This page is for writers who want to learn more about writing and readers who want to know how they’ve been shamelessly manipulated.
What follows are lessons and links about writing sent to me by Melanie Fogel, former editor of Storyteller Magazine. I’ll add to them over time.
Story Versus Plot
At the risk of flogging a dead horse:
There’s story and there’s plot. Plot is the sequence of events. Story is always about character.
Among the many things that made the Kenny stories work so well is that they worked on both levels.
The plot was about trying not to get killed on a beer truck, or deciding what to do when you witness a homicide. But the story was always about Kenny: his insecurity, his trying to fit in–his growing up.
The world of the stories was seen through Kenny’s eyes. He saw (i.e. showed us) precisely what a kid from the TO suburbs would see.
We could empathize with him because everyone’s been in a situation like his: knowing he didn’t really belong, but trying to. We always knew why he did what he did. Better than knew: grokked. (Translation for you non-Heinlein people “grok”= to completely, fully understand in an all encompassing manner.)
And the plots worked so well precisely because the situations–in their particulars (e.g. hanging from a beer truck)–were unfamiliar. So they were interesting, exciting, a new experience for the reader.
And the story and the plot always worked together.
Here endeth the first lesson.