It is also an inspirational work that really gets me excited to write. And sometimes additional motivation is very necessary!

i never thought of plot that way. i suppose plot = art and creativity. the loss of plot in television and movies has created media like twinkies, addicting and ultimately unsatisfying, leaving us hungry, always hungry.

your article makes me want to know more about plot and true storytelling.

Many forms of art and human expression experience this, a push forward and then a “back to basics” reaction, usually with a twist that makes it not exactly the same as in the past but different from what just transpired.

This description (mine) is an oversimplification of the process I see but I have no immediate explanation for why this happens, nor what triggers it and when.

I notice some of these patterns in odd places, like looking at what offensive and defensive formations are in vogue in pro football. The single wing, the modern T formation, the I formation, Cover Two, the 4-3 vs. the 3-4, the misnamed West Coast offense, etc, etc.

Whatever is new is often a reaction to what currently exists, a craving for something different. “Perhaps it will be new and better!” we think. And sometimes that new thing could be a reaction to things outside the obvious realm.

For example, many times there is a move to simplify sports once things get complex and get back to “putting the best athletes on the field and letting them do what they do best.”

Does that mean that the revival of the “Wildcat” formation in the NFL (taken from the pros and earlier from the single wing) was perhaps as much a reaction to the complexity of America’s position in the modern political world as it is to the complexity of a football team’s playbook or the defenses they face?

I don’t really know. But it is an interesting thing to ponder. Likewise, I don’t think plot ever went away but it perhaps wasn’t the hot new trend to follow and now people are calling for a return to it as a way of making the old seem new again. And quite possibly as a way to simplify our literary goals in the context of a complex world.

I think we’re coming round to another new way of looking at the world, which isn’t postmodernism. Transmodernism? Something. One that’s able to recapture and recycle what’s valuable from earlier stages – things like plot.

(And by the way, I’m one of those adults who reads YA fiction, exactly because it tells a good, uncluttered story in which things happen and people change as a result.)