Sharks in the Kitchen

Back in my too many years as an English major, I was crazy about Virginia Woolf and took on a certain amount of her disdain for plot. I had time and patience then, and could happily read hundreds of pages in which not very much happened. When I started writing short stories, Alice Munro was my model: sitting at a kitchen table talking? Yes! Who could ask for more?

Some things have changed for me over the decades. I’m still pretty patient, still have a few Virginia Woolf novels and journals on my shelf (and a VW doll), and read Alice Munro from time to time: I liked Runaway. But as a writer, I want people to move faster through my stories. While I’m personally fond of the word “quiet,” seeing that word in a rejection letter makes me get pretty loud. So I’ve come to study and think about plotting more. I’m looking at my manuscripts for places I can put in secrets and screaming and the kind of drama I try to avoid in my life.

When I complain to my husband that I need action, he’s quick to suggest monsters, blizzards, sandpits, sharks, tornados, extraterrestrial attacks etc. for me to toss in. Thanks, honey. Maybe I should listen, but, I don’t know, we all have our strengths. Still, if you feel plot-challenged like me, and determined to step it up, you might want to read beckylevine‘s interview with Martha Alderson http://www.blockbusterplots.com . If you comment on Becky’s blog, you have a chance to win Martha’s dvd, Plot Guide for Children’s Book Authors. (gosh, even I could do that, and I did!)

Sarah Sullivan in thru_the-booth is also taking on plot this week, starting with Pink Panther and promising Aristotle’s Poetics in the next day or two. So this made me think of (you see why I love VW’s stream of consciousness?) a fiction professor who told us we should read the Poetics over lunch at least once a year. I’ve tried, but the cheese sandwich seemed like the best part. Maybe I’ll try again: the picture of an upside-down V is compelling. But after drafting this last night, I dreamed I was off to the funeral of this beautiful professor, who must be elderly but not dead. On the way, a shoot-out slowed down traffic, and a victim ended up in the back of my car telling me her story. So I was going to be late, then even later when my dog ended up with me in the parking lot. I was taking Parker to a friend’s house, getting distracted by random paintings and weavings along the way, so I never quite got there. I know this is a dream and not a plot, but is this hopeless?