Silverberg on plot, part 1

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In the three most recent issues of Asimov's, Robert Silverberg has been expounding his theory of plot. He provides a description of what he calls the "universal plot outline" (see upcoming entry), but he notes that not all stories follow that outline. Indeed (he opines), there are a few benighted stories that have no plot at all:

Since the early twentieth century small literary quarterlies have pulished hordes of utterly plotless tales. Even the mighty New Yorker for years specialized in stories that had no visible endings, and very little in the way of middles or beginnings, either. During the New Wave period of science fiction thirty-odd years ago, plotless stories, often lacking characters as well, were de rigueur.

But writing a story and getting it published is one thing, and having that story create a meaningful experience in readers is something else entirely. ... [A] straightforward well-told story with a suspenseful plot more easily grabs an audience than a difficult, tenuous tale that has no plot at all, or one concealed in a maze of obscure demands on its readers.

To be fair, he goes on to note that As I Lay Dying and Ulysses (both of which he says follow his plot outline) are still popular despite being hard to read; as far as I can tell, he's saying that a good plot trumps everything else, even obscurantism, but that a story without the universal plot is just plain no good.

Silverberg uses a variety of rhetorical devices in those two paragraphs; it's interesting to me to watch his word choice and his approach, and to see how he goes about manipulating his audience. For example, note how he places the New Wave firmly in the past, suggesting (to me, anyway) that that sad period of our history is now over; these days (I infer), we in the sf world know better than to write plotless stories, because we know that such stories cannot create a meaningful experience in readers.

But I feel obliged to note that I'm being manipulative too, by quoting the most annoying-to-me of his remarks. The stuff I really want to discuss wrt the "universal plot" doesn't really have anything to do with whether plot is good or not. See upcoming entry.

3 Responses to “Silverberg on plot, part 1”

  1. Vardibidian

    I like plot, therefore plot is good. What’s to argue?

    Oddly enough, I was just reading James Thurber’s letters complaining about the same thing: a New Yorker style of plotless short story. His description of the story was ‘A middle-aged man, vaguely dissatisfied with life, hears a late-night noise that he thinks comes from the driveway. He goes out to the driveway in his pajamas, thinking of his marriage. Then he goes back inside’. I thought ‘isn’t that a Thurber story?’

    I try really hard to differentiate between a story (or novel or movie) that has nothing in it for me, and one that is bad. I’m nuts for narrative; I get antsy if five pages go by without moving the plot along. But to say that the slice-of-life story/film/whatever can’t grab an audience or be meaningful is to dismiss the millions of times that someone has watched such a film or read such a story and thought they were being grabbed and found meaning.

    It’s like the fellow I heard on the radio once who insisted that the only way a person could enjoy Pulp Fiction (the film, not the genre) was when high. When somebody called in and claimed to have enjoyed it whilst sober, he first joked that the person was working for Warner Brothers, and then said he must have gotten a contact high from the rest of the audience, who were, of course, stoned. Yep. When it comes to arguing from predetermined biases, there’s nothing like begging the question.

                               ,
    -Vardibidian.

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  2. Tempest

    Are there three essays from RS in Asimov’s on this? On the website I see two, so I suppose the new one won’t be up until next month. But I want to think to this from my For Writer’s blog. Tis interesting.

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  3. Dan P

    As I Lay Dying is “still popular”? I mean, I enjoyed it greatly because its particular flavor of obscurantism engaged and amused me, but everyone else in my class — and this was a Faulkner seminar, mind you — said they wanted to throw it against the wall.

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