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Plot Soup

As an erstwhile novelist (six written so far, none published), I have always relied on inspiration.  That is to say, all the novels came to me.  The ideas were there, ready to suggest themselves.  Like a comparable date.

I finished my latest effort last summer.  I still need to go back and rewrite and revise, but the fact is it has an introduction, plot, characterization, climax, denouement, and conclusion.  It is complete in draft.  The same is true of its five siblings.

I’m now in the process of trying to cobble together another.  You see, I have only a few minutes each day to write—usually less than an hour.  As a result, I frequently produce short stories.  I’ve have 13 published, but I have dozens more to submit.  Since some of these stories share a setting, I wondered…

Can a novel be Frankensteined from these disparate parts?  I know novelists have done this many, many times before.  The characters, however, really had nothing to do with each other.  Perhaps more importantly, the plot did not exist.  Each was a vignette.

When I’m floundering for a plot, I try to look at classic stories.  Greek mythology, folktales, the Bible.  Our cultural heritage is full of ideas that have resonated with the literate.  Some writers claim nothing really new has been produced since the age of gods and heroes.

One of my colleagues describes fiction as an idea someone (a writer) catches.  The ideas are out there in a kind of collective unconscious.  Writers are like receptors.  We hear the signal, we write it down to pass it on.

If so, this latest project didn’t come in over the same wire.  I’m puzzling over my commonplace book, trying to pull plot threads together.  Writing backstory.  Trying to figure out who my characters are and what will bring them together.


Perhaps this is something all writers do.  Maybe I’ve had it too easy so far.  I enjoy my short stories.  I love my novels.  Maybe it’s time they got to know one another.


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