Devising A Plot

The ideas for my stories generally come to me in large chunks in which I find myself totally immersed in a scene for a few seconds, almost as if I’m watching a film. I’m aware that for other people this process is quite different. But however you find your inspiration, sooner or later you are going to have to assemble all your scenes, characters, images, or scraps of dialogue, into a plot.

There are as many ways of devising a plot as there are writers. But what I wanted to say in this post is that in my opinion it’s extremely helpful to have someone you know well, someone you trust completely, someone you can be sure won’t undermine you, with whom you can talk through your plot in detail.

The very act of talking it through clarifies it in your mind. Sometimes you can’t see the way forward even though all it takes is something very obvious - a tiny fragment of the picture that appears totally obvious to someone else but simply eludes you, no matter how you cudgel your brains.

I must confess, when I’m devising a plot I persecute my wife, following her around the house, pursuing her into the garden, standing outside the bathroom, wandering around the shopping mall saying, ‘I know you’re really busy but could you possibly just listen to this and tell me what you think the character would do next?’

I know what you’re thinking – how does she put up with him? It’s a question I ask myself all the time. Somehow she does, and I’m profoundly grateful. Because sometimes, no matter how much you try, you simply cannot see the whole picture by yourself.

It’s as though you’re standing outside your own house, and you’ve left your key indoors. That key is only a tiny thing, an insignificant piece of base metal. But without it, you are locked out. Then along comes your housemate with his or her key and hey presto, you can get inside and get on with the rest of your life.

Metamorphosis

I have spent the last few days in Leitrim in the West of Ireland where it was very cold indeed but also very beautiful. The house where my parents used to live is up high on a hill and looking out of the window, we watched as an opalescent cloud of freezing fog swallowed up the village at the bottom of the valley and then gradually crept up the hill towards us.

Everything in the path of that cloud emerged coated in a white hoar frost, a landscape magically transformed. Trees suddenly blossomed with ice crystals. Dry stalks of wild Angelica left over from the previous Summer looked like the most beautiful and exotic blooms.

There is no internet connection there and mobile reception is intermittent at best - which can be very helpful when you are trying to think. I spent some of my time there considering what I should write next. For several months now there have been two entirely separate stories clattering around in my head. Suddenly I saw how they might actually be two threads of the same story. Like the landscape over which the mist had moved, the competing narratives in my mind were immediately transformed into something much more powerful, more strange and more compelling for me as an author.

Previously the two separate stories had interested me but not enough for me to engage with them seriously. There was something too familiar about their outcomes: they were encumbered by narratives that I had developed in the past. Now, as they collided so deliciously, redundant chunks of plot broke off and drifted away leaving instead an entirely differently shaped story, one that I could not have predicted and one that I very much wanted to pursue.

It is moments like this, when the narrative creates its own possibilities, that make me love the job of writing fiction

What's That Smell?

‘Plot-driven’ is a damning phrase to use about a book. Plot is looked down on like an uncouth acquaintance who walks into a restaurant when you’re having a meal with someone you want to impress. It’s no good looking in the other direction, because here comes embarrassing old Plot, marching up to your table, talking too loudly, completely failing to understand that you’re in literary company now, you’re focusing on the telling details of human relationships, you’re busily crafting exquisite sentences. Plot wouldn’t know an exquisitely crafted sentence if the head waiter brought it to his table on a silver platter.

But the truth is that Plot is the one who keeps the restaurant in business. Plot pays the bills. Plot comes up trumps. And you and I both need Plot because there is nothing worse than a manuscript without a plot. I’ve read a few in my time, as it happens. And written some.

All too often a writer gets a good idea for a book and they’re off writing like a dog after a rabbit. They don’t wait to think the whole thing through because they’re so keen to explore the story; to discover the characters; to let the structure develop; to see how the characters interact with the structure; to have fun with the language; to tell their friends that they’re working on something; to hint that they think this one might be good; to add, given any encouragement, that it might even be the one.

Of course they don’t know how it’s going to end yet but they have a kind of inkling and they’re really enjoying the writing; and that, after all, is what it’s all about. Isn’t it?

Then at last, after months of toil, they get to the end and, reading through the whole thing again, they do have to admit that the plot might be a bit thin in places. But, hey, it’s only a first draft, after all.

You know what? It’s much easier to improve the language, the characterisation, the setting (almost anything actually, other than the plot) in the second draft. Those are all things that can be relatively easily tweaked but try sorting out a manuscript when you’ve committed yourself to a plot full of holes.

There’s only one real way to do it and that’s to start all over again. And that is soooooo painful, especially after you’ve told all your friends that this might be the one; soooooo hard to even contemplate after all those months of work, that it’s easier to ignore those nagging doubts and just work on the manuscript you’ve got, polishing the language, honing the characterisation, adding depth and lustre to the setting until it’s really a very good piece of writing indeed.

Except for one thing - the plot stinks like a dead donkey.