Tuesday, February 28, 2012

What's the Difference?

This might sound truly bizarre to anyone else and I might be totally embarrassed....

So I've been working on a book for awhile and it's one of those that means something to me but I put it aside and come back to it and do that ad nauseum... so right now I've been working on it and I'm not that far into it and realized that I have a lot of situations but no plot.

There's conflict galore. There's misunderstandings. There's growth. Do all those things equal plot? I don't feel like it does and now I'm trying to figure out what exactly plot means to me.

I know there might be some people having quite a giggle over my idiocy. "Look Marge, she writes books and doesn't know what a plot is. No wonder she writes romance." (Okay, that last dig was for fun.)

But the thing is that conflict doesn't always mean plot. To me, plot is an arc that begins as the book begins and ends when the book ends. The plot is the crux of the story.

Boy meets girl = construct.
Boy loses girl = plot?
Boy gets girl back = resolution.

How about...

Boy meets girl = construct.
Boy has issues with his mother and despite falling in love, can't release his painful issues and therefore loses girl. He seeks closure with his mother and seeks therapy and cries at her graveside and goes to see his father who tells him to grow a goddamn pair = plot.
Boy gets girl back = HEA and resolution.

So what I have...

Girl wants changes in her life = construct.
Boy crashes through her bedroom wall and destroys her home. Boy's uncle offers to fix everything. Boy is in love with neighbor girl whose father hates the boy. Uncle falls for girl who wants change in her life. = it doesn't feel enough like a plot.
HEA for everyone = resolution.

Am I crazy? There's issues with family, with anger.... there's hints of magic and friendship and story-telling and I think I'm answering my own question. I have a plot. I'm just putting so many layers atop it that I don't remember what I've got.

Wow, thanks for talking this all out with me. I feel better. Really I do.

2 comments:

  1. Always glad to help, Lori. ;-)

    You remember this for future endeavors, kay?

    ReplyDelete
  2. You're welcome :D

    And waht Carolyn said.

    :oP

    ReplyDelete