Plot
more from the man I love to hate, John Gardner...on constructing a plot:
a logical, straight-forward story must have as much internal logic as a surreal, dreamlike tale. The reader must feel like the story is "getting somewhere" in all cases.
- expressionist fiction translates basic psychological reality into actuality.
-surreal fiction translates an entire sequesnce of psychological events, developing the story as the mind spins out dreams,
- the writer shows us everything we need to know to follow the story to the climax - he dramatizes all that is crucial to our belief in the climax.
-for the climax to be persuaive and intersting, it must come about in a way that seems inevitable and surprising.
-good writers satisfy expectations in unexpected ways
- the writer must see material with a fresh eye, using his own experience, choosing details no one else has noticed or empasized, thus creating a reality as different from [previous] convention as [previous] convention is from reality itself.
- theme is not imposed from the story but evoked from within it, initially an intuitive but finally an intellectual act on the part of the writer.
- The novella can only be defined as a work shorter than a novel (most novellas run between 30K-50K words) and both longer and more episodic than a short story.
- novella form can be a single stream of action focused on one character and moving through a series of increasingly intense climaxes
- another form is fictional pointilism, where the writer lets out his story in snippets, moving as if random from one point to another, gradually amassing the elements, literal and symbolic, of a quasi-energic action. The basic princliple of his assembly is feeling; climax occurs not by the gelling of key events, as in linear fiction, but by poetic force.
- a good novella, whatever its structure, has an efect analogous to the tone poem in music.
-In the exposition, the writer presents all the reader will need to know abotu the character and situation, the potential to be "actualized".
-It is not enough that we be told that a character is vicious beyond belief. We must see him slit a baby's throat.
- the situation must somehow be unstable. The character must be compelled to act, effecting some change, and must be shown to be a character capable of action.
-there must be some conflict.
-All meaning comes from the heart in conflict with itself.
-All true suspense is a dramatic representation of the anguish of moral choice.
-the novel's denoument is not merely the end, but the story's fulfillment. Everything is symbolic.
Leave nothing - no slightest detail - unexamined.
Dammit, I hate when he's absolutely right. I threw down his book in disgust when I first tried reading it. I think that's how he weeds out the unready. - ulitave
a logical, straight-forward story must have as much internal logic as a surreal, dreamlike tale. The reader must feel like the story is "getting somewhere" in all cases.
- expressionist fiction translates basic psychological reality into actuality.
-surreal fiction translates an entire sequesnce of psychological events, developing the story as the mind spins out dreams,
- the writer shows us everything we need to know to follow the story to the climax - he dramatizes all that is crucial to our belief in the climax.
-for the climax to be persuaive and intersting, it must come about in a way that seems inevitable and surprising.
-good writers satisfy expectations in unexpected ways
- the writer must see material with a fresh eye, using his own experience, choosing details no one else has noticed or empasized, thus creating a reality as different from [previous] convention as [previous] convention is from reality itself.
- theme is not imposed from the story but evoked from within it, initially an intuitive but finally an intellectual act on the part of the writer.
- The novella can only be defined as a work shorter than a novel (most novellas run between 30K-50K words) and both longer and more episodic than a short story.
- novella form can be a single stream of action focused on one character and moving through a series of increasingly intense climaxes
- another form is fictional pointilism, where the writer lets out his story in snippets, moving as if random from one point to another, gradually amassing the elements, literal and symbolic, of a quasi-energic action. The basic princliple of his assembly is feeling; climax occurs not by the gelling of key events, as in linear fiction, but by poetic force.
- a good novella, whatever its structure, has an efect analogous to the tone poem in music.
-In the exposition, the writer presents all the reader will need to know abotu the character and situation, the potential to be "actualized".
-It is not enough that we be told that a character is vicious beyond belief. We must see him slit a baby's throat.
- the situation must somehow be unstable. The character must be compelled to act, effecting some change, and must be shown to be a character capable of action.
-there must be some conflict.
-All meaning comes from the heart in conflict with itself.
-All true suspense is a dramatic representation of the anguish of moral choice.
-the novel's denoument is not merely the end, but the story's fulfillment. Everything is symbolic.
Leave nothing - no slightest detail - unexamined.
Dammit, I hate when he's absolutely right. I threw down his book in disgust when I first tried reading it. I think that's how he weeds out the unready. - ulitave