In Poetics, Aristotle called plot the “arrangement of incidents.” More informally, plot is “one damn thing after another.” It’s the answer to “what happens next?” In order for a story not to feel episodic, this has to be answered satisfactorily. Even if the next event is thirty years in the future, it has to feel right.
Crawford Kilian says, “[t]he plot of a story is the synthesis of the plots of its individual characters… If all literature is the story of the quest for identity, then plot is the roadmap of that quest. Every event, every response, should reveal (to us if not to them) some aspect of the characters’ identities.”
Every character in the story has a plot based on their ABCs—Agenda, Backstory, and Conflict (ABCs based on notes taken at Willamette Writers’ Conference at Eric M. Witchey presentation).
Agenda—everybody wants something.
Backstory—everybody has a past that brought him or her to this moment that created the agenda.
Conflict—what happens when one agenda bumps against another agenda.
I bring this up because I am stuck. I actually know what happens next. I’m just stuck on the conflict. The scene is too boring. Even I get tired typing it. People will throw the book (I know it’ll get there to be a book thrown) against the wall in its current state. The conflict is there. I just have to root around a little more.
Nullius in Verba 
Nope, sorry, you are not allowed to be stuck.
Being stuck, sir, is my territory.
My genre.
My idiom.
My bailiwick.
My domain.
My province.
My lord, but I can empathize.
But we, sir, shall not remain stuck. Nosirree bob.
Just keep tossing words onto the page. Turn the filter off. Allow there to be crap. Some of it will stick.
Yuck.
Okay, forget about the crap imagery.
Throw down the dumbest, most outrageous scenarios that come burbling out of your typing fingers. Most will likely be, well, crap.
Yuck.
But who knows? something may be gold!
Or as usually happens in my case, gold crap.
Otherwise known as shiny sh–.
Which does, I do believe, sell. And quite nicely too.
Or…what I do is, copy the troublesome bit on to a fresh page in Word, and let rip. You can do this fearlessly, because it’s not the actual thing; that’s safe in your original document.
Delete anything you have doubts about, try things you don’t think will work; after all, it’s only a copy, no one will see it, what does it matter?
I invariably end up replacing the old bit with the new, because it’s better.
But the knowledge that I don’t HAVE to frees me up.
Thanks you two. I shall flinging dung today all-righty. If you take a look at my story (Death in Green Cathedrals) you’ll see where I’ve stopped. It’s obviously a hinge point and the step into the mythical forest.
On the plus side, Modest Mouse just gave me some great feedback.
YWO Top Five here I come (cross fingers).
NB
Allen,
I had no idea Sharper Image customers were so dangerous. Pepper spray is in order, I believe. Hose them down until OC drips off their noses.
Modest Mouse is good.
Coincidentally, I’d just emailed him, as he intrepidly said what I’d pressed ‘Remove’ rather than say about a short story.
I thought his comments spot on, on yours too.
Norm, this one’s for Alan.
I read your latest post with interest and enjoyment.
I need to know – how long do you have to leave the bed unmade for? Are we talking ten minutes, or a couple of hours?
And the incensed guy, intent on gaining entry to your store – you are quite sure he wasn’t the electrician?
I believe the article indicated a couple of hours or more would be ideal to “dry out the environment” enough to kill the little beasties.
The fellow with the emotional issues was most certainly not an electrician. He was likely a Porsche driving, twice divorced, weekly hair trimmed, tanning salon regular who just needs more fiber in his diet.
And a whack upside the head.