A WRITER'S BLOCK


UNDER CONSTRUCTION

Gennita Low's Writing Muse needs a voice now and then to remind Gennita about her love for writing and her battle with words. It's a dark world illuminated by the glow of creation. The Muse is that light. Sometimes she sleeps. Sometimes she's ferocious. Often she patiently waits. Pst. Never ignore her. Feed the Muse or else.

Tuesday, July 3, 2007

What They Call Plot

I come to you in dreams, in visions, in strange phrases, and from them you pull out plot, character, conflict, and those other things that give your story structure. Sometimes you overdo it, worrying about structure. You lose your story. You set the rules; I have none, you see.

Let's start with how you learn your first word, your first visual, your first phrase.

A is for apple.

And so your plot can be the simplest of them all, a story with an apple. And this fruit is given to you the writer to make bigger than life, to lovingly build your story around. Too many details and the apple loses significance. So the first step to plot is control.

A is for apple. What comes to mind? Let me unveil examples of perfect control in plot development.

The Forbidden Apple
as in Adam's and Eve's story (it started with A, huh?)

The Poisoned Apple, variation of the Forbidden Apple
as in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

The Golden Apple
as in the one that brought forth the Fall of Troy in Homer's Illiad (oi, but that was a mighty finely intricate tale, indeed)

The Apple of Challenge
as in William Tell shooting the apple on his son's head

You see? One simple fruit, four diverse stories. All I had to do was show you an apple. And you weave your magic. So don't talk to me about building plots and charting chapters. Let me tempt you with this apple, apprentice.

What kind of apple do you see? It's a story in disguise.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh Muse, what about the Apple I-Phone, the Apple of Communication? :D

Are you saying to keep the plot simple?

Anonymous said...

What do you do when you get stuck in your plot?

Anonymous said...

Ah Writerwannabe,

You're the Apple of my I ;-).

Yes, start with a simple plot. You can complicate it later.

______________________

Izz,

This is a tough question to answer because it depends on where you're stuck in your story. Sometimes it's as simple as changing your POV at that scene, sometimes it's more a too many details given problem.

Reread that chapter and think of rewriting it from another POV. Let me know if this helps.