The best plotting advice I ever got came from a most unlikely source - a rambuctious four-year-old. I took care of my grandson, Sean, a couple of days a week from the time he was an infant until he was in kindergarten and, joyful though the experience was, it was exhausting. He was obsessed with Indians at the time. (No, we didn't use the term Native Americans. In fact, I looked up the term after noticing that writers like Alexie Sherman always referred to themselves as Indians, but that's another story for another time.) Before I degress even further, I'll get back to the Best Ever Plotting Advice.
From the time he could speak, Sean's favorite games involved role-playing. His favorite weekend activity was fishing with his dad. On Mondays, it became our tradition to remove the sofa cushions so that the sofa became a canoe. From that makeshift canoe, Sean caught fish that would make Moby Dick look like a minnow. But far and away his favorite role was that of an Indian brave named Fierce Eagle. My roles in these games changed from day to day, sometimes minute to minute. Fierce Eagle's favorite pastime was hunting buffalo. Guess who was cast as the buffalo? In this scenario, I crawled around the house on all fours while Fierce Eagle hid around corners and behind furniture, bow and arrow at the ready. Sometimes I was a greedy paleface who had cheated Fierce Eagle's people out of their land. Other days, I was a horse thief, a treaty breaker, a violator of sacred burial ground, a railroad builder. Name any crime against the Indian nations, I committed it. I was a thoroughly dispicable character.
For these offenses, I was tied to chairs with shoelaces, shot with rubber-tipped arrows, scalped with a plastic knife ... the list goes on. As I said, it was exhausting - and hard on my grandmotherly knees. One day in what I thought was a moment of genius, I told him the story of Chief Joseph. Afterwards, I said, "Sean, why don't we pretend to be a different kind of Indian today? Let's be wise, old chiefs and teach our people to live in peace and harmony.
It took him about five seconds (no more than that) to answer: "Grandma, peace and harmony are boring!"
There you have it. Best Ever Plotting Advice. Don't bore your reader. Worry them. Happily ever after is nice, but make them earn it.
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21 comments:
This is hilarious! Out of the mouths of babes. I was once taught that there needed to be a conflict on every page you write. I struggled with that until I realized conflict has degrees and can range from a fleeting concern to a major alteracation. To write with conflict at a high level is exhausting (though not quite as exhausting as an active grandson). The best writers (like you) know how to find that balance that creates an appropriate tension so that the happy ending doesn't come with no strings attached.
Hahaha. Love it. Out of the mouths of babes. Great post. And I wasn't bored reading it.
Lynette
Sandy, that's lovely. And so true.
Love the grandkids. I've learned so much from them too! And your grandson's advice: it's priceless!
Thanks, Shellie. I agree about differing degrees of conflict and the tricky bit about finding a balance. I never thought about the ending with strings attached though. I'll remember that. Those strings are what has caused the characters to grow.
Wonderful, Lynette. So glad you weren't bored. That's always the goal, isn't it? Thanks for taking time to leave a comment.
What a fantastic post, Sandy! I really enjoyed this and loved to picture you as a buffalo!
Love the post. Aren't grandsons wonderful!
Thanks, Patricia.
Agree, L. C. Grandkids are fun and a constant reminder that you're never too old to learn something new.
Thanks, Fran. Yes, grandsons are wonderful ... as are granddaughters.
Beate, if you liked me as a buffalo, you should see me enduring being scalped. I screamed so convincingly Pete came running, prepared to drive someone to the E.R.
That's a smart grandson you have there, Sandy. Wonderful post.
Maybe your grandson will be the next Elmore Leonard, who we all know is reported to have included "leave out the boring parts" as one of his ten rules of writing.
Thanks, Marilyn. Kids often have the best advice. they don't over-complicate things.
Mona, I hadn't thought of it like that, but it fits. I'll tell his parents they have a budding Elmore Loenard.
Your grandson's statement is not far off the advice given by Charles Baxter in his book of essays on writing, Burning Down the House:
"Say what you will about it, Hell is story-friendly. If you want a compelling story, put your protagonist among the damned. The mechanisms of hell are nicely attuned to the mechanisms of narrative. Not so the pleasures of Paradise. Paradise is not a story. It's about what happens when the stories are over."
Love that quote, Gregory. Thanks for sharing.
Wow! Your grandson is right on. Already he has a writer's imagination.
Upi,re right Sydell. Wouldn't it be nice if we could all recapture the imagination we had as a child? Thanks for the comment.
Brilliant! And I had to attend countless workshops to learn to "put the heroine up a tree... and shoot at her" rather than giving her an easy out. And there you go, the truth was right there in the mouth of a child. :) What a cutie.
Right, Sofie. There was an old TV show "Kids Say the Darnest Things." I'd change it to "Kids say the truest things." Thanks for adding adding your two cents.
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