why is graph paper

SO BEAUTIFUL?


For me, a decidedly imprecise, non-mathematical person to adore graph paper the way I do gives me pause.  But then, I remember speaking to a group of people somewhere (sometimes they let me do that) and I was recalling what a brilliant metaphor math can be for fiction writing.  If you don't know what to do next, look at what's already on the page.  You're constantly trying to balance equations of the emotional or structural or narrative kind.  The hints are all there, just like they are in algebra.  There are knowns and there are unknowns.  Start with what you know and keep working until the unknowns reveal themselves.

I imagine it to look something like this in my brain:

(Hensley stands between cars and throws off pieces from lunch) + (why?) =  The bread tumbles quickly down into the ravine on one side of the tracks and it gives her a jolt of adrenaline.*


I sometimes wish I could graph a book.  Translate each and every sentence into a numerical value and place it on a sheet of tired, old graph paper.  I love plotting points (no pun intended) with a sharp pencil.  I even like all the unknowns.  I just don't always know how to solve for x.

*From my own algebraic work-in-progress.

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