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The German playwright and novelist Gustav Freytag wrote Die Technik des Dramas, a definitive study of the five-act dramatic structure, or arc, in which he laid out what has come to be known as Freytag’s pyramid. Under Freytag’s pyramid, the plot of a story consists of five parts. (Definition paraphrased from Wikipedia).
1. Backstory/Exposition: The story begins in late January, 2020, when the debut novelist (nine months out from pub day) hears an international news piece about contagion on cruise ships. The author is on a cruise ship; a three-week trip around South America. The ship staff have protocols—lifeboat drills and announcements, outside doors locked in high seas. The author lines up with the other passengers, and like obedient preschoolers they insert hands into a portable spray-sanitizer station before returning onboard after shore excursions. She finds the delay an inconvenience, the alcohol gel irritating. She starts to carry scented hand cream. The term “Legionnaires disease” circulates and goes away. From Buenos Aires, the author telephones a foundation in France to secure the use of a photograph from 1930 for cover artwork. At sea, she is frantic for a good internet connection; final blurbs are trickling in, the cover design is finalized, and the title font.
Then, somewhere near the Falkland Islands, there is a new page up on Amazon, with her own name and a preorder link for her book. The author drinks free shipboard Champagne and Googles her title over and over and each time it hits she feels a little thrill. She posts photographs of the cover design on her Instagram page along with whales and seals and by then, the cruise is over and she returns home, anxious to begin pre-publication marketing of her debut novel.
Inciting Incident: CNN reports about a ‘wet market’ and pangolins, and the world gets stranger and stranger. “Those poor authors who have books coming out in June!” the author laments, with shallow sympathy and large-but-silently selfish relief, that her book does not come out until August 2020, and all this virus foolishness will be old news.
The author has a live reading with a poet in late February, in a bookshop, and tells herself that by August and launch time, she will have her talking points and gestures down. She orders a Great Outfit for the book festival talk, along with mounted posters of her book cover to stand in the background behind the podium. The Great Outfit is expensive; a little edgy-in-a-good-way, and she rationalizes that it will help her feel confident at public appearances.
2. Rising action: By March, signs of spring are appearing, but the author’s focus is not on her garden. The news is sobering. Dr. Fauci is introduced into the plot. The author worries about elder loved ones and is afraid to get on a plane and fly halfway across the country and stay in a hotel and mingle with thousands of people in a convention center. Thousands of attendees back out, thousands vow to go anyway. She cancels attending AWP at the last minute. She feels bad for the members of her speaking panel, but they replace her easily.
She doubts her judgment. Was she being overly cautious?
August arrives, the news cites deaths and, implausibly, shortages. For the first time, the author finds comfort in owning a 36-pack of toilet paper. Bookstores have canceled live events. The author sends out sixty small bottles of Champagne and bookmarks—invitations to a virtual book launch. The internet is flooded with virtual book events, but, she reasons, if a potential reader receives a small bottle of Champagne in the mail, they’ll feel guilty if they drink it but don’t watch the corresponding event and buy a copy of the book.
Launch date arrives and passes. All festivals, book clubs, and conferences are now canceled or virtual. The author and her publisher and hard-working publicist promote the hell out of the book, while the publicist juggles two small children at home, out of school indefinitely.
Reviews are pretty good, book sales, not so much.
Bookshops lock out customers; curbside only. A book festival in one state is canceled, another goes virtual. The panel the author was to moderate is canceled. Suddenly, bestselling authors are available from their living rooms. “What are all these settings on Zoom?” the author wonders. She becomes familiar with time zones and orders something called a “ring light” with a remote control and settings—warm light, cool light, bright/dim/medium. She prefers warm/dim. She watches YouTube videos about makeup for screen events. She irons her hair and sews masks until there is a shortage of elastic.
At Christmastime, the author’s daughter calls from the Amtrak train en route from New York, not feeling well. Once home, they avoid hugging, isolate. The test is positive, they open presents on the porch outside. The daughter recovers and returns to New York. The author worries.
3. Climax: A vaccine! The author celebrates with like-minded citizens and stays home until her turn comes to get the shot. She is glad she stopped dyeing her hair in 2018. She gets a puppy. They already have two dogs. She begins to feel cautiously hopeful about the launch of Book Two, scheduled for August 2021. Browsing online, she notices that the Great Outfit is now 60% off. Hers still has the tags attached.
4. Falling Action: Skip time, to May 2021- a grandchild is born; joy survives along with the author and her family. The world is sad, and frightening, and divisive.
Skip again, to August. Pub date arrives for Book Two. Another virtual book launch and a timid, masked live reading in a bookshop. The author wears the Great Outfit she bought for launch 1, but the pants are so tight she packs a spare pair in her tote bag, in case of a split seam.
Book Two makes some nice lists, gets featured in a women’s magazine, gets a starred review. Social media is an all-consuming, time-sucking Hydra of self-promotion. From deep in the well of Instagram the author judges her self-worth by follower numbers. It becomes something of a vendetta to weed out accounts who follow/unfollow and she actually pays money for an app that shows who those loser tricksters are. She is merciless and vigilant in unfollowing.
The author has begun to believe what she tells those who ask about a possible third book—that the promotion of books One and Two have been so all-consuming there is nothing left to give to a new story, but she will get back to it, soon. She ceases to fret so much about dog hair on sofa cushions.
Book reviews are pretty good, book sales are so-so.
In the fall of 2021, the author travels for the first time in a long while. In Paris, she wears makeup and real clothes, old habits she falls back into easily. The city is both invigorating and over-stimulating. She weeps to hear live music played, and feels discomfort in crowds. Art and architecture and beautiful food feed her soul. France now requires a Pass Sanitaire, and Parisian pharmacies still sell the best beauty products and they also stick mascara-type wands up the author’s nose before she can get on her plane to come home.
After the respite, she feels hope for the world, and a stirring of creativity.
The author continues to worry over loved ones. In November, the author’s favorite jeans give out and she realizes that her underwear is visible through a thin spot in the seat. After a moment of silent tribute, in which she thanks the jeans for their long service and comfort, she throws them in the trash and signs up for an online weight loss plan. Through the rest of the fall and holidays, the authors alternates between two identical pairs of yoga pants; wearing one for three days; one for four. She practices no yoga. No-one complains. Her daughter comes home for Christmas again, and again tests positive; New York is rife with breakthrough cases.
After Christmas 2021 there is are mounds of snow outside the author’s house; inside, a lot of empty wine bottles. The puppy has grown into a nice dog with occasional separation anxiety issues, the grandchild is now more adorable and has learned to crawl. The author gets a booster shot and hibernates and shovels paths in the snow for the dogs.
Resolution: On January 2nd, 2022 the author gives herself a stern talking to, and opens files on her laptop that have sat stagnant; a novel manuscript she started in 2019. More snow falls, and through the year that is that January, the author teaches herself to use Scrivener. The going is slow at first. Shyly, she re-introduces herself to her own work; it’s been a while. The words are unfamiliar; the pace, she can see, needs tightening, some of the characters feel flat, there is no ending that makes sense. The author notes these flaws critically, as if reviewing the work of a stranger.
5. Denouement: The plot, the author finds, has no satisfying resolution. Not yet, anyway. She tiptoes into Part I. The author remembers meeting these characters before. There were things she liked about them, and flaws. She moves on to Part II, adding details, then returning to the beginning to layer in history and what she has discovered about her characters’ inner workings and backstories. “Eat one elephant at a time” runs through her head; her late mother’s malapropism of a proverb about tackling goals. Outside, the snow starts to melt. The world is slush. The news of new cases gets a little better, but still, deaths are increasing. The author toils away. Part III looms ahead, like a dump truck load of rough, ugly clay with lots of rocks. Sharp rocks. She thinks she needs a bulldozer, but the author only has a trowel. She digs and digs, making small progress.
The ending eludes her.
Into February, the author’s trowel makes progress. There is still a mound of clay, but it is getting smaller. It’s still messy. Her dogs track mud inside. The author Swiffers, edits, kills darlings, breathes a sigh of satisfaction at her efforts. Within hours there is more mud. Outside the author’s back door, only gray, soft-edged mounds of crystalline snow remain. Audacious daffodil leaves poke up through the mud.
The world is trying to reopen.
How has the pandemic affected your writing? Have you struggled to create new work?
Have you experienced publication during Covid? How did it go?