I'm sorry... what?!
Do you have anything whatsoever to back up that statement? Proof or gtfo.
That's insulting. You must have me confused with the majority of people on the forums. Pulling nonsense straight out of my ...of the abyss and then saying 'Why do I need to prove anything to you' or 'I'm entitled to an opinion' after being debunked repeatedly.
The Proof:
He wrote a book called 'On Writing'. In my opinion, having read many books on the subject, it is the most entertaining, and second best, book on how to write.
The first being
The Elements of Style by Strunk and White. It's relatively short and gives both stories from his childhood and advice on writing without a lot of bullsh*t, as he mentions in his forward.
Skipping the first half and neglecting everything afterwards, my post came from a few select pages that stuck out to me the first time I read through the book.
In my view, stories and novels consist of three parts: narration, which moves the story from point A to point B and finally to point Z; description, which creates a sensory reality for the reader; and dialogue, which brings characters to life through their speech.
You may wonder where plot is in all this. The answer-my answer-is nowhere. I won't try to convince you that I've never plotted any more than I'd try to convince you that I've never told a lie, but I do both as infrequently as possible. I distrust plot for two reasons:first, because our lives are largely plotless, even when you add in all our reasonable precautions and careful planning; and second, because I believe plotting and the spontaneity of real creation aren't compatible.
Plot is, I think, the good writer's last resort and the dullard's first choice. The story which results from it is apt to feel artificial and labored.
I lean more heavily on intuition, and have been able to do that because my books tend to be based on situation rather than story.
-Stephen King,
On Writing (page 159-160)
The last quote is important in that not all writing benefits from this style. Non-Fiction, obviously,
cannot be written this way, as it is derived from facts and not imagination.
On what grounds would you disagree that a story should be plotted out? Research papers, senior thesis, and maybe newspaper articles need to be thought out ahead of time. Stories, more often than not, shouldn't be.
This is coming from experience as well. I use to try and plan out a story before filling in the details and sub-plots. That was until a teacher in a creative writing class gave us a paragraph or two of story and told us to turn it into three or four pages without plotting anything. What do you think would happen in this situation? What would you do? How would you have responded to that statement?
From those five pages on I have yet to sit down and think 'how will this story end?' until it's time for the story to end. Have an idea for a story, boy sees magic and decides to try it himself, and then let the story tell itself. When it's over, you'll know it's over.
How better to keep someone guessing, in suspense, about what is going to happen next than to write the book on the edge of your own seat, unscripted and without knowledge of what will happen next?
With everything said, I've never written a screenplay. It might be completely different than writing a novel or short story. If this is true, then plotting might work for what you're currently doing and that's fine. My post was directed towards the writing style in discussion, fiction in short story or novel form.
With that said, many can and will disagree with King when he says plot is the wrong way to write a story. A good opinion from someone who has tried both ways and prefers to have a story before they write one. It's in my experience, and Stephen King's book, that stories tell themselves as you write them and to tell them how to end before you've even started is only going to hurt then end product.
-Rik
