Fiction Writing: The Art of Plotting

I don't think the book intends to make sense, just to outdo Pynchon, who's also shit.

Who cares for meta-literature apart from weak individuals seeking validation through other weaklings like themselves?

If you read to feel superior, I feel bad for you, son, I got 99 problems, but weak individuals aren't one.

So yeah maybe it is a shit book, but I still want to know if the chart makes sense, not if the novel is good or bad.

dude, you're trying to attack people for reading certain kinds of lit in order to feel superior but why else would you read the literature you prefer but to feel superior to those who read the literature you don't prefer?

yes, it does make sense, but reading it before the novel itself is a huge, huge spoiler.

point is, most of imformation about IJ's actual ending is subtly implied throughout the book but not said directly, hence two halves of the egg (and their somewhat obvious titles).

and the book is a masterpiece while we're at it, people saying that it tries to out-do Pynchon or whatever are stupid, every ambitious author tries to somewhat out-do the previous greats in one way or another. Similarities in their styles arise from the direct influence and similar school of thought, but not from copying or whatever.

Thanks I'm about halfway through and it seemed kind of confusing.
(maybe im just stupid)

>dude, you're trying to attack people for reading certain kinds of lit in order to feel superior

Nope. I'm giving people free reality checks. Unlike the insecure, I don't need to feel superior to anyone.

>but why else would you read the literature you prefer but to feel superior to those who read the literature you don't prefer?

I read literature "I prefer" because I like it, there is no other reason. You don't know what I read and I don't mention it; this should be enough to prove that I only read because I enjoy it. There's no piss contest in my world.

That said, some people wrote for egotitistic reasons, and others read for similar egotistic reasons. I just want to put a dent in the notion that reading such authors makes you a special snowflake. Don't be offended.

>and the book is a masterpiece while we're at it, people saying that it tries to out-do Pynchon or whatever are stupid, every ambitious author tries to somewhat out-do the previous greats in one way or another.

Any common idiot thinks Pynchon is part of the "greats". Both Pynchon and Wallace are forgettable authors. Neither is an important part of any literature course, even American Literature. It's really mostly this board that gets a boner for it, because every newfag thinks he must absolutely read what the "oldfags" have read, but really, literature has so much better to offer than pitiful attempts at being a smart ass.

That's what the book wants to have as an effect on you: make you feel stupid so you may think the author is intelligent. Don't fall for it, it's intended to have that effect, and it really is just bullshit in the end. Forgettable bullshit.

No one will give two fucks about either Pynchon or Wallace in 50 years. Nobody smart cares very much as of right now.

My fucking god.

Only read shit like this if you want to make shitty fantasy novels.

>plot

Why does Veeky Forums suck?

Because of autism. The autists here don't understand jack shit about most things. All they understand, and therefore care for, is puzzles. They see books as puzzles to overcome; for this reason, they only care about novels to "crack" with their intellect. They don't seem to understand that this isn't what art is about, and while you can do it this way, it's small fries.

The average lit autist has no appreciation of any novel that doesn't wallow in puzzles and references.

This is also why those guys always fail at literature at university level: suddenly, it's no longer just puzzles and games.

These guys are exactly what I'm talking about:

Just go play chess, you morons.

>What's the best book about plotting?
Foucault's Pendulum

Fuck this board. You're all retarded autistic pieces of shit.

- an actual lit major

but, but.........................i like feeling stupid........

This is all just patently untrue. Yes, lit does enjoy novels like Ulysses and IJ which can be considered like puzzles, but the same cannot be said of Shakespeare, or Chekhov, Tolstoy, Kawabata etc.

The plot (or rather story since lit uses the term plot incorrectly) is merely an element of a written work used to further an aim. Some works require engaging, fast moving, event laden stories to pursue that aim, but many (and in fact most great works of the last hundred years) generally downplay the story for its unsuitability to what they want to do. It's not a matter of puzzles. Lit likes books that have certain sorts of teleology far up and beyond puzzles.

Your reduction of books to puzzles is a term that I reject anyway. Ulysses is not merely a puzzle. The puzzle like element is a means, not the end.

>Look at me guys I study literature
>I don't have a degree yet
>Or anything to distinguish me from anyone else
>And being an lit major has no bearing on good I am doing in my courses
>But I swear I know more than all of you because I have a professor
>No one in the history of lit has ever had one of those

You aren't being serious are you

They're both the outro to the canon atm

And the oldfag/newfag thing is utterly silly, what some chinese book memeing board thinks about some particular books is maybe 2% of their actual real life relevance.

Well the best book about the Hero's Journey, or the most well known at least, is The Hero With A Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell.