People talk about the plots and what happened, and they see your tricks a mile away.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I tend not to know what the plot is or the story is or even the theme. Those things come later, for me.
It's amazing how far you can get into a plot before you figure out what you're doing.
Essentially and most simply put, plot is what the characters do to deal with the situation they are in. It is a logical sequence of events that grow from an initial incident that alters the status quo of the characters.
Certain writers look down their noses at plot, and I think I might have been one of them until I tried it.
We don't experience our lives as plots. If I asked you to tell me what your last week was like, you're not really gonna give me plot. You're gonna give me sort of linked narrative. And I wanted to see how do we bring that into fiction without losing the reader.
I'm very good at plot.
I'm not much of a plotter. I start off with an inciting incident, and in classic crime fiction what happens is that all the action flows from that incident. It's very comfy when it all ties up and feels like a complete universe, but my stuff doesn't always work that way.
Sometimes, by using the most over-the-top, ridiculous plot device you can imagine, you get some interesting little conflicts and cool things that you might not otherwise have a chance to explore.
I always struggle with making the technical aspects of the plot fit with the story that's unfolding in my imagination.
I have a plot, but not much happens.