The Flesh and Bones of Fiction

I’m currently reading Black Feathers edited by Ellen Datlow, a collection of bird themed horror stories. Some of them come under the heading of the New Weird, very literary fiction in which mood is more important than plot. Done well this can be wonderful, as in the works of Thomas Ligotti and Caitlin R. Kiernan. Generally, it consists of short stories as I don’t think a mood could be sustained for a whole novel. Done badly it makes me throw the book across the room in frustration (don’t do this with an e-reader) as after twenty pages of clever, clever writing full of apt similes and stirring metaphors and sinister mood you get to the end and realize there is no end and it was meaningless. Your time has been wasted.

Fortunately, most of the work in Black Feathers is done well. Ellen Datlow is an award-winning editor and tends to pick the good stuff for her anthologies.

However, all this literary fiction – there’s even a tale by Joyce Carol Oates – made me think about plot versus other stuff in a story. I started out as, and remain, plot centred. My early stories were so plotty that most people said they were too short and felt rushed. This is still a flaw of mine but I am learning to put more flesh on those bones and do some description and even character sketches to make the plot stronger. I’m selling more stories so it might be working.

But I retain my love for plot. You need bones. Some modern stories are all flesh. Very attractive flesh of fine language, similes, metaphors, even poetry but no bones. As I say, if you’re extremely talented you can get away with this and some people will love it. You won’t ever be a bestseller because the masses like plot. Look at the success of James Patterson. If like most of us, you’re just an ordinary writer, I’d advise you to stick with plot. When you write a story, be like a taxidermist and hang those attractive literary decorations on a solid wire skeleton of events. And for God’s sake give it a proper ending.

Eamonn Murphy