applies to Rearden’s life.
Consider how a non-plot writer would make Rearden go on strike. Rearden would be sitting at his desk or walking down a country road, thinking the situation over, and he would decide: “Things are pretty bad. I can’t stand it any longer. I’ll quit.” A decision like this might be perfectly proper in real life, but it makes for a lousy story. Such a decision is a purely psychological development, without any action to show the nature and elements of the decision.
Take Dagny, the last of the strikers. So long as she does not understand the death premise in the villains, she thinks, justifiably, that they will ultimately recognize that she is right. Only when she understands the truth—when, at the banquet, she sees the attitude of James Taggart and his crowd toward John Galt and learns that they are going to torture him—is she ready to quit.
If nothing else had happened, however, this would have been a somewhat unsatisfactory way of making her go on strike. That which had represented her tie to the world—her railroad—would not have been directly involved. To dramatize properly Dagny’s act of going on strike, I had to place her in a situation where she must choose between the strike and her railroad. This was the right moment, therefore, to bring in the issue of the collapsing bridge. Dagny leaps to the telephone, hesitates for a last moment—and then the strike wins.
This moment has emotional appeal because it unites all the issues of Dagny’s life—and does so not merely in her mind, but in action. An event takes place, and she has to make a decision about it.
Think of other Romantic plot novels you have read and name to yourself the meaning of the events. Then project what would happen if the same issues were presented without action—i.e., if the conflicts were resolved merely in someone’s mind, while the outward event was nothing but someone sitting in a room or walking down the street. The result would be plotlessness.
To write a plot story, you have to be clear on what issues you want to present and then think of the events that will present those issues in action. In all the above illustrations, I had to find that which is essential to the issue and then build an event around it.
If Rearden decides to quit while sitting at his desk, the fact that he is sitting at his desk is irrelevant to the issue being resolved. Suppose he is driving his automobile and has a traffic accident which makes him interrupt his thinking long enough to call a garage. He is involved in some action while making his decision about quitting, but the action is totally irrelevant to the decision. Or suppose nothing happens on the day Rearden quits, except that Wesley Mouch telephones him from Washington and is rude; i.e., the last straw is a bureaucrat’s bad manners. This has something to do with the issue of rebelling against the looters, but it is not essential to that issue.
Train your mind to think in essentials, not on issues of literature only, but on all issues. This is important for writing a good plot story, and it is even more important for your own life. You do not want a life which is a badly constructed story—a series of unrelated episodes with no purpose, progression, or climax.
You can have a good life structure, as well as a good plot structure, by one method only: you must know essentials. You must recognize what is the important thing in any issue you deal with.
4
The Plot-Theme
The plot-theme is the central conflict that determines the events of a plot. It is the seed enabling you to develop a whole plot structure.
I have said that both the author and the characters of a novel have to be purposeful. In discussing the issue of plot-theme, I am concerned with the first of these points—with how an author sets himself a plot purpose.
Also, I talk here only about plot, not about theme—about you as dramatist, not you as philosopher. If you have a message, that message determines your plot-theme; if not, you start with the plot-theme. In either case, however, the proper literary work starts when you begin to construct a plot—and on this part of the job, the plot comes above your message. I do not mean that you can ever decide on a plot which contradicts your message—if it does, you must select a different plot.