The Plot of Life
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about plot, and the need for plot. I write nonfiction, mostly, and plot is something that worries me because, in life, plot is nonexistent. You get up. You go to work. You come home. Add in some in-between moments: working out, eating lunch, having sex, setting your alarm clock – but, in the end, day-to-day life has no real plot (though I wager you and I could debate the meaning of real for hours and not come to consensus). So why is plot hailed as a necessary evil (my word) in writing, and, why is the lack of plot something to point out and use as a means of measuring success?
Writers, especially writers who routinely submit to literary magazines and journals (like Specter, which you know since you’re reading it, so if you have a story to share, share it; the editors are waiting for you, yes you) get rejected. A lot. Ask my colleague Brett, or, better yet, read about her year of rejection. And in this rejection, editors or readers can give you any numbers of reasons for deciding not to use your submission in the magazine or journal. Recently, I received a rejection, which said: beautiful moments, beautiful writing, but I’m not sure what the plot is.
My immediate reaction was to respond: I wrote about a conversation between two people. Tell me the last time a conversation you had with someone required a plot. (Of course, in my head while writing this response – which I would never send – I used several four-letter words, and maybe called into question the editor’s mother’s chastity, which is why I would never send letters like the one I composed in my head).
But this rejection got me thinking: Why is plot so important?
At the time I received this rejection, I was reading Ready Player One by Ernie Cline (and if you haven’t read this book, you should; now!). The plot is simple: A Steve Jobs-like game designer dies and leaves his vast fortune to the player who can unlock three riddles, find three keys, and clear three gates.
And that’s the book, a typical quest novel. Along the way, our Player One falls in love, learns the difference between knowing someone and knowing someone, and realizes his full potential. I loved the book, continue to think about it a week after finishing it, and have raved about it to friends and strangers (isn’t Twitter the best equalizer?). But when asked to describe the book, I pause, because the book is far more than a quest novel, even if, when boiled down to its plot, the book is just a quest novel.
Laura Miller in her review of Erin Morgenstern’s Night Circus (my love of this book is also known), faulted the book’s plot, or lack of a clear one, from her perspective. Morgenstern has said in several interviews that the titular circus came first, that she had been writing one book and when she got lost inside the book, decided to take her characters to the circus. And once the circus was in place, the book grew around it, as did the characters, as did the inherent magic in the book and in the circus.
Maybe because I loved the book, I faulted Miller for her questioning the plot of the book. And maybe because I clearly see the plot (two rival illusionists, for lack of a better word, are pitted against each other in a contest which ends only when one is left standing), I question how Miller could question the book’s plot, but each reader is different, and because Miller does not outright reject Morgenstern’s book (she does not say: beautiful moments, beautiful writing, but I’m not sure what the plot is), I can read her review for what it is, an opinion, and take from it what I want and reject the rest.
Even in writing this column, on a Sunday morning while my daughter sleeps in her bedroom and my son watches a cartoon on the iPad, I knew the basic premise of what I wanted to say, but I had no idea how I was going to get from Point A to Point B. Along the way, I didn’t get lost as much as I realized that no clear path exists between Point A and Point B, which might be the point.
Plot is relative. You get up, make breakfast, go to work, have lunch, hate your job, leave work, still hate your job, go to the gym (which you may also hate), go home, have dinner, think about waking up in the morning and doing everything all over again, and you go to bed. Boring, but life, and in life, plot is not a device but how you get from sunrise to sunset (cue music).
I agree, and I’ve been thinking about this a lot too. Plot seems to be an artificial construct used in fiction, and for people who write nonfiction this is especially frustrating. Actually, if you break down a lot of novels very little happens – but this is somehow more acceptable, in fiction.
I was reading Robert Crumb’s introduction to American Splendor last night and he said something along very similar lines. I think we are still waiting for plotless beautiful writing to come into fashion. Maybe it never will. But I still think writing without a plot can have a point, every bit as much as some writing with a plot will never have one.
Well, the most subjective bit of it all is the definition of what “plot” is. A character’s subtle shift in perspective throughout a conversation? Kind of artsy-fartsy, but I’m sure some would argue that that is a “plot.” Because the fact of the matter is that nothing stays exactly the same – that’s impossible. (And now I imagine someone is going to debate that!)
Personally, I love “plotless” writing if it’s pulled off.
I have heard the same thing in some of my recent rejections. I think sometimes people get too stuck on a single idea about what plot has to be and it’s often far too limited in my view. As a reader I love reading things that are beautiful simply because they are beautiful and not necessarily because they stick to what stories are “supposed” to be. As a writer I like to try to get to that place, sometimes I’m more successful than other times.
Again, I think we’ve been taught to look for plot, to see how someone changes from moment A to moment B. And fuck that. I’m still waiting for someone to tell me what the point of it all is. Why did I marry a woman even though I’m gay? Was it just to have kids? Was it just to grow up with someone? Was it to figure out how to live without using credit cards? Who the fuck knows. And I don’t expect to ever know. It is what it is. And now, still married, living separately, raising two children, uninterested in dating, what’s my plot now? Is it just killing time running and practicing yoga and sleeping until … until what? My therapist has forced me to believe that I’m not waiting for someone to save me and say: Look, you fit inside of me. Life just is. And I think writing should just be, this is. And even though I can’t make someone believe this, I think the plot sometimes, at least in good writing, is just to get someone to read it and respond.
Great read and great point, Will! I agree with Nathan, who already expressed that in nonfiction plot sometimes isn’t necessary. I do hope it comes into fashion. 🙂