Another excerpt

[moonwise]

Again, taken from Stephen King's On Writing, totally without permission.

On Plot



In my view, stories and novels consist of three parts: narration, which moves the story from Point A to Point B and finally to Point Z; description, which creates a sensory reality for the reader; and dialogue, which brings characters to life through their speech.

You may wonder where plot is in all this. The answer - my answer, anyway - is nowhere. I won't try to convince you that I've never plotted more than I'd try to convince you that I've never told a lie, but I do both as infrequently as possible. I distrust plot for two reasons: first, because our lives are largely plotless, even when you add in all our reasonable precautions and careful planning; and second, because I believe plotting and the spontanaeity of real creation aren't compatible. It's best that I be as clear about this as I can - I want you to understand that my basic belief about the making of stories is that they pretty much make themselves. The job of the writer is giving them a place to grow (and to transcribe them, of course.)

Comments

[pantswarrior]

...You know, that fits. I've always wondered why people have said my stuff is "well-thought-out" or whatever, because generally when I start writing a story, I just have... some scenes. Things I want to do. And as I jot them down, one exchange of dialogue ends up pointing the way to another scene, and soon I have this massive thing. The stories I have actually plotted out are the ones that just spontaneously appeared in my brain... the rest just... get written.

So I guess maybe that's not so bad as I thought? Or at least as unusual. Hmm...