Riveting Plots - Part I

I have read two wonderful, unputdownable books recently. They don’t have much in common, other than brilliant female authors, unforgettable characters, and riveting plots! After I finished the second book I reflected on what made these two books great—the plots. Writers and writing teachers have produced thousands of tomes on how to write a good book. But the art and science of teaching creative writing can be traced to Aristotle, who in the fourth century BCE proclaimed a unified plot should include a beginning, middle, and end, cause and effect, and a resolution of the conflict or crisis.  

Madison Smartt Bell, in his book Narrative Design, argues that “to teach creative writing or to be taught it, is a paradox” and “fiction workshops are inherently almost incapable of recognizing success” (Bell 3, 6). However, he states this in a book purporting to teach aspiring writers! Bell believes that “form is where it’s at” (18). He defines form in several ways: “underlying structure”; “form is what reveals the intended total effect”; “the form of a work is its skeleton”; “the pattern of its assembly”; “overall design” (Bell). I’ll look at both plot and form as I examine these books. 

In Someone Else’s Shoes, Jojo Moyes introduces two female characters who appear to be quite different. One is young, beautiful, and wealthy. The other is middle-aged, somewhat frumpy, unappreciated, and harassed at work. They do have one thing in common—the gym. After the older woman accidentally takes the younger woman’s gym bag—the inciting incident—the fun begins.

In a series of just-misses and mishaps, the two women are each embroiled in their own conflicts and dramas. Nisha Cantor’s husband has locked her out and wants to divorce her, leaving Nisha with nothing—no clothes, no money, no ID, and no shoes! Sam’s husband is depressed after the death of his father, and we don’t learn until the end the real reason for the trauma. Nisha doesn’t have a job and Sam is unappreciated and undervalued at work, but when Sam wears the Christian Louboutin red crocodile shoes she discovers in the gym bag she took (thinking it was hers), she experiences a boost of self-confidence and sexiness.

What makes the plot riveting?

• an unlikely pairing of characters
• strong minor characters
• woman power
• original plot
• two very different points of view
• plot twists - what about those shoes is so valuable?
• character growth - both the main characters and others
• humor
• realistic dialogue

Moyes pulls the reader in and makes us care about her characters, as she does brilliantly in all her books. I wanted to get to the end to find out the outcome of the shoes and the characters! I laughed, I cried, I sped up and read faster, I slowed down to catch every word.

The backbone of the book, the underlying structure, in my view, is the ability of women to forge a space for themselves in the world together. Nisha and Sam go from enemies to friends, thrown together by a pair of shoes. Strong women are even stronger together. That’s the backbone of the book.. and I loved it!