Pondering plot

A few years ago, I went to see novelist Sandra Scofeld speak, and she said one of the main problems she has found in manuscripts from new novelists is "very few events, floating on a sea of feeling." I worry that my NaNo novel will fall into that category, because it's basically about the aftermath of a death. So far, there are only a few events--mainly reactions, flashbacks, a funeral, etc. It's about coping and moving on, so yeah, there's a sea of feeling.

I'm trying to come up with more events for the rest of the novel. I remember reading that Jeanne duPrau, author of a great middle grade novel called The City of Ember, said the key to getting her book right in the final revisions was to make the protagonists active, always making choices and moving forward instead of just reacting to things. But it's tricky with this particular subject matter.

Notably, the novel I read yesterday, Beige, was rather light on plot. It didn't have a lot of events, it was more emotion--a girl getting to know her punk rocker father while wishing she were back home with her mother. Sure, things happened, but it wasn't a page-turner in terms of plot. It did keep me reading, though, because the characters were interesting enough, and I cared about the main character's life. So, I'm hoping I can come up with something that, even if not exactly suspenseful, still manages to keep people engaged with the story.