<$Susan Goodwill$>

Friday, May 12, 2006

Plotting is Hard


Plotting is hard. I always start a book with some whacked-out idea. This one I'm working on now-- an octogenarin robbing a bank in his bathrobe-- and he does it maybe once a week. Everybody knows him, and they just go get the money back later.
Okay--so that's how I started-- a little mustard seed of an idea. The PROBLEM is-- I need a little bit more plot than that. And a few more things have to happen. And they have to kinda go together. Intricately. They have to go together intricately and logically and on top of that, they need to be funny and did I mention logical? When it's all over, the reader must put the book down and say: Of course, it happened that way. That's the only way it makes sense.
Okay, so you get the idea of why Mousetrap comes to mind?
The weirdest thing-- if I just show up at my desk and do the work-- I know it will fall together. It will be a lot of work-- I'll have to show up a LOT--but eventually I'll show up enough and it will happen.
Kurt Vonnegut said, "When I write I feel like an armelss legless man with a crayon in his mouth."
I inderstand, Kurt. I understand.