That’s become one of my barometers for good fiction: memorability.  The more I read, the more I’ve started judging stories based on what I remember and how well I remember them days later. 

A few examples from recent reads…

• I can’t recall everything that happened in Catcher in the Rye, but I can’t forget lousy, crumby, phony old Holden.
• From Craig Thompson’s graphic novel Blankets, the feelings of sexual and artistic frustration stick with me, as do a few visually compelling images and scenes, while many details are now fuzzy.
• Repeated scenes of being abandoned in a well are what sticks with me from Murakami’s The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle.

See what I mean?

I try to keep this concept in mind when I’m writing, and as I evaluate the strength of the things I’ve written.

One of my characters, Mary, is a young girl constantly getting herself into trouble. Her family’s half-crazy. She’s discovering aspects of the world and herself, but always seems surprised to find this stuff out. I recently wrote a scene about Mary in high school learning about sex and her own body while talking on the phone.

While writing, I got so uncomfortable I wanted to crawl out of my skin. But now that uncomfortable-ness is the thing I most like (and remember) about the piece.

I had the opportunity recently to read the story out loud and was thrilled to have validation from others who appreciated that inherent tension in. I hope it was memorable.

In other pieces I’ve written, I may like the humor in a story about Mary’s Great Aunt Dee or parts of  a family reunion story, but character and humor alone is not enough to make a story memorable. Especially when there’s not plot.

Here’s the sad truth: as much as I’m a plot-junkie as a reader, I struggle to write a compelling story myself.

I hover around story, but can’t fully get there. I feel like one of those penny’s you throw in those giant plastic donation cones. The penny swirls around and around a zillion times. slowly working it’s way down, then eventually drops through the hole in the middle. I’m always circling around story, but never actually falling into it.

I have a writing friend who says story is unnatural. That life doesn’t happen the way we like stories to, so we have to learn how to construct these alien things. Maybe that’s true.

Sometimes I feel like the spoken work is an easier medium for me to communicate. When I’m in a conversation, I can spin plot-driven stories or get to  great moments of epiphany, and I think, I should write that into a story.

But then I don’t. Or if I do, it doesn’t work the same way. My stories rarely contain great moments of epiphany.

Remember that kids game of “fishing” they usually have at spaghetti feeds or school fundraisers or tiny local fairs? The ones where adults hide behind a curtain and kids hang these sticks with a string and clothes pin over the edge, hoping a “fish” will bite? The adult pinches the clothes pin onto a prize and gives the pole a good yank, pretending to be a fish, and yells, “you’ve got something” to cue the kid to pull up the pole and retrieve the prize.

But there were always those times when none of the adults would see some poor kid’s string. Like maybe she was standing on the very edge or something. She’d just wait and wait, feeling like a shmuck while other kids would pull up their prizes.

That is a long way of saying I feel like one of those prize-wanting kids. Like I keep hanging my pole over the edge, waiting for a story that never comes. I mean, I’m not just waiting, really, I do keep pulling it out and recasting–I am always writing–but still, no good plot. And I’m not sure what else I can do.

Maybe I’m thinking of this process all wrong.

Here’s where I go back to memorable stories I’ve read–stories like Under the Never Sky that have clippy plots and idiosyncratic characters and cool stuff happening. I analyze. What kinds things kept me reading? What do I remember afterwards? Often the best stories deal with things I’m deeply afraid of and characters who find the courage to act in some important way.

I think, maybe I should list of all my fears and write about one. But still, will I find story? Can I wield a plot? Now there’s a big fear.

My own writing strengths include being able to put a sentence together, crafting moments of good imagery, and the ability to create strong characters. But my stories (or lack of) are shit. And there’s no moving subtext. Half the time, I’m not even sure what the thing is about. That’s not good, of course. My ability to “write intentionally” needs work.