[Writerpreneur] Plot Debunked

The original "King of the Pulps" (who wrote and sold over a million words annually for decades) discloses that stories don't need a plot. And how Edgar Allan Poe wrote exactly way...

From “This Fiction Business” by H. Bedford Jones

The word “plot” is one of the professional walls raised around the amateur writer. The term is dwelt upon with great unction and ritual. Plot is the all important thing—if he is going to write fiction, then he must strive for plot, plot, plot!

I most disrespectfully submit that this is absolutely B-U-N-K.

In the first place, let us determine just what the word plot means—not an easy thing by a good deal. I do not believe it can be defined more accurately than in the precise words of Pitkin: “Plot is a climactic series of events, each of which both determines and is determined by the characters involved.” There, in a nutshell, is the clearest definition of plot ever attained.

At the same time, few people entertain the same notion about plot. Poe held that a story had an excellent plot when none of its component parts could be removed without detriment to the whole structure; yet this is far from conveying the exact meaning. Poe's stories had very little plot, as the word is commonly understood among writers today. Therefore, I have actually seen him held up as a bad example in this respect—Poe, who made himself a classic in English, and whom Baudelaire made a classic in French! It is undeniably true, however, that the world's greatest men are usually held up as bad examples.

Howells, on the contrary, believed that any plot was constituted by a series of events which grew entirely out of the central character. This is the literary viewpoint, usually followed by great artists like Howells, and applies chiefly to novels. The didactic viewpoint, that of Pitkin as stated above, is entirely satisfactory, and is the belief held by schools and teachers and by many writers. It is the strict dramatic plot. Read over any good play, and you'll be able to apply Pitkin's definition and to understand it more clearly.

However, we are not dealing with literature or the drama; our interest is centered on the business of fiction—and the foregoing remarks have nothing to do with it. Therefore let us consider the horrible proposition: A Good Story Needs No Plot.

Reflect, brethren! Some of the best short stories ever written have very little, if any, plot. That is why some professors stuffily refuse to call them short stories, and apply other names to them. It is hard for a teacher to see any horizon—his spectacles are too strong. He wants to keep all young writers between two narrow and high walls—that is his business.

Look at magazine fiction. Has it any pretensions, any purpose, other than to entertain the reader? Absolutely none. A fiction magazine shuns in horror all propaganda, religious controversy, and bore-some highbrow effusions. Its business is simply to make its readers forget their troubles and come again for more. When it ceases to be entertaining, it ceases to have any existence.

Very well, then. What is the most entertaining story ever written? What story has brought delight to the most millions of people and has been most widely read? Probably certain Chinese romances would fill the bill, but we are speaking of the western world; therefore, our answer would be: “The Arabian Nights.” Out of this collection of tales, the adventures of Sinbad the Sailor are perhaps the best known. They have not only been read for themselves, but have entered into fiction, myth, drama, all over the world. In the most erudite oriental studies, those of Berthold Laufer, you will find Sinbad and his adventures figuring prominently. And these stories have not the least vestige of plot. They are nothing but loosely woven incidents, which are controlled entirely by chance. So much for plot, as an essential.

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ON THE OTHER HAND, we must not be blind to the value of plot in its strictest sense. It is highly essential to many forms of writing. To many commercial writers it is a great aid, and some of them depend altogether upon it. At the same time, it is another of those things which you must grasp and understand in order to disregard if you so prefer. It is another of the many walls around the writer, which his imagination may over-leap.

Certain magazines are strong for plot, and most editors assert with pathetic enthusiasm that they must have plot. As a matter of fact, none of them care a hang about it, and any of them will buy a good story without a plot, just as readily as they would buy one with a strong plot. Let me prove my point, brethren, by a little story just between ourselves, which must pass no farther.

Two editors of well-known fiction magazines were holding a lovely lodge of sorrow over me. They would like to use my stuff, but their magazines were famous for having strong and manly plots. Their readers wanted 'em, looked for them. As one editor expressed himself:

“Your stories are well written, but they're nothing except a lot of incidents strung in a row. They haven't a vestige of plot!”

I might have pointed out that the reading public seemed more or less satisfied with my yarns, and that other magazines were not kicking. Instead of argument, I submitted to each of these editors several stories under a pen-name, keeping carefully from sight my own connection with them. They were even typed in a manner entirely different from my own. And what happened? The gentlemen bought them and wrote enthusiastically for more with offers of contracts.

There are two possible explanations for this. One, that the editors themselves had only a vague idea of what they meant by plot, and had in mind merely a certain type of story. This is highly logical. The second explanation is that plot makes no difference whatever to a good and entertaining story. Take your choice, or combine the two.

Never accept the dicta of a magazine as to what it wants; never guide your work so as to make it fall in line with the “requirements” of a magazine. That is, naturally, unless you're engaged in some special line of hack work, as will be touched upon later. Aim only to turn out an excellent product. An editor would publish the Prophecy of Esdras if he thought it would entertain his readers—and is there not one newspaper, indeed, which is running a serial called The Holy Bible?

Without any desire to be critical, I am quite positive that to editors and teachers the word “plot” is merely professional patter—something to teach and talk about. An editor recently gave me the same old line about a story, said it had no plot, and he'd buy it if I'd put some good strong plot into it. I agreed. I changed the name of one character, deleted one word, had the story copied on fresh paper. And what did he do when he read it again? Bought it as being entirely satisfactory. Of course.

Studying plot development, you understand, will not corrupt your morals in any way, and if you're going into the writing game seriously, you must study plot with the rest. However, do not dally with the notion that plot is the one great essential to be mastered, that a good plot will carry off a poor story. Not by a good deal. Plot is really one of the subservient elements to entertaining fiction.

And returning, upon due reflection, to Edgar Allan Poe's theory, I am inclined to appreciate it more fully. He was one of the first of our commercial writers, and he knew his business down to the ground. When the gentlemen who gently scoff at him can turn out stories which will rival his, then by all means let us accept their dicta with reverence. Until then, let your story be so written that not a paragraph of it could be cut out without positive detriment to the whole yarn—and you needn't worry about whether it has plot or not.

If the story is in you, it will come out.

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This excerpt is from “Learning From the Pulp Masters” — a companion to the Writerpreneur Series.

Its second edition is available nearly everywhere.

And is available at no-cost for paid members, below.