Plot and Collaboration–a post that is less interesting than the name suggests

Puntitas has been feeling very philosophical this week. She has done no writing, but she has read a lot and thought many writerly things.

Well, I did do a little pre-pre-writing. I’ve been eating lots of figs lately and getting poetic vibes from them, so I spent an afternoon searching for fig references in the Bible. The line that jumped out at me as being most obviously lyrical was this one:

Isaiah 28:4
That fading flower, his glorious beauty, set on the head of a fertile valley, will be like a fig ripe before harvest— as soon as someone sees it and takes it in his hand, he swallows it.

But more inspiring was the closeness with which the fig is connected to the body. It’s a symbol of security and stability (the Israelites repeatedly complain to Moses that there are no figs, olives or grapes where he has taken them, and the prophets often speak of the possibility of a land where each person can sit under his/her fig). Its leaves clothe Adam and Eve after the fall; it stands in for people or valuable goals in prophetic discussions in both testaments; and Jesus curses it in a wonderful show of humanity (Matthew’s version is the most lyrical and didactic, and Mark’s being the funniest: Jesus curses it in one passage, and in another he and his disciples walk past it, which prompts Peter to say, “wow, that tree you cursed sure is shriveled”).

The next step in the plan was to go outside, examine the tree, and eat some figs while pondering figly things, but I haven’t made it that far because it’s been way too hot outside and I haven’t managed to talk myself into the long sleeves that will keep the fig rash down to a minimum. Why Adam and Eve would put the leaves against their crotches is the real mystery.

What I did instead was finish reading The Shack, which led to thoughts on plot and collaboration. The book itself struck me as a nice read for a young protestant soul of about high-school age, new to pondering spiritual dilemmas. (Puntitas deletes a couple of catty sentences about the writer’s self-aggrandizement and moves on to her point.) Young says that he sent his manuscript to a writer he’d knew casually, that the writer contacted someone involved in writing for the screen, and that the three of them collaborated on the project. He’s vague about the nature of the collaboration, but my sense is that the writer friend gave him general advice on craft and workshoppy feedback on the manuscript, while the screen writer gave him advice on how to turn a philosophical discussion into a filmable plot.

I know one piece of advice I give to students and to people interested in the craft of writing is to imagine what this situation would look like on film, and I asked myself a variation of that (how can you say that in images?) a lot while revising my poems, but being of the Henry James half-the-story-happens-in-the-head school of thought, I will have to remember to ask myself this question frequently when I start revising my stories.

About collaboration, I’ve always wanted to do it. A couple of my friends and I have talked about it. One friend and I even wrote a few chapters together, and another friend and I tried it as well. But I’m not sure how it’s done. What I’d like to do is to collaborate on a story written from two points of view, where we agree on characters and a general plot and each person writes from one point of view, either responding to the other’s or writing from the outline and general discussion. What one friend and I did was talk about the story; then he wrote a draft and I revised it, a la Arthur C. Clarke and Frederik Pohl in _The Last Theorem_; but I don’t think he was as happy about that arrangement as I was.

My editing project has been the closest thing to collaborating that I’ve done. I don’t count it because I don’t have any real say in the planning and because I don’t get real credit for it, as far as I know, but once the manuscript is in my inbox, I have card blanche, so I should be more positive about the whole experience.

I’d ramble on longer, but I just noticed the time, and I have a play to get ready for.

Puntitas reads _Medicus_ and _Terra Incognita_ by R. Downie. She has a secret crush on Simon Vance, who reads everything beautifully, has an excellent sense of timing, and will find himself drawn to her when he goes through his dumpy-round-forty-somethings-with-poor-social-skills-and-shabby-job-prospects phase. She is still on hiatus from _The Secret Magdalene_ by K. Longfellow though she did read a chapter or two at some point.