"Plot is more useful, easier to do, and harder to dismiss if you remember that it's basically a cartographic idea. They're literally or figuratively going from somewhere to somewhere else, and passing through or stopping at other places on the way. (Usually literally *and* figuratively). This should not be a loaded or controversial thing. It happens in most stories. It doesn't absolutely have to, but it usually does. Also there are not suptypes of figurative travel that are too boring/elevated to count as plot. Fight me." 8/23
I have a really difficult relationship with plot. For one thing, I'm absolutely terrible at it, in the sense meant above. Anyone who's been near me when I'm writing, or outlining, has heard me complain about how I have no idea where this is going. See, again, that cartographic metaphor. It's about the path, the direction, the destination. If your story doesn't have some of that, I'm not saying it's not good, or not a story, but I'm concerned.
Stephen King goes on for quite a while in On Writing about his dislike for plot. He describes himself as liking to just put characters in situations ("predicaments", he calls them) and see how they get themselves out. He thinks that plot is forced, artificial, and "the good writer's last resort"). I think there's two problems here. Maybe three. (Plot-as-process is different levels of helpful to different people, people don't both distinguishing it from plot-as-result, and snooty academics)
First of all, there's a very real extent to which no one knows what "plot" actually is or means. This is a difficulty it has in common with literally every other bit of terminology in writing except possibly "metaphor". I like the definition I used in my Facebook post because it's usually what I mean by plot, and because deciding that aspects of writing just are, that they're just tools, neither good nor bad for writing, and that their value or harm is in whether they feel right to the writer, and how well they are able to use them, allows me to feel a bit superior to people who get all ideologically invested in particular tools. You don't decide whether to put together a chair using a hammer and nails or a screwdriver and screws based on whether your tastes are sufficiently refined, or how educated you are or whether your chair is Art or just there to be somewhere a person can sit down, or even how skilled a carpenter you are; you choose it based on what kind of chair it is, what materials it's made of, the shape and style, and your knowledge of (or best guesses about) what kind of use it will be put to, and by whom, a good chair to put in the Intimidating Hallway where students have to sit before meeting with the principle is not necessarily a good chair in which to read for a few hours, and there is no reasonable argument to be made that one of those chairs is inherently better than the other. But I'm getting off track. I really like chair metaphors. It's a Thing.
Anyway, the point is that some people are talking about plot-as-thing-that-exists, and some people are talking about plot-as-process. I like to think of the latter as plotting, rather than plot, but that's not widely accepted terminology. Plot-as-process is the way in and extent to which the writer plans out in advance what is going to happen and how it is going to come about. More specifically, perhaps, it is the way in or extent to which the writer finds it intuitive and helpful to plan things out like this. Consider the apparently ubiquitous "trip to Europe". One traveler might meticulously research every place they might go, and create a detailed itinerary down to where they will eat breakfast on each day of the journey, including how much of their precisely calibrated budget they will spend on it, (They have opted to wait until they are actually inside the establishment to choose what eat within the specified price range.) and the departure and arrival times of each train that they will take between points on their journey. Their itinerary is laid out in a Google doc, and at the top of the first page for each country is an embedded table with useful phrases in the local language. Placenames include links to those places English language websites, if they have them. Of course they also carry a printed copy of their itinerary, just in case. Another traveler simply wants to go "to Europe". They choose a country at random: perhaps Spain, because plane tickets there happened to be the least expensive when they were buying them, or England because they already speak the language so it seems like an easier place to start. Wherever they begin, they plan to wander as impulse or convenience takes them. The extent of their plan is a rough knowledge of how much money they have set aside, and an intent to return to the US before they run out. It is important to note here that both of our travelers are going to have a wonderful time and come back enriched and expanded, with lots of fun anecdotes and unironic selfies with historic statues, or whatever it is kids these days are into. Of course, most of us are not at either of these extremes. Probably we know which places we're going, about how long we're going to spend in each one, and when and from where we will be going back. If we are goal oriented, we might have a checklist of things we want to make sure we do or see in each place.
If it sounds as though I'm just adding another metaphor to "pantsers vs. plotters" or "architects vs. gardeners", there's an extent to which I am, but largely because I feel like those are unhelpful false dichotomies and the people most attached to them almost always seem to be arguing that there is something superior in the pantsing or gardening approach, and as someone who prefers to plan things out, that bothers me a little bit. Most of us aren't straightforwardly architects or gardeners. We're growing bonsai trees or training roses up a trellis. There's a plan in place, a structure of some sort to build upon, and we're not afraid to use the wire and twine and pruning shears to make the story take roughly the shape we want, but it is still a living, growing thing, and just because we know how many branches it's supposed to have doesn't mean we've decided in advance where exactly all the leaves are going to be. Try to assert that degree of control and you'll kill it. And we remain open to being surprised by it, to going out one afternoon and discovering that it's gone and entangled itself with the clematis, which wasn't at all what we had in mind but they look lovely like that so now we're just going to have to make a new plan. Which is all by way of saying that the correct amount of plot-as-process is the amount that works for you. The reader isn't looking at the marks you made on the map when you planned your trip, they're hearing about the good parts after you get back.
Plot-as-thing-that-exists is both the same and different in important ways. It's also where I get way less "my definition is better than your definition". Any definition that doesn't end up being disparaging to plot is fine. But I still like a cartographic interpretation. A character, or several characters, go from somewhere to somewhere else. They stop at or pass through other places on the way. This can be literal or metaphorical. If they go through Baerlon, Shadar Logoth, and Whitebridge, or Anger, Bargaining, and Depression, that's still the part that's the plot. That part of it is a neutral thing-that-is, and doesn't imply anything on its own about the nature or quality of the story. The amount of plot can then be understood as the amount of focus that the story (not the characters) puts on the process of getting from one place to the next. You could absolutely have no plot, and just hang out in one emotional, physical, or intellectual place the whole time, or exclude almost everything from the story except getting from one literal or metaphorical place to another. As with almost everything in writing, most things are somewhere in the middle, and the extremes are harder to pull off.
The third problem is one of snottiness more than definitions, or of snottiness informing definitions. Plot gets a bad rap, and a lot of more Literary readers and writers prefer the journey that happens to be almost entirely figurative, and usually pretty short. They also tend to see going somewhere emotionally (or sometimes intellectually) as not really Plot at all, but something purer, which they might call story or narrative or something. (These are perfectly good words, and useful in other contexts, but that's a whole 'nother post and I'm making a point here). On the point that it is not Plot, they are in agreement with readers and writers at the other end of the spectrum who don't feel that anything is happening when the journey is largely emotional (or certain kinds of intellectual) and dismiss, rather than elevate, those kinds of stories for their lack of plot. A preference for one sort of plot over the other is of course perfectly valid, but it's all plot.
(You will notice that I haven't touched on "plot driven" vs. "character driven". That's because I haven't found a definition of either that doesn't make me want to tear my hair out, and I have enough problems with that as it is).
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