1:22 AM
"Sometimes, however, even the Universal Plot Generator breaks down. You may find, in the course of hacking forth your masterpiece from the living pulp, that none of the plot devices hitherto catalogued, none of these little enemas to the Muse, will keep the story flowing; that you can think of no earthly reason why the characters should have to go through with this absurd sequence of actions save that you want them to, and no earthly reason why they should succeed save that it's in the plot. Despair not. If you follow the handbook, you'll find there's a plot device even for this -- when the author has no choice but to intervene in person. Obviously, this requires a disguise, unless you're terribly postmodernist. The disguise favoured by most writers, not unnaturally, tends to be God, since you get the omnipotence while reserving the right to move in mysterious ways and to remain invisible to mortal eyes.

As if there weren't enough to glean from The Well-Tempered Plot Device (the origin of plot coupons!) and "Economy and efficiency as motivations in fiction", writers and those interested in looking beneath the hood at how fiction works would do well to read the fantastic discussion going on where I found those links over at Making Light. At least three posts from that thread went straight into my quote file, including this from John M. Ford:

"...Which sounds better as a motivation for being exposed to tiger prawns and rye-crazed moose:

"At the end of your journey lies fabulous wealth and power, and vengeance on those who have wronged you!"

or

"At the end of your journey you'll feel a lot better about yourself."

Don't answer at once, think about it for a few chapters. The point being that the story (the force of nature) is about what happens to the characters, good, bad, hench, and comic-relief. The plot (the mechanical device) is just the excuse for being up to your keister in Heavily Armed Objectivist Space Bats in the first place.