Why Don't You Pick On A Seagull Your Own Size?
When I was a young boy, and I do mean young boy, Richard Bach's "Jonathan Livingston Seagull" was a big enough phenomenon to come to the attention of even some of us in the elementary school crowd. This is completely from memories of that time so I will not vouch for their accuracy but the point I'll try to make is still a valid one. And then I'll use it to try to appear less stupid than I might otherwise.
The book is a parable about a seagull who tries to fly faster (and higher?) than the other seagulls in spite of their ridicule and questioning of his sanity. It's who he was and the fact that it made him different from his peers wasn't something he welocmed or even understood. But it's who he was. In any case, I think I remember a message in there about having to do with the question of how fast was fast enough. The answer Jonathan received was, "The perfect speed is being there." As long as you're where you need to be when you need to be, it doesn't matter the actual speed involved in getting you there.
Clearly that's stuck with me and I've tried to use that message in personal life as well as in coaching others in various activities. For whatever reason, it appeals to me. Now I can use it to excuse the lateness of coming to a conclusion that I probably should have come to a long time ago, but didn't. I'm talking about finally understanding the difference between plot and story.
As I wrote about in earlier entries, I wrote myself into a solid dead end with the novel I was working on before I became injured. To my mind, this was because I began writing it without a clear idea of what the main characters really wanted. Without knowing this, I had no idea what their motivations were or how they all interacted with each other.
I have no problem with chalking this up to a learning experience, taking my lumps and walking away, having learned that a certain number of questions should have been answered before I began the actual writing. On the other hand, after reading more than thirty books for research and committing forty six thousand words to paper, I'd like to save it if I can. But it has to be a real save, one that allows me to produce the book that I wanted to produce when I had the original inspiration.
After sitting down, walking, sitting down, walking, etc. this weekend, I finally came up with a tight, plausible scenario that involves all of the main characters and what they want for themselves and from the others. It's a complex premise of diamond smuggling, rogue intelligence operations,
and misbehaving governments that I believe is complicated enough to be interesting without being confusing or overly arcane.
But then it occurred to me: this is not what the book is about. This is the background against which the protagonist, recruited by another character to save his own bacon, travels against this back drop uncovering what's really going on among the players and how he handles it and eventually does the right thing. The story of how he does this is the actual plot.
As a reader, I think it's difficult to separate plot from story. Both of them is basically what you read, as you read it. From a writer's perspective, however, the two are distinctly different, as I hope I've made clear without getting into the actual specifics of the book.
Now none of this may be news to anyone who's reading this, or, like me, it may never have been a clear enough issue to even know it was an issue. So whether this was a EUREKA! event for me, the end of a moment of stupid (as a former network instructor used to say), or something else (no, I'm not blonde), I choose to recognize that I've learned something I need to know at the time I need to know it. Which isn't bad for someone who's not a seagull. Bread crusts all around!
Practically, all this really means is that I'm one huge step closer to thinking I can save this book. I still have to figure out the key, the sequence of events that the protagonist uses to actually figure out and then dismantle the evil plans of everyone else. Knowing that this is plotting as opposed to something else doesn't actually help me come up with this, but this is one of the reasons writing a book, as opposed to just writing, is difficult work. And it beats the hell out of a lot of other things I could be doing.
The book is a parable about a seagull who tries to fly faster (and higher?) than the other seagulls in spite of their ridicule and questioning of his sanity. It's who he was and the fact that it made him different from his peers wasn't something he welocmed or even understood. But it's who he was. In any case, I think I remember a message in there about having to do with the question of how fast was fast enough. The answer Jonathan received was, "The perfect speed is being there." As long as you're where you need to be when you need to be, it doesn't matter the actual speed involved in getting you there.
Clearly that's stuck with me and I've tried to use that message in personal life as well as in coaching others in various activities. For whatever reason, it appeals to me. Now I can use it to excuse the lateness of coming to a conclusion that I probably should have come to a long time ago, but didn't. I'm talking about finally understanding the difference between plot and story.
As I wrote about in earlier entries, I wrote myself into a solid dead end with the novel I was working on before I became injured. To my mind, this was because I began writing it without a clear idea of what the main characters really wanted. Without knowing this, I had no idea what their motivations were or how they all interacted with each other.
I have no problem with chalking this up to a learning experience, taking my lumps and walking away, having learned that a certain number of questions should have been answered before I began the actual writing. On the other hand, after reading more than thirty books for research and committing forty six thousand words to paper, I'd like to save it if I can. But it has to be a real save, one that allows me to produce the book that I wanted to produce when I had the original inspiration.
After sitting down, walking, sitting down, walking, etc. this weekend, I finally came up with a tight, plausible scenario that involves all of the main characters and what they want for themselves and from the others. It's a complex premise of diamond smuggling, rogue intelligence operations,
and misbehaving governments that I believe is complicated enough to be interesting without being confusing or overly arcane.
But then it occurred to me: this is not what the book is about. This is the background against which the protagonist, recruited by another character to save his own bacon, travels against this back drop uncovering what's really going on among the players and how he handles it and eventually does the right thing. The story of how he does this is the actual plot.
As a reader, I think it's difficult to separate plot from story. Both of them is basically what you read, as you read it. From a writer's perspective, however, the two are distinctly different, as I hope I've made clear without getting into the actual specifics of the book.
Now none of this may be news to anyone who's reading this, or, like me, it may never have been a clear enough issue to even know it was an issue. So whether this was a EUREKA! event for me, the end of a moment of stupid (as a former network instructor used to say), or something else (no, I'm not blonde), I choose to recognize that I've learned something I need to know at the time I need to know it. Which isn't bad for someone who's not a seagull. Bread crusts all around!
Practically, all this really means is that I'm one huge step closer to thinking I can save this book. I still have to figure out the key, the sequence of events that the protagonist uses to actually figure out and then dismantle the evil plans of everyone else. Knowing that this is plotting as opposed to something else doesn't actually help me come up with this, but this is one of the reasons writing a book, as opposed to just writing, is difficult work. And it beats the hell out of a lot of other things I could be doing.
posted by Rick Ollerman at 10:45 AM
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