Irvine Valley College

Online Creative Writing Workshop

Writing 10 - Introduction to Creative Writing

Spring 2012 - Ticket # 64580

Marjorie Coverley Luesebrink, Instructor

 

Week 12:  

Online Lecture for Plotting (Discovery)

When your audience finds out is more important than what they discover! 

Plotting (Discovery)

We have been trying, in our weekly exercises, to change our POV with respect to short stories and novels from that of a reader to a writer.  Critics, book reviewers, and readers almost always encounter a story after it is complete.  At that time, for example, it makes sense to talk about Character.  But we have seen that from a Writer's point of view, IN PROCESS, character is just about meaningless [that is, in the way we usually see it discussed when a book is being reviewed or critiqued].  A character that is fully developed in the finished story might be called "a shallow, rich girl" - but the writer doesn't work from that tidy description - the writer has to work from the POV.  What is the motivation for that character? what does she want?  what is she feeling? and so forth.  About the only time we would set out to create a character who was "a shallow, rich girl" would be if she were a minor character - otherwise, she would need more depth, and that has to be found in a deep study of the POV.  

Now it turns out that much the same thing applies to Plot.  After a work is finished, it is just great for a reviewer or critic to summarize the "plot" of a book.  But an author doesn't work that way IN PROCESS.  The author DOES need to know what the whole story is going to be - or at least have an idea about the direction.  But the author relies much more heavily on a rhythmic sense of the order in which the reader discovers the plot.  Let's say we are writing a story about a young woman who wants to trick a man into marrying her.  And let's say he IS going to do this.  Well, there is a key moment when the young woman, lets call her Veronica, tells (let's call him Geoff) Geoff that she thinks she is pregnant.  Also, let's say that Geoff is really in love with Lorie - a sweet and retiring girl.  Lorie happens to work (unbeknownst to Veronica) at the local drug store, and she has seen Veronica come in several times to buy a pregnancy test kit.  Lorie has also overheard Veronica tell another friend that she is NOT pregnant.  Now, once the plot is in hand, the real work of the writer begins.  The whole trick of Plotting is not knowing the plot, per se, nor inventing one, it is in figuring out when to tell the reader who knows what.  

There are several options for the "Discovery" that might be associated with this plot.  If we SEE Veronica coming into the drug store and getting the pregnancy kit, and we hear her tell her friend that she is not pregnant, and we see Lorie, too, overhearing this - then we have an entirely different take on the "marriage ploy" moment than if we, the reader, aren't sure if Veronica is pregnant or not.  If the story is from Geoff's point of view, for example, he could believe Veronica (having good reason to) - and he could keep believing her until after the wedding.  Maybe he doesn't run into Lorie until years later - and finds out only then that she knew the whole truth after all, but did not interfere.  That would say a lot about Geoff, Lorie, and life itself.  

If, on the other hand, we have an omniscient narrator, that narrator could relate the plot in chronological order, and we would, instead, have a horrible sense of a mistaken destiny taking place from the very beginning.  

Other kinds of order of the plot can constitute the "Discovery."  Let's say that we are in Veronica's POV (over the shoulder) - and we see her in the drug store, and we also see that she is lying to her friend - she IS pregnant, probably.  And anyway she convinces herself that she is.  And so she needs to have Geoff shape up and take his responsibility, as she is very afraid of her father.  The wedding is scheduled for right away, even though Veronica would prefer not to marry Geoff.  Then, when everything is in place, she has a miscarriage.  She can't stop the wedding then, so she goes through with it, but ever after, Geoff thinks he was trapped.  She knows that Geoff has been seeing Lorie again, but does not know the importance of this until Geoff confronts her.

Now, I have used POV locations to illustrate some different sequences of audience Discovery - but any one of the patterns could be initiated with any one of the POV possibilities.  It is helpful, in working out Discovery (and shaping the plot), to think about what the sequence of events would be for each character.  What order would the plot points take if Lorie were narrating?  

Of course it is very difficult to discuss this in a short space.  The strategies of Discovery are an ongoing challenge to writers.  Whatever you do, though, you should play around with the the plot order - see what happens to the meaning-making when different revelations come at different times.  Great stylists have always done this.  One classic story is "The Gift" by O'Henry - where a poor young couple want to give each other really special gifts.  He sells his gold watch to buy fancy combs for her hair - and she sells her hair to buy him a watch chain.  But we don't find this out until the last sentence!!  Contemporary surprise ending stories tend to be more subtle.  You might get a copy of Amy Hemphill's "In the Cemetery where Al Jolson is Buried" to see a really well-crafted one! 

By the way, I haven't made much of a pitch about reading - since you all needed to get started writing right away!  But the Holidays are coming, and books are a great gift to get, and to receive.  If you want to write better, you really need to read the best.  A couple of books I might recommend that are just stunning contemporary examples:

Annie Dillard - Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (this is technically non-fiction, but much to learn here!)

Alice Munroe - A Friend of My Youth

Arundhati Roy - The God of Small Things

Richard Ford - Rock Springs

V.S. Naipaul - A Bend in the River

John Irving - The World According to Garp

Joan Didion - Democracy

  

Just a start for your wish list from Amazon!  Have a good week!!!

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Marjorie Coverley Luesebrink, your Instructor, is a Professor of English in the School of Humanities and Languages

Irvine Valley College, Irvine, California