but I just noticed that little dent on the wall of my room which I can’t remember seeing before but I bet it came from when my brother borrowed my hockey stick and then tossed it back into my room when he was done with it he never looks after my stuff or his own stuff for that matter -- like the time he …” 

You might be surprised how quickly the brain will get on to something, how it will find a story to tell if you just keep the pen moving or the keys on the keyboard tapping.

Just write.