I don't want to write about "plot" vs. "story".
This blog post is not about, per se, "plot" vs. "story"; I'm not 100% sure what those terms even mean, or if they even have universal, or universally useful, meanings. And I am 100% certain that I live in a city (and I bet there are others; or other creative communities) where kind of weird entrenched factionalism surrounding this kind of debate is all baked the fuck in, and a lot of that bake is tbh just because it's very hard to make a living at this sh1t, so everyone's trying to sell you an answer.
THAT SAID:
I have spent today scraping away "plot" from a scene-- it's chapter 2 of column 2, when Emmy goes to school and we see her out in the world, post-quake, for the first time. And I had all these plot beats that I'd "artfully" "woven" into the chapter, to drive A-plot; and indeed, I do need to drive A-plot.
But I hated them; they felt mean to these kids, whom I love. Because the point of this moment in Emmy's world is that New York--the city in which I m*therf#cking grew up--has been wracked by a world-changing, terrifying calamity. Which um may sound sort of familiar to some of you, as well. And so this fact--that I was kind of disrespecting the lived reality of these kids, and the trauma they've been through; that I was authorially letting plot drive the interactions and flow, so that I could "seed" certain pieces of information, so that...whatever.
I still think, if you read all the words, you will get it.
But I stripped away most of that shit. It's a chapter about a bunch of kids who love video games, who are in high school--which is hard, weird, and awesome, and who've just had the shit scared out of them because out of the blue their world started to shake, buildings fell, people died. That is now what the scene is about.
Which, in this case, I am comfortable calling a case where perhaps I let "plot" get the best of me, and it feels...honestly, not just good. It feels right; it feels--not exaggerating--a physical lightness and strength in my chest--to let go of that, and get this right, and let these kids have their story, in this moment they're in.
This blog post is not about, per se, "plot" vs. "story"; I'm not 100% sure what those terms even mean, or if they even have universal, or universally useful, meanings. And I am 100% certain that I live in a city (and I bet there are others; or other creative communities) where kind of weird entrenched factionalism surrounding this kind of debate is all baked the fuck in, and a lot of that bake is tbh just because it's very hard to make a living at this sh1t, so everyone's trying to sell you an answer.
THAT SAID:
I have spent today scraping away "plot" from a scene-- it's chapter 2 of column 2, when Emmy goes to school and we see her out in the world, post-quake, for the first time. And I had all these plot beats that I'd "artfully" "woven" into the chapter, to drive A-plot; and indeed, I do need to drive A-plot.
But I hated them; they felt mean to these kids, whom I love. Because the point of this moment in Emmy's world is that New York--the city in which I m*therf#cking grew up--has been wracked by a world-changing, terrifying calamity. Which um may sound sort of familiar to some of you, as well. And so this fact--that I was kind of disrespecting the lived reality of these kids, and the trauma they've been through; that I was authorially letting plot drive the interactions and flow, so that I could "seed" certain pieces of information, so that...whatever.
I still think, if you read all the words, you will get it.
But I stripped away most of that shit. It's a chapter about a bunch of kids who love video games, who are in high school--which is hard, weird, and awesome, and who've just had the shit scared out of them because out of the blue their world started to shake, buildings fell, people died. That is now what the scene is about.
Which, in this case, I am comfortable calling a case where perhaps I let "plot" get the best of me, and it feels...honestly, not just good. It feels right; it feels--not exaggerating--a physical lightness and strength in my chest--to let go of that, and get this right, and let these kids have their story, in this moment they're in.