Kikster

I have the same problem... I was actually going to start a thread about it to see what others think, but you beat me to it! =)

I'm going through the same thing right now. I have these two awsme (IMO) carachters, and a few pretty funny scenes, but no plot... NO BEGINNING and NO END. just stuff "in the middle".

what I'm trying to do is think about them when I'm driving or in the shower or grocery shopping, and ask myself why could they be interesting together? why should they meet? how would things evolve between them?

haven't found any answers yet, but asking myself questions usually works.

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TimK

Yeah. The "three attempts" formula is pretty standard, but I've seen many variations on it. Three is a nice number, not too many, not too few. I've read good stories that have more or fewer.

You're right, you can't always bring the same conflict up a notch. An alternative I've frequently seen, which seems to work just as well, is to substitute one conflict for a different, more imminent one. In solving one problem, the character ends up with an even bigger one on his hands.

For example, in the pilot episode of Gilmore Girls, Lorelai is faced with a problem: She can't afford the tuition for Rory's new school, the Chilton School. So she bites the bullet and asks her parents, whom she despises. They agree to pay the tuition, on condition that the two visit every Friday for a dinner from hell. But then Rory suddenly doesn't want to go to Chilton and isn't saying why, but it's clearly because of a boy. The two have a big fight over it. Now in the middle of this fight, they're having dinner at the elder Gilmore's, and everything's about to blow up. By that time, you've completely forgotten the original conflict and that it technically would be resolved by returning to the previous status-quo.

-TimK

Julian_Gallo

There are a lot of great novels that don't neccesarily have any "plot" at all, at least in the sense of what a "plot" is. I find Hemingway's novels to have absolutely no plot at all. For example, "For Whom The Bell Tolls", the only plot I could find in that book is that the main character is in the mountains of Spain during the Spanish Civil War and he is on a mission to blow up a certain bridge. 98% of the novel is simply Robert Jordan's interaction among the group of Spaniards fighting in the war. If there is a plot there---at least what is usually considered a plot---I didn't find it.

Henry Miller's "Tropic of Cancer". Absolutely plotless but nevertheless a fantastic book (at least in my opinion).

Juan Goytisolo's "Marks Of Identity", again, no plot but a wonderfully written and meaningful book.

There are loads of others.

Maybe I'm just getting a different take on what a "plot" actually is, but from a lot of books I've read, especially ones considered "literary", there is generally an absence of plot.

(When I think of "plot", I think of it in terms of a Mystery novel or in Dan Brown's books: Beginning---conflict---resolution, etc etc).

My personal opinion is that a good novel doesn't neccesarily have to have any plot at all and it could still tell a story and have something to say.

suzakugaiden

A scene is a plot in and of itself, in a sense. You can have a novel constructed entirely of scenes. As long as you establish that they're connected in some chronology or something. Or just that they're connected.

Hodge

Some of the best novels don't involve a change in characters or the world or anything else inside the text, but with the reader.

Julian_Gallo

Agreed. There is a pretty good novel by a Cuban writer named Pedro Juan Gutierrez called "The Dirty Havana Trilogy". It is billed as a "novel in short stories" and basically it seems like what it says---a bunch of short stories strung together to make a novel. Taken together, it tells a "story" of a writer dealing with his impossible situation in modern day Cuba...but each chapter can be a story unto itself. It's a good idea, I thought and a pretty hilarious book. One I definitely recommend

It's sort of like Henry Miller/Charles Bukowski....if that's your thing.

This notion of "plot": Once I discovered that a lot of literary novels are pretty much absent of plot (as you would find in a Mystery, Sci-Fi, etc), I feel it opens you up a little more, makes it more free to breathe, to move, to explore and experiment. There are a lot of readers who are not very comfortable with this, though. I'm sure you've all been posed with this question before: "What is your book about?", or when an editor wants to see a synopsis.

This is my problem at the moment. I have no idea at all how to write a synopsis for my novel. It has no plot at all in the sense we are talking about here, but there is a story being told. And I feel that there's a lot more going on than just the story that moves the whole thing forward. How would one write a synopsis and also get across all the other things the novel is dealing with? This is something I am trying to figure out. A disadvantage of not having a "plot" which most people expect from a story.

kintaris

genre novels certainly need plot, though, and original ones are pretty thin on the ground. I sympathise with this post. I have a basis for a plot, i know where it will end up, i know where the first five chapters are going...but i cant 'fill it in'. I can't seem to come up with convincing twists, and dont even start me on sub-plots. All i have is a beginning and end to a plot, and no backbone. But i guess there's no real 'advice' to give for that - i have to just wait for it to come to me.

kin

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suzakugaiden

I don't really like genre writing, or the concept of genre novels, or just genres.

Saponification

Have my babies,

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Julian_Gallo

Yeah, I think genre writing tends to be limiting at times....there are always these "rules" you have to follow (Not that you have to, but those who are rabid about it---like mystery enthusiasts, for example, tend to look for specific qualities and give the writer no room to breathe).

There are some genre writers who are good though---Raymond Chandler, Mickey Spillane, Lawrence Block---but they were sort of the innovators of the mystery genre. They set the standard by which all others are measured, giving any mystery writer a very hard time if they want to do something a little different.

I tend to shy away from genre writing too. There's way too much of it and it's way too formulaic. But if that's your thing....go for it. Try to do something different with it.

suzakugaiden

I should probably look more specifically at what exactly genre writing is and what sort of things tend to come along with the genre you're writing for. Just inherently though, the sheer concept of it strikes me as immensely insidious.

Actually, I think this is why I like Harry Potter. When it came out, it was probably one of the most patently "wrong" fantasy novels at the time. It's genuinely small-scale nature is a far cry from the world spanning epics of the time. I mean Rowling seriously was aloof as far as the standards of fantasy went.

Julian_Gallo

I think this is what makes the Harry Potter series so successful. The fact that she took the elements of the typical fantasy but integrated it with real world things, especially in England. She uses actual British locations, streets, etc and blends it with fantasy elements. I read somewhere recently that in King's Cross Station in London, fans of the series posted a sign on one of the platforms to indicate where the train to Hogwarts is.

I also heard that she was rejected numerous time before finally being accepted...and it's my guess that it was because she didn't follow the usual "rules" of the genre. But this is only a guess.

Years ago, I used to frequent a mystery bookstore here in New York and I got to talking to the owner who was also a publisher of an imprint called Mysterious Press (before it was sold to a major publishing house). This bookstore was for real deep, hardcore fans of the mystery genre and just from these conversations, it became clear to me that there were specific rules, specific expectations for what constituted a "Mystery Novel". Naturally, I felt that it was restrictive and pointless. This makes it very hard for anyone who wants to do anything a little different. I've always been a fan of certain "Hardboiled Mystery" books (i.e. Raymond Chandler, Mickey Spillane, Lawrence Block, Andrew Vachs, etc) but even among the afficianados of this genre, there are specific expectations and "rules" to follow.

This is why I always preferred the literary "genre" (The whole idea of any genre is, agreed, insidious because as soon as you label anything a "genre" you run into limitations and rules). In the literary genre (if you may permit me to keep using this word) the world is open, there is more space to move and experiment...and as far as I'm concerned, there are no rules. Unfortunately, there are those who are in the position to have your book published who don't see it that way.

People really like to put you into a box. You have to fit here, or here, or there. It's all part of their "marketing plan". To me, any time someone wants to put you in a box, you have a problem on your hands. It immediately restricts you. It's a very asphyxiating place to be as a writer. I truly wish that there were more avenues for those who are willing to take a chance, where more value is put on the art of the novel rather than whether or not it's going to sell like a tube of toothpaste or a can of soda...