In today’s Journal
* Quote of the Day
* Topic: Plot vs. Story
* Of Interest
Quote of the Day
“Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of somebody else.” Judy Garland
Topic: Plot vs. Story
I feel halfway silly even bothering to offer this as a topic. I do so only because some of “my people” (you guys) might visit Jane Friedman’s site, and you might see a post by a woman named Heather Davis.
As always, I wanted to satisfy myself that Dr. Davis was a valid resource. Does she have experience writing fiction? According to the bio below the post, “Dr. Heather Davis is a storyteller, Author Accelerator Certified book coach, copy editor, and author platform expert.”
Okay, storyteller. That’ll work.
I visited Dr. Davis’ website at https://thekreativeauthorpreneur.com/. I read both the opening page and then the “About Heather” page. I hoped to find some mention of her fiction, but there was nothing. I also checked Amazon, but the only Heather Davis fiction I found there was by a different Heather Davis.
The one thing Dr. Davis and I can agree on is that Stephen King is a master storyteller. In fact, according to her “About Heather” page, she wanted to be the next Stephen King. But she didn’t because “when I went to college, there was no ‘writing and publishing’ degree out there.” That’s a little telling.
One of the first statements on that page is even more telling: “Writing a book is HARD.” Stephen King wouldn’t agree, and I definitely don’t agree. And honestly, there’s no evidence that the statement is based on personal experience.
But back to her post, the title of which suggests you have to create both a plot and a story: “The Vital Difference Between Plot and Story—and Why You Need Both.” (I’ll link to the post later.)
The title of the post alone is an ingenuous statement. It isn’t that you “need” plot or can even choose whether or not to have one. Plot occurs naturally as you write the story. In fact, Plot is a by-product of Story.
As Ray Bradbury wrote, “Plot is no more than footprints left in the snow after your characters have run by on their way to incredible destinations. Plot is observed after the fact rather than before. It cannot precede action. It is the chart that remains when an action is through. That is all Plot ever should be.”
Of course, you can contrive a plot, but if you do that you will either have to abandon it — in which case, why bother? — or you will also have to contrive a story to fit it. And such a story will never be either unique or original. It will share the same bland characteristics with every story over history that has been contrived and contructed and forced into one mold or another.
Anything contrived or constructed comes from the conscious, critical mind, and anything unique and original comes from the creative subconscious. We aren’t even talking apples and oranges here. We’re talking apples and orange crates.
And that’s perhaps the most telling difference between Plot and Story: You can contrive a plot without telling a story at all. But you cannot tell a story, either contrived or unique and original, without inadvertently creating a plot.
But here’s a link to the post. Decide for yourself: https://www.janefriedman.com/the-vital-difference-between-plot-and-storyand-why-you-need-both/.
Talk with you again soon.
Of Interest
See “How to Find Treasures in the Public Library” at https://killzoneblog.com/2022/06/reader-friday-how-to-find-treasures-in-the-public-library.html.
The Numbers
The Journal…………………………………… 580 words
Writing of Blackwell Ops 8 (tentative title, novel)
Day 10… 2303 words. Total words to date…… 20106
Day 11… 3134 words. Total words to date…… 23240
Total fiction words for June……… 17256
Total fiction words for the year………… 29033
Total nonfiction words for June… 6120
Total nonfiction words for the year…… 86730
Total words for the year (fiction and this blog)…… 115763
Calendar Year 2022 Novels to Date…………………… 0
Calendar Year 2021 Novellas to Date……………… 0
Calendar Year 2021 Short Stories to Date… 0
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………………………………… 66
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)………………………………… 8
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)………………… 217
Short story collections……………………………………………… 31
Disclaimer: I advocate a technique called Writing Into the Dark. I’ve never said WITD is “the only way” to write, nor will I ever. However, as I am the only writer who advocates WITD both publicly and regularly, I will continue to do so, among other topics.