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Thread: Lesson 10: Plot Smatterings

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    Research Shinobi Senior Member Tamur's Avatar
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    Default Lesson 10: Plot Smatterings

    Lesson 10: Plot Smatterings

    With our final week thinking about plot, we'll cover a smörgåsbord (have to use my Swedish while I can!) of practical and theoretical ideas. Feel free to peruse this as you need. Some of our participants may have heard these a dozen times over already, while others may have never heard them before.

    Types of Plots

    Though each story is (or should be) a unique take on how to construct a plot, there are some basic categories that are mentioned over and over again when discussing plots. These are, in no particular order:

    • Character against Character
    • Character against Self
    • Character against Nature
    • Character against Society
    • Character against Machine/Technology
    • Character against God/Fate
    • Character against Everybody


    Reading a list like that, it's tempting to ask: why not Character for Self? Character for Society? Et cetera. You can certainly look at a plot that way - Character for Self sounds a lot like the Rocky films, for example. However, these almost always fall into conflict plots. Rocky is primarily a Character against Society storyline, and his triumph is overcoming his social class. Of course there is a lot more there which is what makes it a classic story.

    We won't take the time to go into it as we did with character, but plots which combine plot types are so common as to be almost the rule. Any story with some degree of complexity will interweave a couple (or more) different plot types. Since I'm on a Rocky kick, there are elements in that story of Character against Character, Character against Self, Character against God/Fate, Character against Everybody, and as mentioned, Character against Society - all interwoven so you don't notice as you're experiencing the story but very evident on reflection.

    Time Sequence and Plot

    Fiction, like music, is a temporal art form. That is, time moves onward as the plot unfolds and the story takes shape. Taking the analogy of music, tempo is important. A big-bang opening will wow your audience into reading onward, just as a loud rock concert will hook an audience. The risk is boring your audience with a slow section immediately following that drags on too long, or keeping the tempo up so long that your readers come to feel that it's artifice only.

    A quote from a writing teacher named Josip Novakovich might come in handy here: "From the start, a piece of fiction should move quickly, and when it decelerates, it should become lyrical and thoughtful... A slow movement without lyricism and thought is untenable, as is a quick movement without an orchestrated rush of action."

    Along with the tempo is the consideration of whether to use a broken or straightforward time sequence (i.e. straight "present" narrative versus using flashbacks). In general it's best to use a forward-only time sequence. I'm sure we can all think of good examples of stories which flash back to past events as the "present" of the story is unfolding, though, so use it but use it thoughtfully.

    Where It Starts & Ends

    In our first discussion of plot, we talked about constructing plot by picking a high point and either building backwards or forwards from that point. But where do you actually start the story that your reader will read, and what are the benefits and downsides to the different approaches?

    Starting at the beginning of a central conflict and ending with the resolution is straightforward and can be fulfilling for your reader, but if the resolution is predictable it will be a major turn-off. Also, this structure can be very slow if it's more than twenty pages and not interwoven with plenty of other material to keep your reader's mind busy.

    Starting in the middle of this conflict and supplying background material in summary form (remember summary?) is a way to avoid the slowness of the previous plot structure. The risk with this is not giving enough background quickly enough so your reader knows what's going on. One of the most frustrating experiences a reader can have is to have backstory obviously underpinning a scene and have that backstory explained twenty pages later. On the other hand, it can be downright miserable to read a story where the backstory has been well-paced and then suddenly run into a huge glut of backstory ten pages from the end. This might work for a seven-volume set by J. K. Rowling, but it's not likely to fly well in a shorter piece of fiction.

    Starting near the resolution and going way, way backwards (Somewhere In Time, The Last Emperor, etc... lots of these) is instantly intriguing. The reader wants to know, What lead to this event? How did these people become like this? Who's missing? However, you have to be careful how you go backwards, to make sure the details of how the ending came to be don't flow out too quickly, or too slowly.

    The End

    I didn't even cover half of what I wanted to! But my word limit is telling me it's time to wrap it up. The exercise this week can't possibly cover all this material, so we'll focus and be a bit free with this one.

    Exercise: due before you sleep on Tuesday, 8 July

    Length: one to two pages

    1. Write a short plot summary. For an example of what I mean with this, see below.

    2. Choose from the events in your summary (mentioned or vaguely referred to) and write a short opening of this story, wherever you choose to open it. One-half to one page.

    3. Write the closing of this story, wherever you choose to close it. One-half to one page.

    4. Post your summary, and then both of the opening and closing writing in the Exercise 10 thread.

    Example plot summary:

    Joe spent a lot of time protesting on various environmental issues while growing up. He used a lot of anger built up in his home life to create a drive to protest ever more bitterly. When he came to be about twenty-two years old, he went out to sea on a Greenpeace ship to try to halt a Russian whale harvest off the coast of Alaska. During the major confrontation on this cruise, Joe shouted abusive phrases in Russian at the whalers. The whalers starting firing back with handguns. Joe, in his fright and need to get away, ran headlong into a teenage protestor near the railing of the Greenpeace ship, and knocked her overboard. This teen protestor fell and hit one of the smaller boats tied to the side of the big Greenpeace ship, breaking the teen's spine and paralysing her from the waist down. The Greenpeace sailors were able to rescue her, but Joe was horrified with this life-changing accident he forced on her. The paralysed protestor and Joe talked after a surgery. Joe endured a lot of verbal abuse from the girl, and the meeting ended very badly. Seeing how bitter the victim of the accident had become, Joe let go of his anger at his childhood, and worked to help this girl heal internally, hoping that she doesn't end up walking the same road he did.
    Last edited by Tamur; 07-02-2008 at 06:01.
    "Die Wahrheit ruht in Gott / Uns bleibt das Forschen." Johann von Müller

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