A gracious reader in Stockholm politely informed me that Kate Braverman's suggestion about plot was interesting but not too helpful to the novice fiction writer. Okay. Let's try some advice about plot from Anne Lamott. She offers lots of wonderful ideas about writing in Bird by Bird. Here's some of what she says in her chapter about plot:
"Plot grows out of character."
"Characters should not... serve as pawns for some plot you've dreamed up... I say don't worry about plot. Worry about your characters. Let what they say or do reveal who they are and be involved in their lives, and keep asking yourself, Now what happens?"
"Find out what each character cares most about in the world because then you will have discovered what's at stake. Find a way to express this discovery in action, and then let your people set about finding or holding onto or defending whatever it is."
"But something must be at stake or you will have no tension, and your readers will not turn the pages."
"If someone isn't changed, then what is the point of your story? For the climax, there must be a killing or a healing or a domination. It can be a real killing, a murder, or it can be a killing of the spirit, or of something terrible inside one's soul, or it can be a killing of a deadness within, after which the person becomes alive again. The healing may be about union, reclamation, the rescue of a fragile prize. But whatever happens, we need to feel that it was inevitable."
It's inevitable that that's enough about plot for now.
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