I think children want to discover something new, something surprising as a story unfolds, they thirst for novelty (novel for them). At least I feel like that when I read something these days, at the end of it I want to feel as if I have understood something better or even, have discovered whole new sets of feelings that I had not been privy to before. Perhaps an idea wpuld be to think of your readers journey and what they are getting from this. I don't read nearly enough these days, but I agree, I have just as much respect for many of the things I have read on ABC as published elsewhere.
The problem with a heavily plotted book is that after three pages you can predict the "denouement" with a depressing amount of certainty. Look at the Da Vinci Code, it's so awful it even has foreshadoing - which went out about a 150 years ago. On the other hand, every page should move forward and plots ought to facilitate this process - Dostoevsky's The Brother's Karamazov is a great example of this.
I think that what often gets forgotten is that a clever, excellently executed plot doesn't make a good novel.
Agents will want plots as it makes their job easier - fair enough, given the market - and many readers want plots as it makes the act of reading easier - again, fair enough, as most people read simply to relax or to help them to go to sleep at the end of a hard day.
I don't ascribe to Finnegan's Wake style meandering showmanship but, for me, writers like Brautigan and Kelman often get the balance right. I think you do need a plot of a fashion as the mind instinctively needs something to latch on to so as to keep interested. My hunch is that the best writers bury this plot / hook so it's hardly noticeable. The hook can range from a journey - such as in Faulkner's As I Lay Dying - to an obsession - work - such as in Bukowski's Factotum.
I like the sort of plot that you could write on the back of a postage stamp, and yet the letter that stamp will be used for has something incredible in it. The skill is in getting that plot right.
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'Chandler said that you should try to have something every six pages which moves the plot in a different direction - a diamond on every page and a plot development every six pages.'
I think you need a diamond every paragraph, sod every page.
There's nowt wrong with digression - J D Salinger's entire career is pretty much a stir-fry of digressions.
'...according to my agent who yet again tells me i am full of waffly nonsense ...'
Hee hee hee! Don't take criticism very gracefully, do you Fish?
There's a saying - I might even have read it on ABC - that when someone criticises your work they are almost certainly right, but when they tell you what needs to change they are almost certainly wrong. So my guess is that the "plot" thing is a red herring. (All stories have plots: it's just a question of what the plot needs or doesn't need.)
Writing a story for children or teens (a purely literary piece is a different matter) you probably have to go through the novel and make a list of scenes, assessing to what extent each one helps tell the story; then, as an experimental measure cut each scene or section that doesn't contribute to the momentum of the core story. You will probably have a more "plotty" story on your hands but one that leaves you regretting all you left out. And so the next move might be to see if you can smuggle those cut elements back in within the structures of your existing scenes (for example, a paragraph of description might return split among action beats, dialogue etc.)
But congratulations for having an agent at all. Obviously the work has considerable merit already.
d.beswetherick.
Or cut out all the bits that do move the plot forward, and leave all the other bits, they are probably more interesting. I say this, because this is what Jim Jarmucsh does.
(For Andrew - I tried to mail you but I don't have your new email. Send it to me, or if anyone who has Andrew's email can point me in the right direction.)
Drew, left click yaffle's name ^ and away you go!
BTW, I'd just like to say this has been the most interesting thread on here for ages. Thanks guys n gals.
Stormy is right, Drew!
It is an interesting debate - for a while, I've been taking the view that what matters about writing is not publication (let's face it, none of us are going to quit our day jobs and live off the proceeds - writers who get rich are few and far between - Martin Amis' much-vaunted £150K advance doesn't seem so great when you consider that the book took him three years to write and he's then got to knock another one out), but WRITING. To write something that moves the reader in the ways you intended it to (and sometimes in additional ways you didn't suspect).
But I was worried that this was a cop-out along the lines of not fighting someone at school because he's not worth it. Drew's thoughts are interesting on this because he can look at it from both perspectives.
If I want to be published it is because I want to make my work available for lots of people to read, rather than for vanity or money. Now, why would I want to make my work available for people to read, UNLESS I was happy with it? I don't want to be published at the moment, because I don't feel that I've yet written anything good enough. This is not self-deprocation or false modesty - I just know that I am getting better as a writer, but I'm not yet at the point where I can execute a scene in the precise way I want it.
It's a bit like moving to a new city and knowing bits of it very well. If I work enough at it, I'll learn my way around and I'll know which bits are the nicest to visit. But it would be mad for me to try to become a tour guide at this time.
I think maybe agents and children like plots because - well, what question do you always get asked when someone finds out you've written a book? "What's it about?"
Steinbeck once said, you ought to be able to write down in a sentence why you've written this book, otherwise it won't be worth writing. I don't want to be rich or famous from writing, I want to be able to make a reader feel the way Steinbeck makes me feel. And I'll almost certainly never make it. But I absolutely certainly will never make it if I don't keep writing and keep striving to get better.
(Dotty - it was me, via Neil Gaiman - if anyone tells you what's wrong with your book, they are probably right, but if they tell you how you should fix it, they're probably wrong)
fish,
If it the book I read of yours I thought there was plenty of 'plot' whatever that is and the words 'plot is king' should never be put together in close proximity. You write so you are a 'writer' in as much as you write and I think you couldn't imagine not writing.
It is hard when people give you marketplace advice on your writing. My When Jack gets back was recently turned down by an agent because
'there was nothing happening in it that made it stand out'. That wouldn't matter if I'd written it for my own benefit, but if I want readers I guess I have to take that in hand. (She also wanted me to not have Laura so numb, to be more reactive to her parents' relationship - but the numbness was something I wanted to explore...)
Dan Brown is the best (worst?) example of plot being king. I read his Da Vinci whatsit on one Sunday afternoon. I only meant to take a glimspe through it to see what it was like but 'the plot' gripped me. I read the whole thing (enjoyed the fast paced what-happens-next) and was ultimately left feeling a bit cheated and dirty, as though I'd had a quick toss in the work toilets.
What I'm trying to say, is that although plot is what people want in their casual reading, it *isn't* everthing, because as well as plot there is 'writing' and let's face it, Dan Brown is a terrible *writer*
(p.s. fish, email me - I've lost your email address as my old email account was unexpectedly closed then opened again.)
'I don't want to be rich or famous from writing, I want to be able to make a reader feel the way Steinbeck makes me feel.'
spot on, once again, our 'emily'.
There is a particuarly good speech by Phillip Pullman about the importance of stories and writing for children.
"In a book for children you can't put the plot on hold while you cut artistic capers for the amusement of your sophisticated readers, because, thank God, your readers are not sophisticated. They've got more important things in mind than your dazzling skill with wordplay. They want to know what happens next."
The rest is here (it's quite short)
I agree with every word he says, I like stories.
On *being* a writer, there is a famous Peter Cook cartoon that goes something like this:
person 1: "What are you doing these days?"
person 2: "I'm writing a book."
person 2: "Oh... Neither am I"
When I first started writing I was desperate to avoid becoming person 2, so much so that I never told anyone I was writing for a long time. I was convinced that so long as I kept the focus on writing, and not *being* a writer, I would not turn into that sort of a twat.
But back then I wasn't working for a living, and now I am, and the idea that I could make a living doing something I love, without some arogant little hitler telling me what to do (meaning nobody in particular if the company thought police are watching - hi guys) is becoming very, very, attractive.
There must be unpublished, alternative writers who, with a heavy, heavy heart, decide they want some cash and come up with an intricate plot to write a thriller for the amusement of the human swine and then an agent gets the script and says: "Uh, where's the plot?"
Or the agent doesn't even reply.
Cue psychosis: "THOSE SONS OF'A BITCHES."
If you expect "proper" publication then it seems to me that every writer who has done this has a clear idea of what their work is about and who it is for. You must be able to explain the point of the book.
Plot is just a necessary device to link a long story or set of stories together. I struggle with plots. They're difficult to get right.
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Pullman's speech is about "story", though, not plot. In story, B happens because A happened; in plot, B happens because it is needed to join A to C (etc.). Sometimes that amounts to the same thing, but not always.
Point taken, d bes, Jarmusch is not making films not children. It was just a general point I suppose. But how about Alice In Wonderland - the individual events happening are not really a plot as such. I think kids can be enticed by this. Which is not very helpful to fish.....
Andrew, I do understand what you are saying. But I loved 'From The Hip'. I want to see it as a proper book so make a little bit of effort with it just for me.
I've not given up on From the Hip, Drew, but there are new people in my head who want their stories told - after six months of rewrites I just needed to WRITE something. Haven't even looked at it for nearly six months.
I will go back to From the Hip, because I know what is wrong with it - I think I have to learn how to fix it by working on other things. So, I'm trying to learn how to write an ending without rushing headlong at it, and I'm trying to create a sense of place so that the characters aren't standing around in white rooms and blank streets.
I feel a bit as though if I try to practice these tricky bits on Hip, I'll end up hating it, so I'd rather write something specifically to learn on, and then go back to Hip once I've learned how to be better at the bits I want to improve.
If I was training to be a heart surgeon, I'd want my first operation to be a stranger rather than a lover.
haha dan ... i will suggest that to my agent ... (she) ...
but the book has been to two publishers and the editors both apparently said the same ... good writing, good characterisation, would love to see more by this writer ... but MORE NEEDS TO HAPPEN ...
is a great suggestion to take out all that doesnt advance the plot ... will try this ... (i wonder what the market for short stories for young teens is ... ho hum ...)
thanks guys for the time and suggestions ...
But From the Hip is already good. You will hate it if you keep working on it. So do something with it now. And anyway, an editor who works on it may give you fresh ideas.
It is always better to be working on something new.
You have to think, I suppose, of how books tend to get recommended. Someone reading the book, someone else says "Any good?" "Yeah" "What's it about?" "Errm, dunno, but it's got really good characters and everything, I love it"
No conversion.
"It's about this nice girl who's getting bullied at school so she makes up loads of amazing lies to get popular but it all goes wrong"
That's more like it. And I think secretly, that's your plot.
And you can do it in a line - which makes it a plot that works. All you have to do, I think, is make sure that the book has plenty of the four elements there - the girl needs to be nice, we need to see the bullying, we need to hear the amazing lies and the impact on her popularity, and we need to see it go wrong. And of course, then wrap up by having her try to put things right and see what happens.
Step one then, is to think about which of your four elements you don't have enough of. The ending is absolutely fine and can be left as it is. I think it is one and two.
What about if she likes to be bullied so the lies are deliberately bad and she makes sure she's exposed?
Because she fancies the main bully.
Who is also a girl.
They run off together in Russ Meyer style debauchery to bully on the high roads and low roads of South London.
Guys, that's an entirely different book - what I'm trying to do for Fish is show her that she already has a plot in the book that she's written, and the plot is fine - she just needs to make it more visible.
But, "The Girl who wanted to be bullied" is a brilliant title for a children's story. Interested from the word go - why does she like to be bullied, how does she go about it, what happens?
I see a writing exercise coming on.
Hey - Andrew - I wasn't really suggesting Fish change her plot - surely you can spot a jest when you see one??
I do love the idea of a lesbian restoration comedy though...haha!
Fish, if you're worried that taking stuff out might make the story too short, you could compensate by lengthening the best parts.
"When you've got a good bit of action going, it can extend as long as you like."
I've found that apparently simplistic remark by Wodehouse (a commercial old buffer if nothing else) remarkably true in practice. If you find your best bits of action and extend them, your story will appear, even if it doesn't, to contain more "plot".
d.beswetherick.
I wrote one children's book, it's in one of my sets I believe. (Thinking about it, I don't even have a copy of it now apart from this.) I wrote it in about 8 weeks, 70,000 words. (Those were the days!) It was read by Random House and they initially liked it, but after a year I got a letter saying they didn't like the ending. That was it.
I moved on to the next thing.
My point is, (apart from talking about myself), ha, is do you want to change the book? They have said they like your writing, so you've got a foot in the door. What are you going to do next?
I always like to be moving forward. Whatever you have written is a lesson, but there comes a point where you have to have closure on it. And write the next thing.
Other relevant Wodehouse quotes (which I've copied from his letters in "The Performing Flea"):
If you don't have a plot which is all right for the flatheads, editors are apt to turn you down
If a plot is all right for any kind of reader, it doesn't matter if it's well-written or cheaply.
The only way to write a popular story is to split it up ito scenes and have as little in between the scenes as possible.
If they aren't in situations, characters can't be major characters, even if everyone else talks their head off about them.
A good way to cut is to eliminate a situation or a motive.
One big character is worth two small ones.
The success of a novel depends on the high spots: squeeze all the juice out of them.
Don't have scenes where nothing happens.
The principal thing in writing is to cut: it is like raking slag out of a fire to make it burn brighter.
Every line has to have some entertainment value.
All very commercial and banal. But desperately difficult.
d.beswetherick.
Drew, since you're online at the moment: I disagree that "Alice in Wonderland" has no plot. Surely it's a version of the odyssey plot - the voyage and return of a hero? Alice goes on a journey into another world, meets wonders, struggles with obstacles of increasing menace, eventually returning, presumably altered, to where she started from.
Haha. I love this line.
"One big character is worth two small ones."
I've only recently started reading Wodehouse. They are greatly entertaining but almost forgettable even by the end.
I think creative writing courses have got a lot to answer for regarding the current status of plot as king. A lot of these courses - especially in the US - are Hollywood feeders and Hollywood is, of course, obsessive about plot. A novelist who teaches on the MA Lit Studies course at a nearby university was recently bemoaning the low uptake for her creative writing prose module, 'whereas there's a bloody long waiting list for the screenplay option'.
It seems to me that, over the past twenty years, most contemporary popular fiction, at the the behest of agents and literary editors, has moved away from storytelling to storyshowing in the hope that 'the product' will be picked up by a studio and turned into a film, where there's real money to be made. And Drew is right - within this process literary style is abandoned for simplicity.....not that there's anything wrong with simplicity of language, it's just that for many writers simplicity is an easy option as they're invariably writing with a conscious desire to see their work optioned for tv or film. And anyway, film executives are more interested in what happens next than with a rich and interesting prose style that won't translate onto a screen.
So, my advice for Mrs Fish is: If you're a storyshower, do what your agent/literary editor says. If, however, you're a storyteller, tell 'em to naff off and write what you want.
well that was lucky, my very commercial and shallow little novel seems to tick most of the Wodehouse boxes as far as I can tell so there must be an offer in the post any day soon.
The Odyssey doesn't have a plot either, does it? Surely it was pre-novel and pre-plot. Only novels can have plots.
Anyway, Alice doesn't change. Isn't that the point? That her reaction and interpretation of each event is exactly as it would have been as she fell into the world. That's what makes each situation work, that each new thing she treats in exactly the same way.
Yes, I gave up reading Wodehouse because they're all the same, and few are really good. But no one should go through life without reading "Uncle Fred in the Springtime" and "The Code of the Woosters", two wonderful novels, and the special Penguin collection of Emsworth stories "Lord Emsworth Acts for the Best", which contains several masterpieces, my favourite being "Birth of a Salesman".
Ooh, Drew, I was just going to quote some "Birth of a Salesman", but now I need to set about you with my critical carpet beater. "Only novels can have plots"! Good grief, man: tell that to old Sophocles, Shakespeare, and, for that matter, to Ray Cooney.
Alice doesn't change? Well, it seems to me she sharpens up a good bit, which most girls do as they pass out of childhood. In any case, is a plot not a plot, then, if it doesn't involve change? That rules out a great bunch of popular fiction, usually thought to be the plottiest of categories.
So the Odyssey doesn't have a plot (Splutters)!
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