what happens next, what happens next?

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Mon, 2006-01-30 12:23

I've worked out what is wrong with my writing. Nothing actually happens! Nobody goes anywhere or actually does anything. So the word of the month is plot, plot, plot!

Here it is so far (based on a true story of a friend of a friend)

Girl becomes nun
Nun falls in love with muslim (they meet on a train when he notices she's reading a book of Jelaluddin Rumi's poetry which is actually how another person I know met his wife)

alternative ending 1: he dies (this is actually what happened in real life and one of the nuns said "Well what do you expect if..." - shocking eh!)

Even though its true its too cheesy. In fact the whole thing is cheesy...its not so much a lurve story as an account of how somebody struggles to be true to self

Oh God - tis all been done a trillion times before...anyone got any better suggestions?

Something different and dynamic like they foil a plot to assinate Ken Livingstone or something
How do you find good plots. Inspiration is easy for me when smoking Jamaican cabbage but that's out-of-bounds now!

Mon, 2006-01-30 12:39

fergal

Plot is always an interesting one... for so long I had characters I found interesting, but who just sat around in pubs smoking cigarettes... Someone once said that plot begins where a chacarcter finds themself in an unusual situation or in a big moment of change... but I don't know how helpful that is.

Mon, 2006-01-30 15:35

ely_whitley

ok, I'm gonna look like a total arsehead here but I thought the whole point of writing a story was because you had a story to tell. What was the story that made you want to write this in the first place? I've never understood when people start writing because they've got the characters, I know it works, I just don't understand it. Stories have always been stories to me and that's what makes them worth the telling otherwise you get "Oscar Wilde scratches his chin and looks out of a window for a bit then considers nipping out for milk but thinks it's a bit cold out so doesn't bother in the end." I may be a bit of a shallow plot junkie but I tend to avoid even atmospheric and physical description if I feel it's unnecessary. I don't describe geographical layouts or incidental objects/characters clothes etc unless I feel it's got to be said to get the right impression across and thus help the plot, otherwise it's just the bare essentials of storytelling.

Mon, 2006-01-30 16:04

poetjude

...good point well made I wasn't planning on giving up my dayjob just yet anyway! I suppose that's a good allegory for my life. I thought the point of live was living? But no, I spent it so far in smoky bars daydreaming about the day I will find a story to tell.

Mon, 2006-01-30 16:13

justyn_thyme

Make the nun a CIA agent who is in charge of community relations in a Muslim neighborhood. He knows this, but she doesn't know he knows. He pulls a reverse infiltration. You could go in many directions with that one. Maybe she's not a real nun, just an agent pretending to be a nun.

Mon, 2006-01-30 16:28

Jack Cade

Stories where nothing happens can be great, because they're playing with our expectations. But I've read far too many recently - it doesn't work at all as a staple. The plot is the bread and butter, to use a much abused thread - it's a simple, relatively easy thing that does a surprising amount of work. For one thing, you get story-junkies like Ely on board. For another, you can use the same 'interesting' characters in different situations. It's really simple to come up with one - give the character something they want, and put various things in between them and it. The rest is not so much plot as trying to hide the fact that your plot is really basic, which is what good stories do so very well.

Mon, 2006-01-30 17:09

maddan

Kurt Vonnegut was respinning his take on plots in the guardian the other week. The guardian has forgotten, but google remembers all http://tinyurl.com/7h8l6(link is external) The plot bit is about halfway down, but the rest is good too.

Mon, 2006-01-30 17:20

fergal

The reason Dan Brown was so readable was because his plot was a corker... I will read a book that is written badly just to find out 'the plot'... I won't necessarily get the same thrill from a book with no plot, but beautifully written. If that makes sense.

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