Note To Writers - Beware Of Plot Phobia

In previous posts, I've mentioned how literary writing has as its focus writing as art. Whether or not it entertains or sells is a lower priority.

The pursuit of literary writing in the last half century or so has de-emphasized plot to the extent that some literary writers disparage plot and treat it like unwanted frivolity.

Common mainstream literary novels often seem to have realistic, sometimes bleak scenarios, i.e., similar to real life, and little in the way of story. Such novels are often categorized as character-based fiction.

Nothing wrong with that. And if you want to write those, great.

Beware, though, that novels with weak plots don’t generally sell well, regardless of how strong the characters are. The bestseller lists don’t feature many literary novels.

But there are some literary novels that do make it onto the lists. They generally have strong plots.

Hmmm.

Turns out you can have it both ways.

Many, if not most, of the novels that are considered the greatest novels of all time are literary novels, and it's true that a fair number of them don’t have much in the way of a plot. And to this day, most of them still don't sell well in spite of their greatness.

But some of those great books have huge plots. In fact, many of the stories - books and plays - considered to be the greatest literary achievements ever have over-the-top, killer plots.

From Sophocles and Euripides, to Marlowe and Shakespeare (any one of Shakespeare’s tragedies has more plot than any six modern novels), to countless modern novelists, a big story is the central feature of their work. 

I Googled “Greatest novels of all time,” and “100 greatest novels,” and other similar search terms. There were tons of lists, but the same books appeared over and over. Of the lists proclaiming the greatest novels, I certainly did find some great character studies that are real yawners when it comes to plot. (Novels where one is tempted to ask, “Did anything happen in that book? Maybe, but I can’t remember.”) But there were others with serious plots.

Here’s a few that jump out:

Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird

Huxley’s Brave New World

Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath

Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind

Golding’s Lord of the Flies

Cain’s The Postman Always Rings Twice

Melville’s Moby Dick

Atwood's The Blind Assassin

Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five

Dickey’s Deliverance

Hammett's The Maltese Falcon

Tolkien's Lord of the Rings

Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange

Fowles’s The Magus

McCullers's The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land

London’s The Call of the Wild

Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451

Orwell’s 1984

Chandler’s The Big Sleep

le Carré’s The Spy Who Came in From the Cold

Amis’s Lucky Jim

Dumas’s The Three Musketeers

Eco’s Name of the Rose

Conan Doyle’s The Hound of the Baskervilles

Morrison's Beloved

You get the idea. Don’t have plot phobia. And don’t let writers who look down on plot get to you. You can have great characters and a great plot.

Go for it.

P.S. Why aren't there more female authors on these lists? I don't know, but the usual suspects probably apply. For decades, even centuries, women weren't encouraged to write or rewarded for doing so the way men were. And perhaps there is some unconscious bias on the part of the people making the lists. But I'm confident that these perceptions are changing. Also, there are some female writers - Virginia Woolf, A. S. Byatt, Zora Neale Hurston, Willa Cather, Muriel Spark, Jean Rhys, Zadie Smith - that are on the "greatest novels" lists but not on my sample above because their books aren't noted for their racing plots, and of course you may disagree with me on that!