Plot is simple. Event A causes event B, which causes event C and eventually leads to some type of conclusion D. Plot is sometimes carefully disguised in writing workshops as
your character’s attempts at what he/she wants, assuming that the attempts will make up events A, B and C mentioned above, and that the conclusion, D, will unfailingly stem from those events. So, when it gets right down to it, plot is the driver of all of this, like it or not. And sometimes your character is the thing being driven, and not in the driver seat at all, even though many writing teachers, scholars, authors and characters in fiction would have you believe the opposite.
Where I’d like to get to is a story where this is not the case. Where plot is void and character is king. Story's characters are nothing more than true to themselves and true to life, so that only subtle, seemingly disjointed events can and will happen throughout a day or year and the character will change ever so slightly, but stay true to his/her character regardless of those slight events, and the story will end, and not a one will be able to name plot events A through Y which lead to conclusion Z. Where a wedding can occur in a story, the main character can attend it without his wife and down a glass of champagne at the end of it, and it can be just that, and not lead that character to sleeping with the bridesmaid, the bride’s wife, or the groom’s best man, or wrecking his car on the way home, or driving north and never returning home. That character can just go right back home and never think another thought or allow the reader to be privy to any plot events or conclusive ending that Americans find so satisfying. Hooray and hallelujah. A fiction revolution.
But readers, alas, will not be satisfied. Readers and writers themselves like to summarize. They like to read a good book and boil it down to one, maximum two sentences, so that when they brag or subtly mention a book they've read, they are ready with an answer for the inevitable question that follows: “What was it about?”
Summarization is also a pre-requisite for a writer looking to be published and/or win the Pulitzer. Its what publicists and press releases are made of. Plot is dead. Long live plot.
