Current mood:	contemplative
Entry tags:	plotting, taos toolbox, walter jon williams

Taos Toolbox Notes, Part II

Walter on Plots

Plots are like Musical Movements

This is the Sean Stewart description of plotting: the symphonic theory of the novel. You can’t have fortissimo all the way.

1. First movement is the sonata. Introduce the theme and then a variation on the theme in a second key, and then variations that blend the two.
2. The second movement is usually slow, passionate, emotional. Very different than the first movement.
3. The third movement is a lively scherzo or minuet.
4. The fourth movement is a new theme that blends with the rest and then finishes with a boom! Themes appear and reappear here.

Types of Stories/Narratives

1. The story of resolution, in which there is a problem, then attempts to resolve it, then either the failure or success of those attempts. Example: Nova by Samuel Delany.
2. The story of revelation, in which the character must discover something, often about themselves. Examples: stories by James Joyce, H.P. Lovecraft’s "The Shadow over Innsmoth", Bob Shaw's“The Light of Other Days”.
3. The story of character, in which the central character is put under pressure in order to show the reader what s/he is like. Example: “Lot” by Ward Moore.
4. The story of paralysis, in which a passive character is not in control. This is usually not seen in genre fiction.
5. Trick endings, which used to be a staple of science fiction.
6. The story of decision, in which a character must make a decision. The trick is to surprise the reader with the result.
7. The story of explanation, in which a character is puzzled until they figure the explanation out. Example: stories where the ending turns out to be “We are all living in a jar of Tang”.
8. The mystery story, where a character must find out something that is hidden.

Stories can fit into multiple categories – you can blend and mix these as the themes of one’s story.

Some additional types of plots:

• The “one damn thing after another” type story.
• Deliberately unplotted, a technique which is for experts only. Examples: The English Patient (book, not film); Course of the Heart by M.J. Harrison.
• An idea with variations. Examples: Heinlein’s juvenilia, particularly The Puppet Masters.

Avoid plot coupon stories: “First, get the Spear of Wanking, then the Cup of Congratulation, then travel to the Mountains of Metaphor for the Simile of Smiting." In a quest story, each stage changes the hero. You have to bring something to the formula that makes it unpredictable.

Ways of Plotting

• The Daniel Abraham method – he sets a word limit, figures out 14 chapters, in which each chapter is four scenes of 1500 words each.
• The Stephen Brust method – he doesn’t know what he’ll write, just starts and is charming and entertaining while he writes towards a big scene in the middle. If something is introduced in chapter three, it gets worked out three chapters from the end.
• The Walter Jon Williams method – Like a multi-stage rocket or multi-act play, with one huge reversal in each stage. Work out the three or four big scenes in each stage and write towards those. Lather, rinse, repeat as necessary, with the biggest at the end.

Mickey Spillane example with a reversal in the last word.

One reason to have multiple people on stage is because that creates many, many options. (Connie).

Plot whole-heartedly – “If you’re going to bump it, thump it when you bump it.” (Gypsy)

Get really close to characters and they will behave in the ways they should.