Writing Advice: Highsmith, Plotting and (Re)Living Your Dreams

One of the main issues that tends to come up when I’m teaching creative writing is that of plot – as in, many new and aspiring writers generally believe that they don’t know how to plot and/or tell a story. And it’s no use telling them that they’ve been listening to stories since before they knew they were listening to stories, or that they have been absorbing plots ever since they first started watching TV, or that our species thrived, evolutionarily speaking, because our minds are hardwired to think in narrative terms. Most new writers are conditioned to believe that the secret to great writing is plotting, and they’re depending on me to reveal the great secret.
 There is no great secret, of course, but because people appreciate concrete detail and examples, I’m very happy to break down the basic plot mechanics and talk about seven-point plot arcs (other plot arcs are available) – I tend to use Patricia Highsmith’s The Talented Mr Ripley as a case study, because (a) it’s a brilliant book and (b) it allows for a neat contrast between the novel and Anthony Minghella’s film due to one crucial scene change (no spoilers, etc.) in Minghella’s adaptation.
 And then, at the end of that class, I’ll give them a task: remember a dream and write down as much of it as you can, trying to capture its weirdness and bright colours and its random twists and turns (if you dream in seven-point plot arcs, so much the better).
 Some of them follow through on this homework, some of them don’t (some people, like me, rarely remember their dreams). And some of the results can be fantastic. But none of the results are anywhere near as fantastic as the wild idea that humans are so hardwired to tell stories that we do it even when we’re asleep; that even when we’re unconscious, we’re still telling ourselves stories.
 Do we know how and why it happens? I’ll wager that most of us don’t, and – unless the dreams become traumatising nightmares – we don’t much care. And in this context it really doesn’t matter. All that matters is that we understand we already know everything we know about the storytelling basics at the unconscious level; that we appreciate and accept that, in our most fundamental sense of self, we are storytelling beings.