Plot as a Trail

Plot is essentially a trail, a trail that leads through the whole book. Sometime that trail is winding, doubling back and twisting around in the book. Sometimes the trail is nonlinear. It can go forward, curve around, and close in a loop, with the end of the trail meeting the trail head.

Sometimes the trail go off in many directions. As readers tramp along the trail, they may come to a place where the trail splits and the author beckons them in a new direction. This would be a "plot twist," an unexpected development.

The plot may be lighthearted, like this sunny, sandy trail in a meadow. Occasionally the plot trail goes through a gloomy evergreen forest with no friendly trail guides. Sometimes the trail is confusing so that hikers have to keep stopping to check and compare facts. The trail might be well-marked. Sometimes it has informative signs: "Devil's Punchbowl Ahead." Other times the signs are more cryptic: "Trail 26."

A particular plot trail is not for everyone. Some prefer a one-mile jaunt on level terrain. Sometimes it's rugged and difficult. The "hikers" must be equipped with proper gear--background information, a dictionary, social context. Sometimes there isn't much of anything to look at, and the trail may be abandoned. But, oh, the joy of a scenic outlook! The glimpse of a deer crossing the path! The wildflowers! The breeze! The wrens warbling! It is trails like these that "hikers" search for and love.

I enjoy the "twisting path," but some of the rugged ones I also enjoy. Jane Eyre is included in the link of "rugged and difficult" books, but I find it completely absorbing. The Count of Monte Christo had such an inviting "trail head" that I jogged down it until--wham! I hit a very steep mountain. I confess I have never finished it.

Twice I've begun it, and twice have turned back. Why do you think I kept going with Jane Eyre and quit with Dumas' novel? Have any of you experienced something similar? What keeps you plugging along a rugged trail?