How a cookie is like a plot

In grade four I had a spelling book that had a recipe for Thumbprint cookies. What’s a spelling book? And why didn’t you just use spell check? you ask.

Hold on, let me get my Roy Rodgers & Dale Evans lunch box, time travel back to grade four and answer that question. Clearly, spell check, and the world wide interwebz hadn’t yet been invented by aliens.                                                                          

Why my spelling book had a cookie recipe is an even better question.  

So, the assignment was to go home and make Thumbprint cookies. What’s a Thumbprint cookie? It’s a cookie that you press a thumbprint into (hand sanitizer wasn't invented either!) and then fill the resulting crater with jam. My big sis and I made the cookies.

Nice story Jan, how does this relate to writing?

Hold on, stick with me, just need to finish this cookie that I got at Lena’s Italian Market.

Every kid made the cookies from the same recipe but they were all different. 

Just like the plot of a book. 

All books need a plot and plot devices, but you can take the same story idea, give it to five different authors and you’ll have five different stories. 

So, write the story you want to write – it is unique to you. Don’t write what you think is popular right now in the market – unless you want to write that.

And don’t read spelling books looking for cookie recipes.