There's an exercise I'll do sometimes with a class in which we'll start with a...

There's an exercise I'll do sometimes with a class in which we'll start with a word; I'll give everyone a word, and they'll write based on that word, and as they're writing I'll interrupt often and tell them to write more on the setting they're developing. I'll stop the process again and give intrusive instructions about developing the character in the setting, and on and on. The purpose of this is to allow the development of the fruit that is already in seedling form on the page. There can be an urge and an anxiety to skip ahead, to get to the action, to get to plot, or to go to the familiar. But plot is a process, and its beginnings can come from very subtle and unexpected places. Story movement and form are going to feel false if they do not happen from some kind of progression, even if {and this is important} the writer is not aware of this process in the moment, even if, as with the Nabokov excerpt, the events happen fast. {Aimee Bender, "On the Making of Orchards"}

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