Unplotted Novels

[sunandshadow]

Generally I've heard tight plotting extolled as a universal virtue. But some books I've liked a lot haven't had much plot - Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun quartet, for example. Paul Park's Sugar Rain trilogy for another example. So I just wondered, does anyone here think a strong plot is not necessarily a virtue in a book?

[Mistook]

Generally I've heard tight plotting extolled as a universal virtue. But some books I've liked a lot haven't had much plot - Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun quartet, for example. Paul Park's Sugar Rain trilogy for another example. So I just wondered, does anyone here think a strong plot is not necessarily a virtue in a book?


I can say I'm starting to run into problems with the plot taking over my story and leaving no room for character development. Plot is good, but I'm beginning to understand how too much can be a bad thing.

[Jamesaritchie]

So I just wondered, does anyone here think a strong plot is not necessarily a virtue in a book?

I wouldn't quite word it this way. I think a strong plot is always a good thing, but this doesn't mean a book necessarily needs a strong plot to sell, or even to be good. The plot has to fit the story.

It other words, I'd say a strong plot is always a virtue, it just isn't always a needed virtue.

[scribbler1382]

It may also be useful to point out the difference in using "plot" as a verb or a noun. There's a difference between a book being "plotted" and a book having a "plot". To me, anyways. I know of a lot of books that were intricately plotted, which have none. And there's equally a good number of books that were written stream-of-consciousness style which have incredibly strong plots. Neither of these approaches are an indicator of whether a book is good or not, IMO.

Sometimes when you look at a table covered with a dish's ingredients you think "there's no way that's going to be edible" even when they tell you how all the pieces are going to go together, and yet when it's finished and you put that first forkful in your mouth, your knees go weak. So then the question becomes, is it the recipe or the cook that made it good?

[sunandshadow]

I was using plot as a noun, because if we're talking about finished novels we don't know exactly how they were created, and it is irrelevant to evaluating the content and quality of the finished book. I want to know about published, finished books which have little or no plot and are perfectly good that way.

[Jamesaritchie]

I was using plot as a noun, because if we're talking about finished novels we don't know exactly how they were created, and it is irrelevant to evaluating the content and quality of the finished book. I want to know about published, finished books which have little or no plot and are perfectly good that way.

Most published novels do have a fairly solid plot, even if it's not one full of action and adventure. A novel must be about something, must have a storyline, and if there's a storyline, there's a plot.

I don't think Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun is light on plot in any way. That's an extremely complicated series of books, and must be read two or three times to get anywhere near the full meaning, or the full plot. But the plot is clearly there, and pretty darned complicated.

I haven't read Sugar Rain, but if it has little or no plot, this may be why it's out of print.

[sunandshadow]

The plot in Book of the New Sun was complicated, but I certainly wouldn't call it tight, would you? It seemed very sprawling and un-unified to me. There were lots of scenes that didn't contribute at all to the build toward the climax, and lots of loose ends which got forgotten rather than tied up...

[hoyateach]

Thomas Hardy (I think it was) once said (wrote?) that the characters, once fleshed out, tended to dictate the course of the novel themselves. I've found in my own writing that if I take sufficient care in establishing who everyone is and what their motivations are, I can throw a successive string of situations at them and the story will emerge from that.

Once on paper, the editing begins and the "true" novel emerges.

[sunandshadow]

Thomas Hardy (I think it was) once said (wrote?) that the characters, once fleshed out, tended to dictate the course of the novel themselves. I've found in my own writing that if I take sufficient care in establishing who everyone is and what their motivations are, I can throw a successive string of situations at them and the story will emerge from that.

Once on paper, the editing begins and the "true" novel emerges.

Wouldn't you consider that "successive string of situations" to be plot?

[triceretops]

"I can say I'm starting to run into problems with the plot taking over my story and leaving no room for character development. Plot is good, but I'm beginning to understand how too much can be a bad thing."

This is one of my problems. I've sacrificed a great deal of characterization for intricate plot design. I'm compelled to go back into the finished novel and beef up my people.

Tri

[Jamesaritchie]

The plot in Book of the New Sun was complicated, but I certainly wouldn't call it tight, would you? It seemed very sprawling and un-unified to me. There were lots of scenes that didn't contribute at all to the build toward the climax, and lots of loose ends which got forgotten rather than tied up...

No, I don't think I'd call it tight. It was very sprawling. But I also wouldnt say the plot was slight or non-existent. There's a lot of plot, and several sub-plots. I'm not sure you can have a really tight plot in a quadrilogy, or that you would want one. Tight plots are genrally associated with shorter novels.

But I also don't think there were really any loose ends, or scenes that didn't contributes. For me, every scene contributed to the novel, and had a reason for being. An dyuo do have to read that series two or three times to get the full meaning of everything.

I don't even like the idea of having every scene contribute to the build up to climax. Scenes have many uses, including character development, sub-plot development, and verisimilitude. Having every scene build toward the climax can work well in a fairly short novel, but longer snovels need to do more with scene and plot, and trilogies or quadrilogies need to do more still.

[loquax]

This is one of my problems. I've sacrificed a great deal of characterization for intricate plot design. I'm compelled to go back into the finished novel and beef up my people.

This is the way I'm doing it. I would much rather concentrate on the plot and go back to strengthen the characters than the other way round. If you write a book and neglect the plot, I would imagine it's darned hard to rectify.

[zornhau]

This is the way I'm doing it. I would much rather concentrate on the plot and go back to strengthen the characters than the other way round. If you write a book and neglect the plot, I would imagine it's darned hard to rectify.

Also, character doesn't mean much without action to demonstrate it. Where you have action, you have plot.

As I recall, Book of the New Sun does have a plot, but it's about the milieu rather than the character's struggle. Milieu novels have a very different story question from - say - thrillers, and the author has liesure to provide the answer in a rambling way.

[zarch]

In my mind, the most important element of any book is language. In other words, does the writer

A) have a strong grasp of conventions?
B) effectively use dialogue and dialect?
C) use seamless transitions?

A good plot is doomed with poor language, and an average plot can be overlooked if the writer has a fair grasp of dialect and the mechanics of writing character dialogue. An editor can only do so much. The writer must be a good manipulator of language.

[zornhau]

>The writer must be a good manipulator of language.

Disagree. There are plenty of gripping books out there which are actually badly written. Plot uber alles.

[zarch]

Zornhau, you say "There are plenty of gripping books out there which are actually badly written."

Sure, but I'm talking about good books, not gripping books. Those aren't always the same. I stand by this (and of course it's purely my opinion): a good writer has command of language.

[zornhau]

Ah. Now I see we have a problem of definition.

My definition of a good books is one which people are prepared to pay money to read.

[zarch]

And I suppose your definition is probably best! Sorry, the English teacher in me must have been speaking previously!

[zornhau]

The English Teacher in you evidently doesn't care about getting published!:)

Seriously, though, I don't think there can be an objective measure of "good" for fiction. A book has to be measured against its purpose. I would say that, e.g. Kustler's Dirk Pitt books lack depth, and probably won't have much longevity, but that they are good adventure yarns.

[zarch]

You're right--I don't suppose there is a universal working definition of what "good" literature is. But when I look at the lasting writing of the past, say, five hundred years, I see names of writers who are often quoted. Shakespeare, Dickens, Twain, Angelou, Morrison, etc. We quote them often because their words resonate. The reason the words resonate? Because they sound good.

I understand your point about marketable books and the fact that they must be gripping. Few fiction readers pay big money to sit around and read pretty langauge that doesn't tell a story.

And yes, the English teacher side of me longs to see my name on the cover of a book :) .....we shall see.....

[Jamesaritchie]

In my mind, the most important element of any book is language. In other words, does the writer

A) have a strong grasp of conventions?
B) effectively use dialogue and dialect?
C) use seamless transitions?

A good plot is doomed with poor language, and an average plot can be overlooked if the writer has a fair grasp of dialect and the mechanics of writing character dialogue. An editor can only do so much. The writer must be a good manipulator of language.

A good plot may be ruined with poor langauge, but I don't think poor language ruins a good story.

I do, however, think books that stand the test of time, as opposed to books that may be bestsellers, but then disappear, usually do have good use of language.

But then you have to ask what good use of langauge is. I believe it's langauge that fits the characters and the story perfectly. I don't think anyone would say that Mark Twain used beautiful language in Huckleberry Finn, but he did use language that fit the characters and the story perfectly. No other language would have worked as well.

Ray Bradbury uses langauge as well as any living writer, but again, it fits the kind of tales he tells, and the kind of people he writes about. Bradbury couldn't have written Huckleberry Finn, and Twain couldn't have written Fahrenheit 451, at least not in the same, perfect way.

Use of langauge does not have to be very good to sell a novel, even one that stays on the bestseller list forever. Look at "The Bridges of Madison County" or "The da Vinci Code." Story alone carries both these books.

But there's not a thing in the world wrong with getting all the parts of a novel perfect, including use of langauge.

[sunandshadow]

So what exactly is a milieu novel, and what sort of story question does it have? Would a regency romance or other historical fiction likely be a milieu novel? Because if so, what I'm writing probably is. Googling this term, it seems like they usualy have a journey. Does it have to have a journey? What would a milieu novel without the journey be?

I'm not personally worried about language because my voice/readability is the one thing I always get complements on. :banana: It's just my plotting that's lousy. :Smack:

[Kiva Wolfe]

My first question would be, what is an unplotted novel?

[sunandshadow]

My first question would be, what is an unplotted novel?

Well, here's what author Damon Knight has to say on the subject:

Unplotted Stories

A plotted story has a skeletal structure that can be extracted and examined; the story makes sense if you just tell what happens in it. This is not true of unplotted stories. Consider, for example, Ernest Hemingway's "Big Two-Hearted River." It is easy to say what happens in this story. The narrator gets off a train in a deserted countryside and walks deep into the forest, where he makes camp and goes to sleep. In the morning he catches grasshoppers for bait, has breakfast, and fishes the river. He catches trout and cleans them. This account could be expanded by adding detail, but even if it included every least thing that happens, it would not tell you what the story means.

The strength of "Big Two-Hearted River" lies partly in its symbolism (the river is the narrator's life, and he is fishing the upper part of it, which represents the lost paradise of his boyhood), but there are powerful unplotted stories in which symbolism plays no part. Tolstoy's "The Death of Ivan Ilych" is simply the chronicle of a man's life; the same can be said of Willa Cather's "Good Neighbor Rosicky." In these stories we are profoundly moved, not by drama, but by the inner meaning of a human being's existence. These are stories of illumination rather than of revelation; they take the form, "This is what life is."

[zornhau]

So what exactly is a milieu novel, and what sort of story question does it have? Would a regency romance or other historical fiction likely be a milieu novel? Because if so, what I'm writing probably is. Googling this term, it seems like they usualy have a journey. Does it have to have a journey? What would a milieu novel without the journey be?
:Smack:

"Milieu Novel" as defined by Orson Scott Card - as I recall - is a novel which is more about the world or setting than the actual adventures of the characters.

The character adventures serve to reveal the world, and if well constructed, hinge on critical aspects of that world.

Typical examples would be Gormenghast and possibly the Kushiel's Dart series, and perhaps some classic detective fiction. Also, Jack Vance's Cugel sequence, and Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy.

A milieu novel without a physical journey might still have a mental or emotional journey, it all depends on how the author choses to show us the world.

As for Story Question... I haven't studied this form overmuch because I'm not really keen on it. I suspect that the main Story Question can - but need not -

Be answered without the characters being the wiser
Relate to the mysterious workings of the world
Require scenes which have no impact on the POV character's story
So for instance, "Are all politicians really as corrupt as they look?", "What is it that keeps the Elves from leaving the Unicorn Woods?", or even, for the more gently rambling edifice, "What's going on here, then?"

Vance and Adams often seem to have questions such as "Just how whacky is this world?"

Indicators for a possible milieu novel include:

Lots of pointless but strangely compelling picturesque scenes and detail
Character adventures end with a decision to stay or go.
I think a lot of beginner SF wannabes make the mistake of deploying milieu novel techniques regardless of what kind of story they're writing

[sunandshadow]

Uhh... (more confused now) How about Shogun or Fiddler on the Roof, are those Milieu stories? They are in large part about exploring a cultural setting...


How about a story question of "What are the necessary ingredients for happiness and the right method of pursuing and obtaining them?" What kind of novel would that be?

[zornhau]

Uhh... (more confused now) How about Shogun or Fiddler on the Roof, are those Milieu stories? They are in large part about exploring a cultural setting...

I think Card actually gives Shogun as an example. Can't answer for the other. Suspect some novels have a milieu story running in parallel with main arc.

How about a story question of "What are the necessary ingredients for happiness and the right method of pursuing and obtaining them?" What kind of novel would that be?

Not milieu, unless you inserted the setting into the question, i.e happiness in Ancient Rome. I think Card would call it an Idea Story. (Actually that would also make a grand thematic question for almost any kind of book.)

However, I'm not sure how useful these categories are except as landmarks. My original point was that some books which look unplotted (as in without a plot, rather than unplanned) because the overt action lacks structure, may in fact have a very tight structure designed to reveal the milieu in an interesting way. The twists are revelations rather than consequences.

IMHO, a good - fun-to-read - book asks a question at the start then answers it with the plot. Unless you consciously or intuatively know the question, you can't decide what elements belong or don't belong. Adventures usually ask "Can...?", Mysteries, "Who...?" and so on.

I have a personal theory that there's always conflict in a good book, but that for some kinds of story the conflict is between the reader and the book (Mystery, Milieu), or between the reader and the author (literary).

[zarch]

I agree; a good story generally has some sort of conflict. It's difficult to engage a reader of fiction without conflict (not impossible, of course...difficult). A very very humorous story, for example, might be effective without conflict. But again (this goes back to a statement made several posts ago (by zornhau)), stories must be measured in large part against their purposes. A story that seeks to make people laugh but lacks clear conflict (but does indeed make people laugh) is effective.

[Kiva Wolfe]

Thanks you two, this information is extremely helpful.

[sunandshadow]

IMHO, a good - fun-to-read - book asks a question at the start then answers it with the plot. Unless you consciously or intuatively know the question, you can't decide what elements belong or don't belong. Adventures usually ask "Can...?", Mysteries, "Who...?" and so on.

Ooh, that's a good way to categorize them! :) And sff books ask "What if...?" right? Now I just have to find out what sort of books ask "How...?" Historicals maybe.

[zornhau]

Ooh, that's a good way to categorize them! :) And sff books ask "What if...?" right? Now I just have to find out what sort of books ask "How...?" Historicals maybe.

Milieu novels are not a subgenre, they're a design spec. A historical can be e.g. a straight romance or adventure. Start with what's your most important story question and the rest follows.

[sunandshadow]

Since when are design specs not a way of determining genre? Genres are defined by all sorts of different things - a mystery is defined by plot structure, a romance or war novel by theme, a fantasy, science fiction, or historical by worldbuilding - I think you could describe the requirements for any of those genres as design specs. This is why books can belong to three or more genres.

I suppose it might be helpful here if we limit the discussion only to genres defined by plot structure. Not all of them have names, as far as I know - like the type of plot common in historicals, some fantasy, and space opera which involves the interactions between several political factions and usually climaxes in some sort of global cultural change (e.g. establishment of a new dynasty or species, revolution destroying the current government, wave of cultural change which results in a transformation of all the people such that they are alien to who they used to be, etc.)

I already said what my most important story questions is: "What elements are necessary to happiness and what is the right method for pursuing and obtaining these?"

And my answer to this question is going to be friendship+passion+commitment=family and "They should pursue them with cooperation, creative sneakiness, and self-confidence, but definitely not brute force."

[zornhau]

OK, I was using sloppy language. Mea culpa. Let me try again...

As I see it:

1. Type of Story Question determines the Form.
If it's "What's going on in this cool and interesting world?", your novel takes the form of a Milieu Story. If it's "Can two SAS men consumate their forbidden love?", Love Story. If it's "Who killed the Alien ambassador?", then it's a Mystery Story.

2.Genre limits but usually does not determine the Form
Genre is a publishing marketing category only. Sometimes it indicates Story Question, sometimes Setting, sometimes both. It always implies certain reader expectations and knowledge.

For example, Thriller and Romance are determined by Story Question, but Historical, Fantasy and Science Fiction are determined by the Setting.

Some novels potentially belong to more than one genre: e.g. an Love Story with an SF setting could be sold as Futuristic Romance, or SF. This is especially true of Thrillers with a speculative scientific aspect.

However, an effective novelist tailors his/her fiction to the expectations of the readers of the target genre, so, e.g., Jurrasic Park gently leads up to the dinosaurs for the benefit of skeptical Thriller readers, wheras if it had been written for the SF market, it would have skipped straight to the critters.

* * *
So - backtracking as few posts - if you have a novel with a historical setting it could potentially belong to any Genre and take any Form.

[oswann]

"Can two SAS men consumate their forbidden love?"

This is gold baby.


Os.

[sunandshadow]

OK, I was using sloppy language. Mea culpa. Let me try again...

As I see it:

1. Type of Story Question determines the Form.
If it's "What's going on in this cool and interesting world?", your novel takes the form of a Milieu Story. If it's "Can two SAS men consumate their forbidden love?", Love Story. If it's "Who killed the Alien ambassador?", then it's a Mystery Story.

Actually, "Can two SAS men consumate their forbidden love?" with the possibility that no, they won't be able to, is probably an Adventure. Love Story is not a plot form - you see love stories with all kinds of different plot structures - with and without antagonists, with and without multiple protagonists, with and without a quest/heroic journey, with and without a revelation at the end, with and without high suspense, etc. Whether a story is a romance is determined purely whether talking about a romantic relationship between two characters takes up lots of page count, it has nothing to do with plot.

Other than that I agree with your post. ;) So my question now is, what sorts of plot forms are there, and what is the difference between them?

I'll start by saying, I think a major division between plot forms is whether they have a subjectively weighted conflict between a hero and a villain, or they have an objectively weighted conflict between multiple protagonists who are neither heros nor villains.


Actually, since this is a new question I should start a new thread for it. So please reply in the new thread unless you have something specifically about miliue to say. :)