Prose Over Plot

I am attracted to sentences that are prettily strung together. I care less about what happens in a story, how the characters behave, and more about savoring and dissecting each line.

Why read if you don’t love how the sentences sound, in your head or out loud? I mean, you’d be better off watching a movie if all you care about is plot. (Nothing against movies, of course, but they are an entirely different experience.) On film, the art is visual; in books, the art is intellectual. It is the appreciation and full use of language. Writing is to creatively put thought into words. It is to thoroughly convey meaning in a way deeper than voice ever could, to become as close to fully understanding another human as we’ll ever get.

I am obsessed with reading because of the beautiful sentence structures and beautiful ideas that can be found on a page. It stimulates my mind and fills my brain with joy. For me, it all started in fourth grade with Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt. I am so thankful to Babbitt for putting her art into the world. She made me who I am–no exaggeration. She created an energy and interest inside of me that has decided the direction my life has taken and is taking. 

With a sentence like, “Outside, the night seemed poised on tiptoe, waiting, waiting, holding its breath for the storm,” how could I not be influenced? At nine years of age, her writing became my gold standard. From then on, I needed to read every book I could find that sounded even remotely as lovely as Tuck Everlasting. 

The “lovely sound” of books, I must admit, is subject to opinion. Though I may never understand how someone could find the above quotes ordinary and boring, I also recognize that I may miss out on reading a lot of conventionally great books because they just aren’t what I’m looking for; they don’t fulfill me. And that’s okay.

In turn, I must wonder, if the books we all best relate to, the sentences that skillfully express our innermost thoughts, don’t signal a connection between author and reader, something of the same personality or experience. This similarity in personality must be rare to find in the people around us, so we search for the connection in books. We find kinship in authors from around the world and many that have been long dead. And it’s because of their prose–the way they think and write about the world–and not the story they tell.

Prose will always win over plot. Give me the books where little happens but a lot is said.

And so it continues, on forever. Like a wealthy man striving after money, we’ll always be yearning for the internal sound of beauty.