THE CITY IS OUR WRITING TEACHER: A STAIRCASE CAN TEACH US ABOUT PLOT/STORY
By Mary Rakow
Staircase, Berlin ©Matthias Hederich, matthias-heiderich.de
There’s a reason writers wander around a lot.
We find our writing teachers everywhere!
Sometimes we’re caught be a gorgeous staircase, like this one in Berlin, shot by Matthias Hederich. The colors give a feeling of dynamism and confidence, particularly against the cement, mottled and grey.
We feel a charge. Let’s say we’re curious, we climb up a step. Looking to our right, we see things differently. We take three steps, four. We not only see the below differently with each step, but we begin to see the top. We walk faster.
We can learn a lot about plot and story by doing this.
As we climb, our perspective changes and we’re curious about the top but we also remember what we saw before. It accumulates in layers. Reaching the final stair, we have a vision that only comes by getting to the very top. Like reading the very last page.
This is what we want our work to do for our reader.
Stairs take us somewhere, which is the plot. And they take us somewhere we want to go, which is the story. Our work needs both.
Writers I work with seem to fall into two groups: those who begin by listing key events and organizing them into an outline, and those who panic at the idea of an outline because they are less struck by events than by the emotional valence of events. The events are like the stairs themselves, the emotional valence like the colors, yellow and orange.
These are two ways of perceiving reality. They are both great.
Plot is a sequence of events that are linked in a logical, causal way. A character buys ingredients and a pan, goes home, bakes a cake. Story is a sequence where the links are emotional. A character wants to honor his mother, remembers she loved cake, has never baked before but is undaunted, buys a pan, bakes a cake, feels pleasure.
We need things to happen (plot) and we need the emotional logic of why the things happen (story).
I have never worked with a writer who thinks in both of these ways at once.
So as we begin writing, it’s crucial to work first from what comes naturally and then to work from what feels foreign. If an outline comes naturally, create the outline and then discover the emotions of the characters that drive their actions. Go deeper. Find your story.
If seemingly unrelated moments come first, write those moments as separate fragments. They are the pieces of the story. Likely you won’t know or care about which comes first. Write them all, and sequence them later. You will find your outline that way because the mind always seeks order. Your fragments will cohere. Your outline will emerge.
Both methods work. And both lead to discovery when we do the part that feels foreign. Start with the natural, then do the foreign. The foreign thing will become another teacher. And the part you dread will become exciting.
The earlier you learn which way you perceive experience and the earlier you learn to accept this as a writer, the happier you will be. When we try to work by a method that isn’t how we actually move in the world, we can produce a draft, but it will lack the power and beauty that we are really capable of producing.
I write in emotional fragments because this is how I think. The hardest thing, by far, for me is to sequence them. I wanted to publish my first novel as a box of cards for this reason. But once I have the hundreds of fragments and I start arranging and re-arranging them, I see all kinds of structure emerge from the juxtapositions. I discover a structure. This works every time. And it’s really fun!
The ordering process, felt so foreign and was so hard at first, ended up being deeply satisfying. To do it, I thought of music, which is always, in fact, linear. First note, second note…. to last note. When I thought of this, I was home free.
I organized my thousands of fragments into piles by emotional color. Red, blue, green, white, black. Then I listened like a composer. What is the first note? I pulled an appropriate fragment from the right color pile. In the end I had a butcher paper scroll running about 12 feet along one wall, and all of the fragments listed on it and organized into chapters, which I read from left to right, like a musical score.
It was great! And I loved the plot as much as the story. I loved how it started, progressed, climaxed, resolved. The thousands of fragments had become one text. The fragments had become not just one text, but a universe.
It is for this order that we make all art. Every composer, fashion designer, architect, poet, industrial designer, choreographer aims at making some order from the chaos of experience. And this is why it is so deeply satisfying when, from either start point, plot or story, we bring them together. It is really joyful. And then we celebrate! Because the work is ready to go out, without us, into the world.
Exercises:
#1. Visualize your book’s cover. The reader reaches for it, opens to the first page, steps onto the first stair. What happens? Where is my stairway going? What is the view from the top?
#2. What kind of thinker am I?
Think of a favorite book. List what you remember. Notice what you remember. Is it the shifting and drive of the action and event? Or is it the relationships of the characters themselves, their internal shifts and insights? If the former, then in your own work, outline first, go deep later. If the latter, write separate fragments first, order them later.
-Months from now, celebrate that you first honored how you naturally think, and then you also had the courage to do what felt foreign!
#3. Find a staircase you like. Visit it often.
-Walk around your city. Find a staircase you like. Walk it often. Or a walk in the hills, the sandy cliffs at the sea. Take a picture of your ascent. Keep it near you.
-Notice that you experience the interplay of plot and story no matter how many times you go back to your staircase, your hilly path. You take the action of stepping, stepping, which allows an ever-changing view. This is plot. And you have feelings as you ascend and descend. This is story.
-Celebrate that your readers will read and re-read your text because, among other things, they will get to feel the inseparability of plot and story. That it is seamless. That your text is as exciting and strong and inviting and satisfying as this staircase.
If you need an editor I’d love to hear from you. I give a discount to SFWC writers and anyone who comes through this blog. maryrakow.com
Have a good writing month. See you next time!
Mary
© Mary Rakow 2022.
A theologian with graduate degrees from Harvard Divinity School and Boston College, Mary writes with deep feeling and a questioning faith. She is a beloved editor. This Is Why I Came earned outstanding reviews in The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, Harvard Divinity Bulletin, Commonweal, Christian Century, O Magazine, Ploughshares. It appeared on reading lists for courses at both Princeton and Yale.
https://www.instagram.com/prayers_for_our_time/
https://www.facebook.com/Psalter
Mary, your mind is beautiful! Thank you for sharing this perspective of story. I appreciate the way your mind works.
As a sequential thinker, I hurry through my first draft so the tears can be released into the second. For me, it feels like constructing the bones of a house then making it a home. It’s nice to know both styles can work, though yours is enchanting!
I love all of this. You’ve told me these things several times, and each time I am inspired to “begin again.”