Conceptual Fiction is a regular feature, contributed by Ted Gioia, focusing on major works of fantasy, science fiction, magical realism and alternate history. These books are celebrated in recognition that literary experimentation with ways of conceptualizing reality has been as important as experimentation with language in creating fiction of lasting value. Dismissing these books as genre or escapist works has created a blind-spot in literary studies that this feature aims, in some small part, to rectify.

Who cares about the plot? Obviously not many people in academia... I still recall a college professor making fun of me when I complained that our class’s assigned edition of Stendhal contained a plot spoiler on the back cover. “You shouldn’t be so concerned with the plot,” Professor Robinson admonished me.

Decades later, I still care about the plot. Literary critics, for their part, usually align themselves with my old professor. They rarely acknowledge how important plot construction is to the success of a novel, and focus on other “more important” matters. Writers who work in genre fiction, in contrast, have few illusions that they can save a weak plot through character development or symbolism or some other method of compensation. Henry James famously spoke of the “turn of the screw” — the added plot twist that can raise the level of a story — but on any short list of the masters in the art of turbo-charging a storyline, even the great James might need to move aside to make room for popular writers such as Agatha Christie, P. G. Wodehouse and Arthur C. Clarke.

The classic Clarke books — Childhood’s End, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Rendezvous with Rama — draw readers into their orbit with plots that are constructed like multistage rockets (if I may be allowed to use simultaneously a sci-fi simile and a sci-fi metaphor). Complexities in the plot are often resolved in his books, only to replaced by a higher level of complication. The key moments that might seem to conclude matters typically prove to be fake-outs, revealing that the real threat is coming from a completely different direction than the one we first anticipated. Of course, Clarke developed his craft in a pulp fiction environment that demanded clever plotting; yet even by these standards, he stands out for his smart incorporation of second-order and third-order effects in his stories.

Article Author: Ted Gioia

Ted Gioia is a writer and musician. He is the author of Delta Blues, The History of Jazz and, most recently, The Birth (and Death) of the Cool.

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