What I am most interested in, is whether a story/novel without a strong kind of tension which the reader desires to be relieved can work. Obviously in every story there has to be characters and events, events which have been arranged by the author to say something, but I wonder if there has to always be a key objective for the reader to hope for (something it is said is what makes people want to keep reading). Eg stopping a terrorist from killing a bunch of people, throwing the ring into Mt Doom, or getting the girl. [TANGENT] Thing is, many stories like this are predictable - we know most of them are going to end happily. Creating tension for something to happen that we already know will. So I guess what remains is HOW it will happen, which is enough to engage many people. [/TANGENT] But can a story survive without an outcome like this to work towards? Can reader interest be engaged in some other way? I think Catch-22 may be a good example. There is a vague sort of outcome we hope for - for the characters to survive the war - but I don't think it's a strong one. So..? I unfortunately haven't read the other books people have mentioned on here - I am planning to read Catcher in the Rye as soon as I finish Catch-22 though.
Surreal, That's one of the reasons I really got into John Dies At The End. The plot wasn't predictable, and the title was totally misleading. While it was a basic action/adventure/sci-fi/horror book, the plot was unpredictable and kept the reader on their toes. The twists and turns are what keep me interested in a book. Things happening that I just didn't expect, even if the plot line is the basic formula. I hate predictable books, ones that you can just read the first few pages or the synapsis and know what is going to happen. An example for me of a book that didn't have a strong plot line was The Painted House, by John Grisham (sp?) It's more like the slice of life kind of book about a boy and his cotten farming family and the events of a picking season. I got bored about half way through and have yet to finish reading it. I don't buy books unless they strike me as something I'm going to thoroughly enjoy. Ones that have mystery to them, twists, turns, and unpredictability. Romatic comedies will always end up with a happy ending. The formula is always the same, boy meets girl, boy messes up, boy has to have a grand gesture to win girl back, boy gets girl in the end...and all is happy. Quest style plots always have a goal being worked towards, like your example of taking the ring to Mt.Doom and throwing it in, basic recipe for action/adventure/quest story. The thing a lot of writers run up against is that all plot lines have been done before. There isn't anything new that we can add to it. It's only how we blend and craft the story that changes in each novel. How the story is written is what makes it either exiting or dull. The characters predictable or enticing. Without a plot what kind of story is it? And will it satisfy the reader enough to continue reading to the end and pick up another book written by you in the future? An example of a series of events centered around the premise of the story, much like catch-22 would be Flashforward, the book that the tv show is based on. Though in the book the flashfoward is 20 years in the future, as opposed to the 6 months in the tv show, it is a character driven story. While the main plot is to figure out who or what caused the flashward, thus putting it into the classification of mystery/thriller type of plot, the premise isn't as predominate as the characters are in the story. While you don't have to have wall to wall excitment and thrills on every page to make a story great, there will always be a need for some loose plot line to be involved to hold the readers attention. A goal of some sort for the characters to acheive and obsticles for them to overcome to get to that goal. It can be emotional based internally in the character, it can be external obsticles, or what not, but there has to be something going on...and for me stories that just ramble on and on like a boring biography of fictional characters are just not interesting.
Yeah, it's probably true that when we examine stories that don't necessarily have the most obvious, structured plotlines, that there is still a vague objective, a loose plot there. I made a mistake referring to these stories as plotless. Where do I draw the line? How far can I go, how random and vague can I be before it stops being interesting? I look forward to experimenting. Bluebell, you mentioned enticing characters and engaging writing style as something that draws you in as well. This plays a huge part for me. If I find the writer's tone rigid and dull, I often won't continue reading. I like being able to sense a sparkle, a personality from the author, leaking through the pages. This can sustain me through books, even when the plot loses its interest for me - such as at some points when reading The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and Catch 22 as well, to continue using that as an example. I have no idea what's going to happen next, and I don't have much to cross my fingers for to happen either, but I know that whatever random thing happens next, I will enjoy it, because this author has not failed to amuse me so far. There's an added motivation as well of already loving the book so much that I want to finish it. I want to finish it for the sake of finishing it, and I can also predict that whatever happens will be entertaining and amusing. So I continue reading.
You can write without a plot but I feel that such a thing is deteriment to the story as plot moves characters and therefore causes changes in them, creating character development. And if there's one thing that I learned about writing is that character development is pretty significant. People generally care more about people rather than places or things. Sure a story that is more generic and focuses on scenes and items could be written but generally speaking it doesn't have the same impact as a character going through an important event in their lives. That's because we're people and therefore relate to other people.
You can write without a single central plot, but writing something that holds readers' interest probably still requires conflicts and some motion toward resolutions, i.e. plots.
You might want to look into Absurdist literature like Jean-Paul Sartre's Nausea and Albert Camus's The Stranger (sometimes called The Outsider) for stories without a central conflict or plot, although some would argue The Stranger has a central plot; the main character kills a man and gets executed for it. Nausea begins with the narrator describing a trip to Marseille, takes a detour through sex with a waitress in a café, a meeting with a meladramatic, melancholy mistress, and encounters with a humanitarian paedophile who gets taken advantage of by his 'victims' and ends in yet another café, with the narrator deciding to write a novel instead of the biography he'd been planning to write. It is totally pointless compared to most novels.
As with others, it's been a little while since I read this. But from what I recall, the book does have a strong plot. As you say, it's outwardly the story of Yossarian's attempt to survive the war - but mainly the way his character is influenced by the events and command structure around him. Although these events are told in a non linear fashion, it would be theoretically possible to rearrange them into quite a fast paced time line... the training camp, the bombing raid, the soldier in white, the girl, the bombing of rome... we do this subconsciously in our heads as we read. Part of the 'plot' is the fun and mystery of slowly piecing the whole puzzle together. In a sense, the book does what you're looking for in that it's largely Heller's humour which ties the whole thing together. There is also a central conflict - in this case between Yossarian and the concept of catch 22 itself. One of my favourites, incidentally...
Yeah, I only finished reading it yesterday, (it's one of my faves too ) and once you get to the end there is a definite sense of 'completeness' to the whole thing. The events and characters and the way they all tie together in the sequence of events makes perfect sense. I always said that I like the events, characters and ideas to all still hold together in a meaningful way, and Catch-22 certainly achieves this. However, you would have to read most of it to reach that point, where it all makes sense. So how does he capture interest in the reader before this point? I agree with you that it is the fun and mystery of piecing it all together. True, that. Further proof that my idea of a 'plotless' story that works ultimately ends up having plots and conflicts that are simply more subtle than usual. I am reminded of one of the first responses to my topic, which predicted this; ^ Perhaps the concept of a plot really is this simple. As long as something is happening, and there's a point to it, it counts as a plot. In which case, I have nothing to worry about. But how many people agree with a definition like this?
If you liked Catch 22, and you haven't already read Kurt Vonnegut, I can highly recommend him, particularly Slaughterhouse 5 - which is a also a good example of a book which plays around with the traditional ideas of plotting. As long as something is happening, it's a plot. If a character decides on chips for tea instead of pie, without moving a muscle, that's plot. It's not very interesting though. Books that are light on physical action tend to be strong on emotional/psychological action (good ones, that is). The only way to avoid plot would be to write about a perfectly still slice of time. Personally this wouldn't hold my interest. I would welcome the chance to stand corrected, though. Someone suggested that poetry is a more appropriate form for this. I think it would still be a boring poem if nothing changed from start to finish. Even sculptors strive for the appearance of movement...
