Don't Lose the Plot, Writers

"Plot" is one of those glorious Middle English words of unknown parentage, those guttural and simple single syllables that reverberate with meaning. A "plot" is both a piece of ground and the plan of a play or story. The word straddles matter and mind, physical and mental, earthy and human. Plot is essential in a story -- it's the ground of meaning. In traditional story-telling it's the piece we possess, or discern, of the wild landscape of ideas and meanings we live with.

The plot is what we enclose and cultivate in story-telling, and requires a traditional beginning, middle and end: development, action, revelation, conclusion (harvest). We have narrative minds and narration requires process. From that comes meaning -- food for thought. No overlord should tell us what to grow, what to think. We must not let ourselves be dictated to, and the ideas we grow in our plots must not be censored.

The garden plot is a simple metaphor, and it should be simple to keep diverse growth in our garden of thought. The "native plant only" ideology in gardening is akin to the identitarian one in speech and writing: a form of control, of policing, of failing to dig new compost into the soil. Students and young writers need one simple writing tip: resist narrow ideology with wide reading! Fertilize your plots.