plot is a process, and how to work it

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There's something beautiful about plot.

Yet plot seems to be a four-letter word, associated with generic or formulaic fiction. But if there isn't any plot, there isn't any story (no matter how creatively it's been constructed), and story is why we read (or at least most of us).

Plot gives the juice and forward thrust to fiction, but more than that: plot is about pattern and meaning. Any exercise in storytelling is an exercise in making meaning: taking the seemingly random and disparate ...