What I've Learned From Nerding Out on Plot

An open book on a bed with a red covering.

Lately I’ve been getting nerdy about plot, and it’s reminding me some things I’d forgotten.

Old school writing teachers will tell you that you can’t start writing until you have a P.L.A.N. They’ll say that writing a story is like building a bridge; you need to now where exactly where it will land, what the structure is grounded on, and where your support is. Then you fill it in.

I have two reactions to this. On one hand — tellmetellmetellme. You can explain exactly what to do in order to guarantee my story will work? This book/online class/tedtalk will remove the mystery of the creative process and roll it out like a magical architectural drawing?

I. Am. In.

Certainty is seductive. While we’re at it, can we plan out the arc of my relationship with my partner, the future of Firefly, and my dog’s health? I’d like that too.

But then I remember the first short story I ever wrote.

It’s still the one I’m the most proud of, written long before I knew anything about plot theory.

I was in a barn on a computer the size of a fridge, no idea what I was doing. I was following a fizzing current of intuition. That story tumbled and surged out of me. When I was finally finished (the ending of it far more subtle and satisfying than anything I could have planned) I dropped the last period in place and found my friend Ronna, who was staying nearby.

I was breathless, scared, confounded and electric. I kept shaking my head and laughing. “Oh my god I think I wrote a story. But I might not have. I have no idea. It was like making a pie in the dark.”

We hugged and she read it, and she said, “It’s a pie”, and those were my three favourite words for a long time.

Telling you that wasn’t totally fair.

That was the glorious end of a writing process. Of course it felt great. The bridge had found it’s footing. Behind it were countless half-constructed ones, soaring into the abyss of my imagination and my hard drive.

And to be honest, that’s where I’m at with my novel now — blocked. Looking online for old school advice to make it all seem easy again. But the more I read about sequencing and spreadsheets and internal shifts the more I know in my bones that this isn’t my truest path.

Creativity is life. Risk and uncertainty are part of it.

What if our capacity is bigger than our imagination?

I think we’re smarter when we’re writing than when we’re thinking. I couldn’t have planned the end to that short story because I wasn’t wise or weird enough to see it until I was there, on the cusp of the last paragraph, my whole body alert. When we’re at that border we see things we couldn’t see before. But we need to be brave to get there.

And the truth is, not every piece of writing does work. Sometimes we get halfway through and realize that we don’t want to finish it, or that something else is more important. That’s okay. I think it’s good. Nothing’s ever wasted when we’re writing. We turn the things that don’t work over into the soil and we grow new things. Those things are stronger because of it. My novel might not work. That risk and humility is where the surge in me comes from. And I’m realizing (slowly) that I don’t want anyone to take that surge away.

It’s a bit like falling in love.

We don’t say: “I’ll have dinner with this person twice a week for six weeks. On April 3 they’ll say they love me, on April 17 I’ll say it back. June 15 we’ll move in, Oct 1 we’ll decide to get married over leftover pizza while watching Survivor. Summer wedding, tulips and a barn, honeymoon in Cape Cod and a dark eyed daughter named Olivia by spring.”

I mean — you can try that shit, but we all know how it will go.

I think love is very similar to writing, it forces us to be in our desire and our vulnerability. It can be wildly uncomfortable. And it can be everything.

Both paths will get you somewhere good. Planning is a tool. Sometimes it’s a tool we need. If you’re in that place right now, I salute you. Dip your cup in. Just don’t lose it.

Because… A story isn’t a bridge. It’s not made of rebar. We don’t need to all be able to cross it in the same way. God bless engineers for building those, but I’m not in that club.

I’m in the club of breathless discovery.

I’m in the club of helping people follow the path of their potential into the clean air like a tightrope. I’m in the path of making pies in the dark and then eating them with my friends and giving thanks to the wonder of the creative process for showing up again and again.

Of course, all this applies to this too — this newsletter, this website, this team. If I’d ever tried to follow a business plan for Firefly, it would all have been much smaller than what it is now.

So thank you for that. We get to build this because you’re here. I’m glad you’re in this vast unplanned beauty with us. Let’s be brave and hang out together in the uncertainty of it, and all it can hold.

In it with you,