[Writerpreneur] Riveting Storytelling 05

CONTINUITY DEVICES, PART 1: A great story "hangs together" that's called Plot. It's essence is continuity - which is built due to the forces of Interest and Plausibility

The purpose of plotting is to make the story “hang together.” Thus the essential of a good plot is continuity. The forces which make for continuity are: interest and plausibility.

Interest.

In so far as the plot maintains interest, it does so through arousing curiosity in the Beginning, by maintaining suspense through out the Middle, and allowing the reader to feel content in the End.

As you already know, the principal element in interest is always surprise. Surprise breeds curiosity, and this curiosity will be much increased if a story begins in the midst of the action instead of at the very start. Let your first scene set the conflict going. Later, if necessary, you may show the reader the story behind your story, the events which went before.

Since a plot is not found in nature, since it is essentially false and unreal, because unusual, it will itself provide a sufficiency of interest. From this it follows that the main effort of plotting must be devoted to maintaining plausibility. The devices which make for plausibility are all intended to keep up the illusion, to make the reader swallow the impossible story without once being jarred out of his dream.

Plausibility.

Plausibility is maintained by continuity. The devices which make for continuity may be classified under Preparation and Transition.

Both of these make for anticipation.

Obviously a reader will be more likely to believe something he has accepted before than he will something new and unknown.

From this it follows that every development in your plot must be one familiar from previous reading or one prepared for in the story itself. As a rule we cannot rely much on what a reader should have read before. It is much safer to make sure that everything at all incredible in your plot is prepared for in the story itself.

Preparation in a plot consists for the most part in Planting, Pointing and Repeating.

Let us now consider these three devices, each in turn.

Planting.

By planting we mean informing the reader in advance of the existence of objects, facts, persons, motives and conditions which are to appear later in the story, so that he will not be surprised when they are brought forward.

For example, if a murdered man’s body is to be concealed in the dumb-waiter, it is desirable to let the reader know sometime earlier that a dumb-waiter is on the premises. If a gun is to be taken from a drawer and fired when a burglar enters a room, it is desirable that the reader know in advance that the loaded gun is in that drawer. Otherwise, though he may feel surprised when the gun is produced, he will also feel a lack of plausibility. In like manner persons and motives must be planted before they are produced and put to use in the plot. It will not do to have the rich uncle from Australia step in just in time to pay off the mortgage, unless the reader has known all along that there is an uncle in Australia. And so with motives.

Pointing.

Every well-rounded story is bristling with pointers.

By a pointer we mean a word, phrase or sentence which serves as a sign post and lets the reader know that some event may, might, will or could happen in the future. Thus, in the very beginning of a story, there should be a faint pointer indicating how the problem might be solved. If a character is to commit suicide, there must be a pointer indicating that such an act is possible to him. Pointers are extremely useful not only in producing plausibility for the reader, but in suggesting solutions and developments of plot to the writer.

Not infrequently a writer will put down phrases or sentences which, on examination, turn out to be excellent pointers and suggest complications or solutions better than those he had in mind. On the other hand, pointers may be dangerous, unless the thing they point to actually follows. Sometimes a writer has more pointers in his story than he is aware of, and so raises expectations in his reader’s mind which are bound to be disappointed. If you have this difficulty, you will do well to let some friend read over your manuscript in search of pointers you may have overlooked.

Every useless pointer, needless to say, is misleading and dangerous.

When you have finished your story, you should go back over it and strike out every pointer which is not required. It is astonishing what a large percentage of the words and phrases you employ in a story appear to the reader to be pointers. Make sure, therefore,to have everything pointing in the right direction.

Repetition.

Repetition is an extremely useful device for plausibility, first because it relies upon recognition of what has gone before, and second because the reader finds repetition pleasant and agreeable. Obviously there can be no effort in perceiving what has been perceived before, and this absence of effort is very pleasing to the reader. The first time he encounters something in your story, he may experience surprise and even be puzzled, in which case his emotional reaction will be delayed. But the second or third time he encounters that item, his emotional reaction is immediate, because surprise has given way to recognition. Repetition is particularly essential in comedy, where the timing of emotional reactions is so important.

Repetition in the interest of plausibility is not, as a rule, mere repetition, but is what is known to the critics as incremental repetition. Incremental repetition simply means that something is added each time the item is repeated, so that a slight element of surprise or fresh information is conveyed along with the recognition. Thus, each time the item is repeated, we learn something more which enriches our appreciation.

In English literature repetition commonly arrives in threes.

This is a folkway of our culture; as we say, "the third time is the charm.” It will be to your advantage to repeat things three times, rather than twice or four times, as a rule.

In every paragraph, then, there should be something to prepare the reader for what will be in the paragraph following. In the Beginning of every story there should be scenes which forecast events in the Middle and in the End. Throughout the yarn there must be a continual renewal of suggestion, preparation so that the reader is always ready for what is to happen and always ready for what is coming toward him. Indeed, his interest will depend largely upon his feeling that something is coming.

That is the reason why accident is of so little importance in fiction and why good writers rarely use it. It is not that an accident is not surprising and dramatic. It is that you cannot see an accident coming, since it has no place in the continuous sequence of cause and effect. That is why luck and Providence are of so little use in plotting. You cannot make the reader see Providence coming.

This is well illustrated in the old story of the Greek princess, Cassandra, who had the gift of prophecy and could foresee what was to happen, although she was prevented from making anyone believe in her foreknowledge. To those about her, her warnings were mere ravings, and life went on placidly enough as they all walked over the precipice. But Cassandra lived a wildly exciting life because she could see every disaster approaching with measured strides. Accident played no part in Cassandra’s life. That thrilling life is just what your reader demands, and it can only be provided by preparing him to anticipate the danger, disaster and conflicts as they approach your hero. It is not necessary that the hero be aware of these things, but it is absolutely necessary that the reader see them approaching. Your reader, whether he knows it or not, has the motto of the Boy Scouts: Be Prepared! It is your task to see that he is prepared.

Transitions.

If you have ever been wakened from a pleasant dream and tried vainly to go to sleep again and continue it, you will realize how a reader feels when an author jerks him back to reality in the middle of a story. A dream once broken can rarely be continued. Some other dream may take its place, but it is finished forever.

When you present your reader with a story (which is for him a dream) and then waken him in the middle of it, it is very unlikely that he will return to it. It is much more likely that he will read the next story in the magazine and avoid your work thereafter.

Your object, therefore, must be at all costs to avoid jerking him out of his dream. You must take extreme pains to make every transition in your story an easy one for the reader, so that everything flows along in unbroken continuity.

Thus, in passing from one paragraph to another, some word or phrase should be introduced in one of the later sentences in each paragraph which will plant in the reader’s mind a vague anticipation of what is to be presented in the paragraph following. You will remember that in dreams you often have a vague feeling that something is coming, something dimly foreseen, something to be anticipated. Anticipation is one of the great principles of continuity, and therefore of plausibility.

Anticipation is also of great value for interest. In fact it may be said that anticipation is far more important than realization.

We like to feel something coming much more than we enjoy its actual arrival. For there is a finality about an event. Once a thing has happened it becomes history, and our readers are not reading history.

Perhaps at some time your father took you out into the wood shed with a strap and postponed your punishment while he explained that it was going to hurt him more than it was going to hurt you. You may remember how agonizing those anxious moments were while he stood there talking, whereas when he began to apply the strap a feeling of relief supervened. Actual pain is more easily borne than the fear of pain, and so with any other vivid experience, In the dream that is fiction this psychological truth is even more obvious, since in fiction everything has a preter-natural brightness and significance. Among the means of insuring continuity and smooth transitions to your plot are the following:

Cause and Effect.

Everything in your plot should follow logically from what has gone before. Chance and coincidence should enter only rarely and unimportantly into the story. The reader may be willing to accept your premise that on the island of Lilliput the people are only six inches high, and may delight in following the adventures of your hero on such an island. Your reader, however, will not tolerate any tampering with the facts, once they are established. He expects the author to play the game with him under the rules declared at the beginning. Some authors apparently feel that logic and cause and effect in a plot are only a nuisance. Nothing could be farther from the truth. They are our chief means of insuring plausibility. You may test your plot by stating it in a brief synopsis in which each sentence begins with the word “therefore.” If at any point the word "therefore’" seems out of place, you should make sure that this is due to the intrusion of some new and permissible element and not to inept plotting.

Consistent and Convincing Motivation

...on the part of your characters is essential to sound plotting, since everything that happens should arise from the purposes of your characters. Nothing is so destructive to plausibility as incredible behavior on the part of the characters in the story.

Suspense.

Suspense is the chief reliance of the story writer for maintaining continuity of interest. Suspense may be defined as uncertainty combined with hope or fear. It commonly arises where the reader has been made to care about a character. You should, therefore, take pains to present your chief character sympathetically in the beginning of your story, and afterwards keep him in hot water. Thus to create suspense you must have— an approved hero and a series of increasing dangers threatening him.

The most effective suspense is not, as many foolish people have declared, a childish "curiosity as to what will happen next.” True suspense, and the only kind worth your trouble to create, is an intense anxiety on the part of the reader as to what decision the hero will make in his agonizing hour of choice between selfish, personal desire and social or unselfish requirements. That is why the goody goody hero or the action-story gun-dummy is of no earthly use as a hero; the reader cannot feel suspense, for there is never any doubt what such a puppet will do. That is why a hero without fear is of no use to the writer; if the hero is unafraid, there is no story.

The ideal hero, as Aristotle pointed out centuries ago, is not a blameless man, nor yet a hard-boiled villain, but a man with some frailty, some human weakness, some ruling passion. Such a weakness makes him a good hero because we cannot be sure how he will act in his crisis of decision; such a hero is good because he is on the fence. The author loads the scales first on one side, then on the other, and keeps the reader guessing. In any story, the hero is the fellow on the fence.

Note that suspense is not just anxiety to have the hero come off safe from his dire adventure. Readers are not so stupid, after all these years, as not to know in their hearts that the hero is likely to be saved in the end. They hope that, and they may—at times—fear for him, of course. But their real concern for him is that he shall be a hero in spite of being a man of like passions with them. They want a hero who, frail and mortal as he is, can defy the powers of darkness which threaten to destroy him if he does the right thing, makes the right decision. Of course they like to see him do that—and then be saved after all.

They want a plot in which, every time the hero performs an unselfish act, he is furthered in his attempt; every time he is selfish, he finds it a hindrance. Sometimes this is hard to believe. That is why the reader insists that, once you have posed the hero’s problem, you do not tamper with it or cheat in order to win for him.

Suspense is generally maintained by putting the hero over the jumps through a series of alternate ups and downs commonly known to writers as hindrances and furtherances.

Any attempt, however unsuccessful, on the part of the hero, any wish even, to combat his troubles is a furtherance—a “yes,” a plus sign; any obstacle or opposition to his efforts, even though fruitless, is a hindrance—a "no,” a minus sign. In plotting the middle of your story, as in arranging the encounter of a scene, you will generally arrange these hindrances and furtherances in a series so that every time your hero makes any move to improve his position, something or somebody promptly responds by making his position more difficult than before. Thus a story through out its middle, or a scene throughout the encounter, will be seen to consist of a mere series of plus and minus signs arranged alternately. If the story ends on a plus for the hero, it has a happy ending; if on a minus for the hero, the ending is unhappy. Obviously the writer should provide the ending which will make the reader happy, whatever the fate of the hero.

Thus the formula for suspense is seen to run as follows:

Yes, But, Yes, But, Yes, But, Yes.

Or it may be:

But No, Yes, But No, Yes, But No, Yes, But No.

Owing to the fact that human emotion tends to fade and die away, it is necessary constantly to increase the danger and the effort of the hero as the story proceeds. This may be done by making each complication worse than the one before. The hero is out of the frying pan into the fire. At first he is faced with a mere obstacle, then he is at war with a dangerous adversary, finally with some more than mortal catastrophe. In popular fiction our hero is a superman who manages, as a rule, to cope with everything from inanimate objects to the wrath of God. The readers want him to do that, but they want him to struggle hard doing it. Hence they demand suspense.

The Promise of Conflict.

From what has been said about suspense, it will be apparent that the promise of conflict, or the threat of danger, must never be absent long. The hero or heroine, when ever successful in overcoming a difficulty, must be immediately confronted with another and preferably greater difficulty. Please note that the adverb used in the last sentence is immediately. If you delay in presenting your hero with a new problem you will have lost your reader.

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Next, we have advanced devices. You've run into many of these earlier. Here's where we now clue you into how powerful they are in gluing your story together – just the way your reader prefers...

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(From the works of Walter S. Campbell - founder of the OU Professional Writing courses.)

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