The Plot (The Book Series, #1)

by Jean Hanff Korelitz

“Congratulations. I wish I read more poetry.” He didn’t, actually, but he wished he wished he read more poetry, which ought to count for something.

Not much chance of that, Jake thought. Everything about the guy screamed FICTION WRITER, though the species itself broke down more or less evenly into the subcategories: 1. Great American Novelist 2. New York Times Bestselling Author Or that highly rare hybrid … 3. New York Times Bestselling Great American Novelist

A plot like mine, Evan Parker had called it. But in fact, was there even such a thing as “a plot like mine”?

But there was one thing he actually did believe in that bordered on the magical, or at least the beyond-pedestrian, and that was the duty a writer owed to a story.

“Oh, don’t worry about it. Everybody who accomplishes anything gets this. Stephen King? J. K. Rowling? Even Ian McEwan! Some crazy guy once accused Joyce Carol Oates of flying a zeppelin over his house so she could photograph what he was writing on his computer.”

Unlike the devious fifteen-year-old girl in Saki’s most famous story, romance at short notice was not his specialty; he was far more than adept at constructing untruths on the page, when he had all the time in the world to get the fabrication right.

“Come clean?” he finally said. “I’m sorry. You know what I mean.” But he didn’t. That, it occurred to him, was becoming a bit of a problem.

There’s a subject for a novel, isn’t it? Not that I could write a novel, Jake. Because it’s not like I’m a writer. Not like you.”

I’ve learned so much about writers. You’re a strange kind of beast, aren’t you, with your petty feuds and your fifty shades of narcissism? You act like words don’t belong to everyone. You act like stories don’t have real people attached to them. It’s hurtful, Jake.”