Plot Ain’t Everything
I’ve spent the last month plotting. I plotted a contemporary about a girl whose husband left her pregnant to go off with one of his band’s groupies. I paired her up with the guy who grew up with a single mom and who gets it on with anything that moves – except women who have kids. After that, I’ve been plotting a paranormal.
But now that my plotting (plodding?) has wound down, I’m starting to think about writing these stories. And after all this prep work, I’m struck again with the realization that no matter how great my plot is, that’s not everything when it comes to storytelling.
It’s the difference between listening to the teacher taking roll call in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (“Bueller? Bueller?”) and the teacher in the Dead Poet’s Society (“O Captain my Captain!”). It’s Professor Binns versus Professor Lupin. Or the difference between watching the old version of Romeo and Juliet and the one with Leonardo and Claire Danes in it (I love that version).
It’s the reason I could sit and listen to my father tell the same story over and over. It’s because he was a consummate storyteller. He knew how to milk his audience, how to keep people listening.
All the details of storytelling are hard. Painting those characters in a readers mind, pacing the story to keep things interesting, and writing dialogue that sounds convincing is more difficult than setting up a plot. A plot is decided once, maybe tweaked or adjusted occasionally, but it remains fairly static. But characterization, pacing, conflict, motivation? Those things have to be dealt with every single time you’re at the keyboard. That’s why plotting is helpful, but it doesn’t guarantee a bestseller. Because a plot can’t guarantee that the story will come alive in every line.
I think it’s still easier than not having one, but I have no desire to open the pantser/plotter debate up today.
Instead, tell me what storytelling element (characterization, setting, pacing, conflict, motivation) etc you think is the hardest to master in writing? Which do you think you do the best?
Books by the Crew
40 comments:
I think that the hardest thing to master is know when to write dialogue & when to be “silent”. So that the story unfolds through a character’s actions.
And what do I do best?
No doubt about it
…’s!
Nobody does …’s like me… mostly cuz … well … uuuhhhh…. nobody else uses …’s! LOL
I don't know what the hardest thing to master is. For everyone it will probably be different. I know for me, it was hard to learn not to overwrite. As to what I do well...well, let's not go there right now. It's been a bad night. :)
Plot may not be everything, but it's not nothing, either! Congrats on having one!
I think JK is right, every writer has different strengths and weaknesses. I think pacing is probably one of my strengths. Like someone famous once said, I try to skip the boring parts. My big challenge is always motivation. I'm always having to strengthen it or make it more subtle in revisions...I rely on CPs and test readers and my editor to tell me whether it's coming across at all, too much, etc.
I know plot is one of my weaknesses. The internal conflict is what I find most interesting, so it's easy for me to forget that things need to happen. I also overwrite, not in the purple prose sense, but in the too many words sense. I end up cutting as much as I keep.
I'm a poet, so I hope language is my strength. I certainly spend enough time fretting about the exact word.
I think character is most important. It's what I start with; it's what I go back to when I'm stuck.
(Is Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet "the old one"? I'll take that one please.)
Hmmmm. I struggle with endings. Not necessarily the climax but the wrap up and ending. I fall in love with my characters and find myself diving into a second adventure...sometimes that works, sometimes it don't and I find myself with unfinished books... I'm just the writer who can't say goodbye!
What do I do best? Come up with some really strange sex situations. *grin*
Actually, my neverending pirate saga is the best and the worst of me. Can't end Jack and Miranda's adventure. But wow, where I've gone them! I entertain myself...someday, the world! Bwahaha!
(I figured it out, if I find a publisher that wants them all, and one comes out every six months...I'll be 65 years old before they're all in print. Though that doesn't count the ones I haven't written yet... Someday I'll figure out the word count, just to impress myself...)
The hardest thing for me? The beginning, or rather, the first half of the book. It is absolute torture for me to write. I'm second guessing myself every step of the way. I periodically e-mail my CPs and complain how absolutely I'm a horrible writer. Without a question, I hate writing the first 45K; it's just not fun for me at all. And it happens with EVERY single book. Without fail.
But a couple of (somewhat) good things happened with this book even though I did complain---very loudly---about them. I restarted the beginning about three times. Then I was 73K into the book and last week deleted 30K. Had a major, major freakout about it. Trust me. But it was stuff I was holding onto from the old starts in the vain hopes of oh, I can rework this somehow. No, I can't. Well, except one scene but that's really the secondary romance, so that's fine. But, you know what? As painful as it was and as much as it sucked major donkey balls, I rather do it now then later.
Things that I think I'm good at---dialogue, the black moment, and the ending. I write kick-ass endings, if I do say so myself. And I know I'm really good at combining the light moments with the dark. I'm not Noirish, but I'm not all cotton candy, rainbows, and flying unicorns either.
I think that writing fiction is an art form and there are as many writing styles as there are art forms.
For example I have Julie down as a 'cubist', distorting reality to extract meaning. JK is definitely 'Avant Garde', and I speak with authority as I'm reading her 'My immortal' at the moment. Janga is the 'impressionist' with beautiful dream like prose. I haven't read Chance or Tessa or Marnee yet so will reserve judgement there.
As I scientist I find all this artistic stuff extremely difficult to master, though I am totally fascinated by the problems of technique. I think that My strengths lie with description and plot.
If you wanted a 'user manual' or a 'description of experimental set up', then I'm your man. Also,I can conjure imaginative stories from thin air...might come from years of defending my theories in seminars.*grin*
Dialogue, however, rarely enters a scientific document and is so essential for bringing a story alive. Yes, I think that I find dialogue the most difficult.
It's a paradox because in real life I can 'talk the hind leg off a donkey', but on paper my 'spirit guide' is always pushing me back to scientific type and I end up writing too much description!
Maybe one day....*sigh*
What a great topic.
I love plot.
I think I have a few things I do very well, some I don't, so I avoid those things in the long run.
I'm good with sexual tension and inner conflict. I am really good at giving my characters everything they ever dreamed of, then ripping it away from them usually brutally(usually my heroines). I do so love to torture them, test their strength :)
This is where I flunk the class. I don't (and can't seem to) analyze anything. I know what I LIKE to write (dialogue). Doesn't necessarily mean I'm good at it. I suppose my greatest worry is that my characters are so clear to me that I neglect to fully present them to the reader in a timely fashion.
Wow, good morning everyone! It's only a little after 8:00. You guys must have been up early and eating your Wheaties. :)
Actually, I see that it's more like no one went to bed. What writers don't sleep these days? LOL!
Julie - I think you do write a mean ...'s. Every time you use it I note how thoroughly inspired your use of the apostrophe is. It's an art. You are a master.
But the whole learning to stay silent thing? That is truly inspired. I'm one of those folks who worries about uncomfortable silences - just gotta fill 'em up with my own chatter, as if that's better. But learning how to let things just stand for themselves, that's an a true art form.
JK - not overwriting! That's a great one. I had a professor in college who said, "don't use two words if one will do the trick." Though I know he meant in any given sentence, I think that the lesson to always be concise is a good one.
Tessa - Hi! Thanks for stopping by! I meant to tell you that your cover art is beautiful. :)
I like that. Skipping the boring parts. And I think that motivation is my toughest part too. Not just making them strong/subtle enough, but making the motivations between the h/h complimentary.
Janga - I think I mentioned above about the conciseness thing. I don't think I can mention it enough though. I don't think I overdo it in purple prose either, but I definitely use a lot of extra words that I end up axing in revisions too.
Character encompasses so many things. I think you're right that it's a huge one. Characterization in general.
And you can have the Zefirelli. Not horrible but it definitely never captured the raw elements of the text for me. The outfits were pretty though, definitely better than Luhrman's version.
Chance - The writer who can't say goodbye. LOL! That's funny. Writing endings is hard though. I struggled with my first one for a while and then I ended up vomiting it up. Afterwards I had to go layer, after I'd cut the umbilical cord. But it was hard. I cried, I'm not ashamed to admit it. LOL!
And you say, "strange" sex situations? I can't help but ask how so? (I know that's just going to be the beginning of the fireworks today, but I have no self-restraint.)
Ely - You like the ending better? You know, if you and I (and Chance, apparently) got together, I'll write the beginning, you write the end, and wahla! We're all happy. :)
I know you freaked when you hit delete last week, but I'm sure that it's all for the best. I remember when I axed out a big chunk of HBG I saved it in a new file. Then I could tell myself that I didn't really delete them, that I was just saving them for later. I never used most of it but somehow it soothed me.
And you said, "And I know I’m really good at combining the light moments with the dark. I’m not Noirish, but I’m not all cotton candy, rainbows, and flying unicorns either." I like that. It's fun to get to a point when we really recognize what's in our voice. :)
Q - I like how you mention major art movements for writing styles. Because it's true; no matter how many writing manuals one reads, no matter how much we know about craft and stylistic techniques, there is no knowledge that replaces our own voice.
Tiff - Giving your characters everything they want and then ripping it away. Meanie, ya know? But you do it so well. And I think you are a master at sexual tension. Seriously. :)
Mags - I like writing dialogue too. And you said, "I suppose my greatest worry is that my characters are so clear to me that I neglect to fully present them to the reader in a timely fashion." Thank goodness for CPs, huh?
Marn, I think dialogue is the hardest thing for me to write. I really struggle with it for some reason. I don't know if it's because I struggle to make conversation myself or I just have this filter in my brain that says "stop talking already!".
I'm working on it. As you well know, I tend to info dump in long rambling ways when I write. LOL
I tend to miss motivation sometimes too. I need more in my life, therefore, it's hard to find in my writing as well. I need to branch out on my characterization as well.
In fact, I need to work on it all.
Sin - you don't info dump ramblingly. I know this. :) I'm not surprised that dialogue annoys you though. You're more the show me sort. :)
And yes, I info dump ramblingly. I tend to cut it before anyone sees it; but I still do it.
*hugs* I love you Marn. You are the sunshine and I am the rain cloud. LOL
They can all be hard. (I can't tell you the number of books I have about plot, but they're basically untouched because I spend most of my time reading books about character because that's where the story is at. Everything that makes up character: backstory, motivation, flaws, fears, hopes and dreams--these are humans and we're complicated to define and draw boundaries on.)
For me, dialogue comes easiest because scenes come to me like movie reels, so the characters are talking a lot of the time. The banter is all over the place.
Setting and description are possibly my greatest weaknesses (just ahead of plotting and defining motive and goals in my characters) because I have a tendency to have stuff happen in white rooms. In a vague location. Perhaps Guatanamo Bay or something, I'm not sure.
Sometimes my pacing can be really on--and sometimes it's clear I'm writing every detail because I fear you won't know if he opens the fridge that he clearly crossed the room to the kitchen, then opened the door. Finding the right end hook is a lot of fun. I like to end chapters with a sentence or piece of dialogue a la Julie Garwood. Something ironic. Something profound. Something that makes you want to race to the next page. Now only if the middle of my chapters were as compelling as my opening hook and the ending hook, I'd probably have a great story.
What's hardest for me right now is trying to write in third person and not sound like a 3rd grader trying to write a story. I got spoiled to 1st person and writing in 3rd now feels unnatural, but the story I'm writing can't be told in 1st person.
Sin - I love you too hon. XOXO
Hellion - I have that problem with description too, the "white room effect". I think it was worse in my historical because I had a hard time with the historical setting. I like the social aspect of historicals, all the forced marriages and social constraints, but the setting, eh.
And I love Julie Garwood's hooks.
The whole third/first thing is confusing, because I feel like my first sounds like the third grader.
For me, apparently, motivation is my weakness. That and suspension of disbelief.
This program that I'm in for school, they use critique groups, of course. So last week, 12 people read the first 10 pages of my last MS, and spent a full hour dissecting it in front of me, while I wasn't allowed to say a word. Literally.
But it was a quite revealing experience - apparently dialog and voice are strengths, and motivation and suspension of disbelief are weaknesses.
And the really odd part is that it's no so much a problem with the characters *having* a motivation, as much as me getting it down on paper. They have them, I just forget to make them clear. Opps. *g*
Haleigh - Clearly I need this class of yours. LOL!
Not only is this a great blog, these are some awesome comments. *waves furiously to Tessa* Welcome to the ship!!! You do realize we're going to kidnap you for a day this summer, right? LOL!
The hard part for me is doing all of these things consciously. As Janga once told me, I write organically so the motivation or the foreshadowing or the dialogue all just kind of happen. If I try too hard to make them happen, I get all messed up. That doesn't mean I'm doing anything right. LOL! Just means I can't think too hard about it.
The setting is really tough for me. Everything for me happens inside my character's heads. So I forget to put them in a real place. But I figure I'll just keep vomiting out the story (someday...*sigh*) and layer back in the details about setting and description. And pretty much everything else. LOL!
Ter- it was great, but I genuinely thought I was going to throw up. It was a three-hour session, with three people being critiqued, and I begged to go first, only because I was afraid I'd pass out if I had to wait through two hours of other people's crits first!
I'm with you Terri - I can't think to hard about all the little rules and details during the first draft. I'd never get a word down! I just write, and come back on the second draft and think it through as to what I'm trying to accomplish and what's actually happening on paper.
Hal - That's what held me up something awful when I first starting writing. I thought it had to be perfect the second I put it on paper. Talk about PAINFUL!
I think I could take the crit to a point, but it would have to be something that I felt I had done all I could with. And I don't have anything that's gotten that far. LOL!
Plotting and pacing! My gawd, the pacing kills me! I don't let things unfold *enough*. In my head there are so many great details and dialogues but I never seem to get it all to the page and then I rush through things. That yell of frustration that you hear? Yes, that would be me.
I love the two C's: Conflict and Characterization! Not that I'm brilliant at any of these elements but I do enjoy them.
Haleigh, that sounds like a nightmare! I would go hide, I think. Bravo to you for sticking through and getting some helpful hints!
Hal - I remember doing this sort of open critique in college in a creative writing class and it was hard not to want to defend myself. It did help me learn how to take criticism and try to remove myself from the writing. :) And they were definitely right about the dialogue and voice. You're great with that. :)
Ter - It is hard to think about anything while writing. I think it's more important for after finishing, to go back and check things out. It's just that it takes forever to write something, then going back and finding out something needs a lot of help can be disconcerting. :) So, no worries, you needn't worry about it all right then, just at revisions. (Not that that makes it better or easier. LOL!)
Ter, that someday is this year sister. We're going to do it this year.
We're going to do it and it's going to be good.
Steph - That whole, what's in my head to paper translation thing is SOOO hard. I read things after a while to remove myself and I'll be like, good grief. This isn't at all how I expected. That's sooo frustrating. Thank god for rewrites. :)
Yes we are! I'm so itching to write. I've decided since I have two laptops now, to keep one for writing only. Well, for mostly only writing. If I think of the comp for only that purpose, it might keep me from playing elsewhere when I should be writing. LOL!
Ter, whatever works. :)
Oh boy, well...strange sex situations... How to put this... In me pirate saga the heroine is a witch who needs sex to recharge her magic. So she gets into some strange situations where the cap'n isn't around...but they work it out.
I really was speaking about the alien sex stuff I find myself coming up with. Alien as from another planet, obviously. ;) Threesomes, places...just me nasty little mind flying free.
Hal - A full hour listening to a group critique yer work. Ye be a brave woman... I'd be cryin'. Jus' know I would, leakin' like a cracked rum barrel... I bet I could do it on line without fallin' apart...maybe.
One a' these days, I hope ta read some of me crewmates works... hint, hint. I be willin' ta share, BTW.
Chance - You are going to fit in around here SO well. LOL!!!
Terrio - I'm all a'twitter! BTW, got rain last night, so I be braggin no more 'bout long sunshiney walks on the beach. Not for now, at least.
I got pineapple rum fer tomorrow, so's we all gets 'r fruit in the mornin'.
My body might reject the fruit, but I'm sure it'll accept the rum. LOL! Looking forward to it!
I'm great with dialog...maybe that's because I talk so damn much. But coming up with a realistic plot and follow through of said plot is where I fall short.
This usually results in multiple re-writes. This is usually the result of multiple plots and story lines running around in my head at various times. Thank God for the Trusty Notebook.
That book has saved my writing life. It's worth so much more than the $2.12 I paid for it.
Don't ya love those sorts a' investments? I love me pack of moleskin tablets. Got one with me everywhere I go. Can't always find a plug fer the laptop!
Quantume said “I have Julie down as a ‘cubist’.
A Cubist? Really Q you are Much to intuitive for my own good.
And is it just me , or does anybody else have this lstrange urge to have Q’s quote “distorting reality to extract meaning” printed up on a tee-shirt?
A lil ol’ red spandex tee-shirt.
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