Writing a story with no plot

Hello.

If there has been a thread like this, I apologize, I did not feel like necroing anything.

So does anybody have any experience doing this? Do you guys think that its doable at all? I'm having difficulty approaching the narrative like this.

The Room did a pretty good job at it.

Does making a videogame with an Excuse Plot count?

Unless you're very, very good at writing character driven pieces, avoid this at all costs.

Would anyone have any suggestions for character-driven stories?

All Quiet On The Western Front.

You can write a story without a plot in mind by building a setting and populate it with compelling characters. The plot comes out of the result.

I'm rewatching There Will Be Blood. The story is driven by the main character who is confronted with a variety of circumstances and just watching him deal with those is entertaining, although heart wrenching.

You can write without concern for plot and theme, but they have to come up in the rewrite or else you end up with a meaningless pile of events and people with no connection to each other.

edited 22nd Dec '10 6:10:10 PM by 66Scorpio

How about writing a story based on theme instead of plot?

Depending on your definition of "plot," this may or may not be possible. Depending on your definition of "story," this may or may not be common—music lyrics often depict a moment in time rather than the sequence of events that "plot" probably implies.

Are we talking Writing by the Seat of Your Pants here, or something else? Because I know you can write with no idea where the heck you're going, because everything I write is a bit like that.

Definitions are a funny thing. My understanding is that a "story" involves describing a (generally chronological) series of events. However, a "plot" causally connects the events of a story to character relevation or development in a dramatic manner. Meanwhile "theme" is philosophical proposition illustrated through the story.

A documentary will usually have a story. Most these days have a theme. None have plots unless they are specifically dramatized.

To paraphrase a certain Frenchman: "You have come here with a 'what' but not a 'why'." Your story tells the what while your plot tells the why, with reference to your characters. The theme is the why in the sense of being the "so what?"

Out of character, story, plot and theme you really need to decide on two of them before the other two will fall into place.

I think a "story" is pretty much defined by a "plot" and a "plot" is defined as a "development of characters and circumstances in time". So, to write something without any plot, you have to write something without development, in other words, something so limited in time that no visible development can be squeezed in. An analogy to illustrate my point: what you want is not a movie, but a painting, depicting a single momentary situation.

Of course, most paintings imply a story behind them and a resolution to it, but since this story only exists in the viewer's mind, a painting is de facto a narrative without plot. So if you want to write a "story" without plot, you have to create a painting with words.

You can certainly write without much planning of a plot, but a plot will occur, poor or not. If you're talking about a work that, even when finished, has no plot, then I don't think you're writing a story anymore.