PLOT, Stick to the PLOT

 

There is a ubiquitous how-to writing suggestion to cut any of the text which isn’t serving the plot. This includes description of landscape, weather, and general sideshows.

 

Writers of yore had no such compunctions, and leisurely took us to places where we stopped and smelled the roses before resuming the characters’ journeys to their resolutions. Poor Tolstoy would have been eviscerated by contemporary editors for the almost novella-length chapters that veered off the plot. I know, I read War and Peace, the whole thing.

 

Today, we are told we don’t have the time. Readers don’t have the patience. No one can stand still and wait for the narration when it takes the slightest rest.

 

I had an editor tell me that a half-page section of dialogue, while hilarious, didn’t advance the action. When I suggested it served both as more character revelation and also for comic relief, the editor’s response was that readers, especially young ones, don’t have the time for that. Cut, cut, CUT.

And, for that matter, also cut the view of the countryside as seen by the main character from the moving train window. Never mind that the train is moving fast. The plot is what must move here, so unless there’s a killer on the train who’s looking for our hero, we don’t need to see or hear our hero’s thoughts on the train. Move, move, MOVE.

 

I humbly suggest we should strike a middle ground here. Resting places in novels are precious spaces, and I intend to keep them, because as a reader I need them just as much as the fictional characters do.

THE PITFALLS of BEING PLUGGED IN

 

Where I live, the neighbors and the local news are rife with daily reports of break-ins, car “smash-and-grabs," phone and laptop thefts.

WATCH OUT! 😦

 

Speaking of phones and laptops, the local news and video sharing sites are full of warnings about how hackers have gotten into them, stolen our data, and are running wild with our accounts.

WATCH OUT! 😧

 

And while we have hackers taking space on our frontal lobes, apparently our government is not immune to them. Our electric grids, defense apparatus and voting rolls, not to speak of the social security numbers of all of us, have been infiltrated by hostile entities.

WATCH OUT! 😨

 

As if this isn’t enough and you may be thinking that you can always leave your country for a better protected one, from all directions the media is blasting that our whole planet is close to dying because we will toast on account of Global Warming, something we are told is happening ever faster than anyone predicted.

WATCH OUT! 😱

 

Wait a minute--- I have a better suggestion. Stop watching. At least pull the plug on media that is dependent on us staying plugged in and is counting on the fear factor to keep us there.

 

This isn’t a call to put one’s head in the sand. I sure don’t. But I suggest that taking breaks from being plugged in is a cure that most are long overdue.

 

I take regular internet/computer/phone breaks. Not long ones, just enough to look around, appreciate my reality and good fortune of being alive, and restore healthy breathing.

 

I come up for air now and then. It makes a better and even more alert me, more able to cope with all the above.

MARCH 11TH IN HISTORY

 

1861 Confederate states adopt new constitution

In Montgomery, Alabama, delegates from South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas adopt the Permanent Constitution of the Confederate States of America.

 

When grumblings about “we need Civil war” enter your sphere, please re-consider. We came too close to duplicate the fractious abyss that is Europe, and because the Union prevailed, we remained a large continent where citizens move freely between territories and states. It seems normal to Americans, but it is not the norm as far as the rest of the world is concerned.

 

The reference link concludes with—

Although Britain and France both briefly considered entering the Civil War on the side of the South, the Confederate States of America, which survived until April 1865, never won foreign recognition as an independent government.

Phew, that was close. Too close. A hundred and sixty-four years of endless “hot” wars between states were averted, but not before a tenth of Americans paid with their lives.

 

Especially because if this, if you’re tempted to go yell at or slap someone for advocating war, consider baking them a pie or inviting them over for tea and cookies. Resolve not to allow conflict into the conversation.

^ Me, wearing a Peace Corps T-shirt, inviting you for coffee^

 

Blessed are the peacemakers.

INTUITION is not a FEELING

 

A few months ago, I read an excellent post about intuition and its place in the writing process. See it here.

 

It wasn’t news to me that good writing is intuitive even as it uses the cloak of logical and systematic exposition.

 

The most precious nugget the post gave me is the articulation that intuition shouldn’t be confused with a feeling or an emotion.

 

Instead, think of intuition as the mind processing information so fast and connecting the dots before we have the words, or articulation, to explain it rationally.  

 

Intuition is an awareness of a high order. Creating without it yields something akin to assembly manuals of the sort that come with various gizmos. That’s “technical writing,” and writers of poetry or prose aren’t doing that.

 

Good writing connects the dots before we have the words to name them.