Yes, but stories aren't *about* plot
Friday, April 6th, 2018 07:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lizvogelThis is an example of why plot as it's usually discussed doesn't make sense to me.
So, I'm coming into the endgame of the novel. My MC and the main SC need to have a conversation about the economic implications of the rebellion. Right now they're off doing separate things, so I need to bring them back together. And I need to stick them in a circumstance where they'll talk (read: bicker) instead of dealing with the ongoing emergency.
MC and... let's call him the 3C (tertiary character) are off to track down someone who's a lead on the ultimate bad guy. That someone is probably near the spaceport, which is probably where SC is, so that gets them in the same general vicinity. Good.
There's a spear-carrier who was supposed to do something important for the rebellion, only MC (for Reasons) knocked him out. I don't know what that something is, but the set-up's in place for it, so I should use it. Whatever-it-is that goes wrong can trap MC and SC (and 3C?) somewhere, thus giving them time to bicker.
Good. Now I need to figure out what the something is that goes wrong because that guy's not at his post.
Hmm. If 3C isn't trapped with the others, that gives me a chance to use him to bring in a minor character that I established much earlier, who I'd like to use again. And hmm, it might be a chance to work in the line about projective telepathy that I've been looking for a place for, though it would give it a slightly different meaning than I'd originally intended. Have to think about that.
Now, on the plot-oriented face of it, this bit is:
- MC and 3C pursue lead.
- SC deals with rebellion-stuff.
- [Thing] goes wrong and they are trapped together.
But for my purposes, it's the economics conversation that matters. Everything else is framework so that can happen. The reader won't be able to tell that in the final version, of course, but that's what I'm focused on from a process standpoint.
And this is part of why plot-oriented craft discussions don't work for me. They're all about those bullet points, as though that's what's driving the story. But for me, they're almost irrelevant at this stage, except for how they enable other things.
The other reason plot discussions don't work for me, of course, is that they never go into how to make those bullet points happen. They seem to think that once you have those bullet-points, it will be obvious how to get from one to another, but it never, ever is for me. There's always at least one step into a murky well of impenetrable darkness, which may conceal solid ground from which to step back out or may conceal a hole of bottomless depth and width that cannot be spanned without tools and materials and a significant investment in infrastructure. And that's the hard bit, for me.
So, I'm coming into the endgame of the novel. My MC and the main SC need to have a conversation about the economic implications of the rebellion. Right now they're off doing separate things, so I need to bring them back together. And I need to stick them in a circumstance where they'll talk (read: bicker) instead of dealing with the ongoing emergency.
MC and... let's call him the 3C (tertiary character) are off to track down someone who's a lead on the ultimate bad guy. That someone is probably near the spaceport, which is probably where SC is, so that gets them in the same general vicinity. Good.
There's a spear-carrier who was supposed to do something important for the rebellion, only MC (for Reasons) knocked him out. I don't know what that something is, but the set-up's in place for it, so I should use it. Whatever-it-is that goes wrong can trap MC and SC (and 3C?) somewhere, thus giving them time to bicker.
Good. Now I need to figure out what the something is that goes wrong because that guy's not at his post.
Hmm. If 3C isn't trapped with the others, that gives me a chance to use him to bring in a minor character that I established much earlier, who I'd like to use again. And hmm, it might be a chance to work in the line about projective telepathy that I've been looking for a place for, though it would give it a slightly different meaning than I'd originally intended. Have to think about that.
Now, on the plot-oriented face of it, this bit is:
- MC and 3C pursue lead.
- SC deals with rebellion-stuff.
- [Thing] goes wrong and they are trapped together.
But for my purposes, it's the economics conversation that matters. Everything else is framework so that can happen. The reader won't be able to tell that in the final version, of course, but that's what I'm focused on from a process standpoint.
And this is part of why plot-oriented craft discussions don't work for me. They're all about those bullet points, as though that's what's driving the story. But for me, they're almost irrelevant at this stage, except for how they enable other things.
The other reason plot discussions don't work for me, of course, is that they never go into how to make those bullet points happen. They seem to think that once you have those bullet-points, it will be obvious how to get from one to another, but it never, ever is for me. There's always at least one step into a murky well of impenetrable darkness, which may conceal solid ground from which to step back out or may conceal a hole of bottomless depth and width that cannot be spanned without tools and materials and a significant investment in infrastructure. And that's the hard bit, for me.
