“Never Mistake Location for Plot."

On genre, imagination, and the freedom to write beyond categories.

A few days ago, I was listening to Neal Brennan’s podcast Blocks, where Jason Reitman shared a story about watching the TV show 24 with his father, Ivan Reitman. After three episodes, Jason turned to him and asked, “There are so many shows about terrorism—why is this one so much better than the others?”

His father looked at him and said, “It’s not a show about terrorism. It’s a show about a father fighting to keep his family together. Never mistake location for plot.”

I had to pause the podcast for a few hours at my day job while I turned the idea over in my mind. It put into words something I’ve been struggling with for almost a year about genre.

When I was younger, I fell in love with epic fantasy and thought that was my wheelhouse. But in every fantasy novel I read back then, there was always a war. Somewhere along the way, I convinced myself that every epic story needed one to make the world real.

Maybe I’m simply not as well read as others, but I’ve always gravitated toward a few specific genres: epic fantasy, spy thrillers, and science fiction. With the exception of thrillers, I prefer long-form series—the kind that begin when the protagonist is still a child and let us grow up alongside them.

What I’ve noticed, though, is that almost every story—no matter the genre—seems to begin on our Earth. Science fiction might leap into the future, thrillers might stretch across continents, but the world itself is still recognizable. Epic fantasy, on the other hand, feels like the outlier: it asks us to believe in entirely new worlds. It’s treated as a niche, even though its ambition is the same as any other grand, sweeping narrative.

So why don’t we think of it as Epic Fiction instead of Epic Fantasy? Why don’t we see more stories of romance, espionage, or even literary realism set in worlds that aren’t ours? Why do we accept that “serious” fiction happens here, and “impossible” fiction happens somewhere else?

I’d be the first in line to buy a fictional biography of someone from an alternate reality—or a young adult novel set in a world of mythical beings, told as if that’s simply normal. No explanations, no “as you know” exposition. Just a story that trusts us to accept its reality and move on.

I read a book recently where, a few pages in, the animals just started talking. No explanation, no origin story, no scientific justification—they simply did. I stopped reading for a moment, realizing the author had never told us animals could talk in this world. They just trusted us to accept it and keep going. And I did.

---

I want to get back to what Ivan Reitman said about the show 24. I watched the first few seasons as well back when I was in High School and loved it as well. But I don’t remember ever thinking about it in the terms of Jack Bauer struggling to keep his family together. I certainly remember all those plot lines, but it was just part of the story.

Hearing Jason talk about his dad made me think of something else I once heard—the story of C.S. Lewis’s first vision for The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. It wasn’t Aslan or the kids, but Mr. Tumnus walking through the snowy woods.

Between those two moments, I started wondering if every story begins with one image or one feeling the writer can’t shake. Maybe that’s the real plot and everything else circles it. So, I started thinking back on films I’ve seen and asking myself which single scene might have been that first spark—or which scene was the point of the entire movie.

For some reason, I kept coming back to a movie that absolutely devastated me — The Book of Henry. If you haven’t seen it, consider this your spoiler warning. Pause here, watch it first if you want the full experience, and then come back.

There’s one scene I can’t forget. Henry, a child genius, is grocery shopping with his mother and younger brother when he notices a man abusing his wife/girlfriend. He starts toward them, ready to intervene, but his mother yanks him back and says, “It’s not our problem.”

Everything else that happens in that movie I believe goes back to that scene and society believing it isn’t incumbent on us to protect others, even if it costs us everything.

Later, Henry learns that the girl next door is being abused by her father. He reports it, only to discover the father’s brother leads the local office that investigates crimes against children. The system is rigged, and Henry, believing no one will act, begins plotting the man’s murder. Before his plan can unfold, Henry is diagnosed with brain cancer and dies, leaving behind a journal that outlines how his mother should carry out the killing herself and adopt the girl.

Throughout the film, the mother defers to Henry’s intellect, forgetting her own. Her intelligence may be less deep than his, but it should have been wider. Henry was brilliant but only saw the local systems. She should have seen the larger, federal systems.

I remember seeing the film in theaters; two elderly women in front of me were crying when the credits rolled. I told them Henry had to die—it was the only way for him to remain pure. He never realized, and neither did his mother, that there was a higher authority they could have called: the FBI.

It’s true that this was meant to be a small story in a small town, and bringing in the federal government would have changed its scope. But in the end, the mother never takes the shot. And it isn’t she who saves the girl—it’s the teacher, who sees the girl dancing at the school talent show and finally acts. Or maybe she always knew, and like Henry’s mother in the grocery store, had been telling herself, this isn’t my problem.

---

I don’t even know how to classify The Book of Henry. It isn’t really a coming-of-age story, or a thriller, or a crime drama. It just wears those shapes for a while. What it is, is a story about people telling themselves it’s not our problem. The genre doesn’t matter. The location doesn’t matter. The plot, at its heart, is about our desire to not be involved.

When Ivan Reitman said, “Never mistake location for plot,” I think that’s what he meant. The location can be a counterterrorism unit, a suburban neighborhood, or an imagined world with talking animals. But the plot—the story—is always about something human, something emotional. Maybe genre is just another kind of location. And maybe our job, as writers, is to make sure we don’t mistake it for the story.

---

Thank you for joining me in my meandering thoughts. I hope you will join in the discussion and let me know what you think about Ivan Reitman’s belief that we should never mistake location for plot. And if you agree with me that genre should be viewed the same way.