[Writerpreneur] Riveting Storytelling 03

THE ART OF PLOTTING: Plotting is the art of making story hang together. It's a connected sequence of scenes. Its essence is continuity. And it's more interesting than real life, with more drama...

PLOTTING is, to use Shakespeare’s phrase, ‘‘as easy as lying.” But like lying, it has to be learned. No one is born with the ability to plot. After a little experience, the beginner will be likely to say with the poet:

Oh, what a tangled web we weave

When first we practice to deceive!

But – in plotting, as in lying, practice makes perfect.

The reader demands a plot because in his fiction he seeks escape from dull reality, and emotional release.

He therefore demands a story that offers more interest than real life can, and a story that is also plausible.

Essentially, he desires yarn exceeding real life in both drama and coherence. He wants a simple tall tale that “hangs together.”

PLOTTING, THEN, IS THE ART OF MAKING THE STORY HANG TOGETHER. Without coherence, continuity, logical sequence and arranged events, both interest and plausibility suffer. A plotter uses surprise to build suspense yet maintains plausibility.

A plot is a connected sequence of scenes. The essence of plot is continuity.

In this sense plot does not occur in nature. Nature, at any rate from our point of view, is casual, is disjointed, and its continuity is on such a large and complex scale that our limited minds cannot comprehend it. We crave something more immediately dramatic and exciting than the slow-grinding mills of the gods.

Therefore, although there are characters in nature and scenes in nature, there are no good plots in nature. A good plot is too tightly woven, too streamlined, to be found there.

Objectifications.

In one sense, however, a plot may be said to exist in nature — in the mind of humanity. Effective plots embody prevalent mentalities.

Good plots reflect human cognitive patterns; they simplify nature for our minds. This means that all the standard plots were long ago made to order by mankind. And that telling a story means presenting the ancient pattern, or plot, by devising a connected series of new scenes in which new characters may act out the old story. Plot thus represents what the reader wishes to imagine, feel and so believe. Writers use scene, character, setting, enabling reader acceptance of impossible plots.

It is noteworthy that the greatest writers have seldom bothered to invent new plots. Shakespeare never did: he preferred to put his efforts into the scenes and the characterization, where his genius had some chance of displaying originality. All the good plots are as old as the hills. Only mankind at large can invent new plots, if ever they are to be invented. So it’s manifest that the only opportunity for originality and artistry lies in the scene, in the characters, in the setting and in the style. We cannot achieve utterly novel plots until we create a new race of men.

The Two Basic Plots.

...arise from the two basic patterns of humanity: the story of the Doer and the story of the Sufferer.

These are sometimes separate, but are generally combined.

The first is the foundation plot of all tales of adventure, of brave men and daring enterprise—in short, the story of Man. For man is centrifugal, the wanderer and fighter, the lover of danger and distance: Achilles, Odysseus. The second is the foundation plot of many of the best stories of endurance—in short, the story of Woman.

Female endurance surpasses that of males, according to biologists and actuaries. She is centripetal, she stays and bears it. In the old trite phrase, the woman pays. The aptness of this plot and its universal popularity is shown by the wide success of the story of Patient Griselda, as often as it presents itself in a well-written book: The Good Earth, Gone with the Wind, Riders to the Sea — the list goes on forever. Each sex has a pattern plot, and these two are the basic plots of all narrative literature.

And so of other popular plots: they are not created by single man, but of all men. They are as much a part of humanity as its states of mind.

Thus Cinderella: Everyone has felt that a little help might reveal the man he believes himself to be. If only he had a little capital, an influential friend, a better job, better health or family connections. In short, if only he had a fairy godmother he could make a brilliant success and achieve his ambitions. The Cinderella story shows what happens to one who has the fairy godmother. It is the objectification of the state of mind described above.

Second, we have the story of the Man Who Redeems Himself.

Here we find another familiar pattern. Everyone when in adverse circumstances, or after suffering a slight or defeat or disappointment, has felt that he can and will overcome his handicaps, revenge himself upon his oppressors and stand forth once more as a successful conqueror. This feeling is expressed in the common phrases, “A man may be down but he is never out” and “You cannot keep a good man down.” The innumerable stories on this theme are only objectifications of this state of mind.

And so with all good plots. They were made long ago by mankind. All that the reader requires of you is to know those plots when you see them and to retell them freshly, with ingenuity and novelty of detail. Your reader desperately wishes to believe these fairy tales. It is your task to make that possible for him.

To succeed, depict relatable conflict concerning significant themes: honor, love, mortality. Remember, too, that the English-speaking person is likely to be one who is ashamed to feel or exhibit emotion. He believes emotional release requires strong justification. Your reader is also demanding a dream of you.

Fiction is an illusion, a dream which you invent for those of less imaginative minds. Amazing things happen in our dreams, yet we never question them. It is this psychology which your reader demands of you and which you must give him. You must give him the astonishing visions of a dream, but you must never allow him to become so surprised that he awakens from the spell you have cast upon him. To keep him dreaming, there must be method in his madness. You supply that.

Materials Of The Plot.

Trouble, conflict, is the material of fiction. This conflict takes the form of a tough adjustment of the natural selfish desires to social or unselfish requirements; an adjustment of the natural man to everything outside his natural desires. Everything outside includes a great deal, most of the universe in fact—it includes the supernatural and physical worlds and social requirements in the narrower sense of the word. Here we must understand the term “social requirement’’ to include every adjustment of a man’s natural desires—for example, to the demands of his conscience, to “getting right with God,” to accepting a new idea, or gaining control of the forces of nature, or overcoming human adversaries.

Thus, a man grappling with his conscience, a woman testing a new hat, or a sheriff engaging in a gunfight with a rustler are all attempting to align personal wishes with societal norms.

Such adjustments are vital in real life. Some seem more important than others; for example, war, love and religion. Linked adjustment attempts create fictional conflict, the basis of plot.

Main Divisions of Plot.

The fiction reader likes something easy to grasp. He likes a well-rounded plot with three main divisions, a Beginning, a Middle and an End.

The Beginning should answer the reader’s question, ‘“What is going on here?” The Middle should answer the reader’s question, “How will this turn out?” or “Can the hero solve this?” The End should answer the reader’s question, “So that’s the way it had to be?’’

Every beginning requires a defined central conflict. In every Middle the reader must see the conflict worked out to a decision. In every End, the reader must understand the conflict’s resolution and its consequences.

A plot may comprise a single scene. In such a plot, the beginning reveals the meeting and purpose. In the Middle we find the encounter developed step by step up to the moment of the final action. In the End the final action and its sequel are presented.

Most stories, however, contain more than one scene, and often there will be several scenes in the Beginning, several in the Middle and several in the End. The basic structure of the plot, however is no different.

The Plot Equation.

A satisfactory plot is thus an almost mathematical equation in which strong conflicting emotions meet head on, forcing an agonizing decision by the hero between two courses of action, one selfish, the other unselfish. The right decision, worked out, results in a satisfactory solution through which selfish and social requirements fuse and our hero finds it possible to be both “good” and ‘‘happy.” Mr Foster Harris has well stated this equation (in Writer’s Digest, July 1939):

“Conflicting Emotions plus Correct Moral Principle, Correctly Applied, equals Satisfactory Unified Solution.”

It cannot be too often insisted upon that the story is a story of emotions, not of people and things. These exist to make the conflict visible and real to readers. It is true, of course, that the author finds certain subjects exciting to him—cattle, soldiers, night clubs, babies, business matters. He can write well only of what excites him. But no matter how he incarnates his emotions—in cowboys, gangsters or children—his genuine conflict is a fight between emotions. It all takes place in the clouds, though it is expressed in terms of sublunary things.

In short, fiction is an account of that eternal dubious battle on the plains of Heaven. An author is like a man compelled to use the sign language: he expresses ideas, emotions, attitudes, but he does it with his hands. His story demonstrates intangibles. He speaks in parables. The conflict, then, is between emotions.

It is better if these conflicting emotions are quite simple ones which can, and sometimes do, collide in real life. The emotions may both be “good,” i.e., natural, and not ‘‘evil,” or one may be good and the other bad, or both may be bad. Each may be embodied in a single person, or both may be fighting in the heart of a single character. The reconciliation makes the story.

For example, in the story “Pleasure Trip,’ by Margaret Thompson, as published in Good Housekeeping, you find two characters, Uncle Joe and his wife, Aunt Em. Uncle Joe wants to travel.

Aunt Em wants to stay at home, where she has a lovely garden and all the things she loves to take care of in the big old house. These emotions are complicated because Uncle Joe loves Aunt Em and she loves him. Since it is her story, the conflict is in her heart. If she cared nothing for him, she could be happy with her garden and let him go. Instead, she’s compelled to find a solution.

She must choose between the two evils of giving up her garden for Uncle Joe or throwing Uncle Joe’s desires overboard for the sake of the garden. Since Aunt Em is the heroine, she can do nothing but sacrifice her selfish desires for the man she loves. It breaks her heart to think of leaving her flowers, but she agrees to go on the world cruise with her husband. And so, it appears that her garden is lost.

However, the town council, knowing that Aunt Em is such a wonderful woman, assigns the city gardener to work and tend her flowers while she is gone, and even gives her money to buy plants in the countries which she is to visit, so that she may beautify her home town on her return. Thus the community cancels all her objections to going, and she finds herself eager to go now, because she will not only be making Uncle Joe happy, but enriching and beautifying her beloved home.

As in all good plots, there is a glaring impossibility here. That Aunt Em has no misgivings on turning over her garden to the city gardener. But by its careful handling the author shows how to make us swallow that camel.

An action story might embody the two emotions in two persons. In such a story the hero shoots it out with the villain and destroys the selfish emotion by destroying the man it inhabits.

But the formula is the same in both cases. There are both decision and accomplishment in both stories. (In some yarns, the story begins with, or even before, the decision.)

In others it comes near the end. But there must always be a decision in any good story.) This brings us to a distinction between the fiction intended for women readers, found in slick magazines, and fiction intended for men readers, wherever found. The difference arises from the different roles played by the two sexes.

“Man’s work is from sun to sun,’’ and unless he is an executive —or a writer—he can drop his worries with his tools when the whistle blows, and relax until he goes to work the next morning.

His father impressed upon him from childhood that his fate is in his own hands, and that his success or failure will result from his own effort or lack of effort. Such a trained worker will not heavily rely on Providence. He takes no stock in Santa Claus, and expects to solve his difficulties himself.

Therefore, in stories intended for male readers, it is not only necessary for the hero to make a correct decision. He must also achieve his own salvation after making the decision. It is for this reason that stories intended that men sometimes decide quite early in the story, or even before the story begins, and devote themselves mostly to the action leading to the desired solution.

“Woman’s work is never done.’’ Most of her problems are never fully solved, but repeat themselves with maddening regularity. Her children are always in her thoughts, and she always retires at night with a list of undone tasks. She therefore is no believer in any human solution for her difficulties, and feels in her heart that only a miracle will bring her to the end of her problems.

She either prefers a story where the problem is unreal (a mere misunderstanding to be solved by a discovery and a reversal), or a story where the deserving heroine solves her problem with outside help – from Santa Claus or Providence or from some benevolent male.

There are, of course, some stories intended for women readers in which the heroine herself, after making the correct decision, goes to work and solves her own problems for herself. But these stories are almost as rare as the dauntless and energetic persons who appear in them. The ordinary woman reader, seeking escape from dull routine, wants her heroine to ‘‘worry along”’ just as she does and somehow “get by” because she has good intentions.

Many women’s narratives feature a climactic decision, positioned at the story’s end; the narrative focuses on preceding events.

There is another striking difference between fiction intended for men and fiction intended for women, a difference not of form or formula, but of emphasis on subject matter. The difference arises from the difference in their respective techniques of living.

A woman watching football cares mostly about the score. She knows little and cares less about the skill exhibited in the various plays. She knows only that there is a fair-haired boy in danger on that field and hopes he may quickly make a touchdown and win the game. The male spectator, though interested in victory, derives most of his satisfaction from his appreciation of the skill and strength and courage displayed by the players, and interests himself in these.

It is often the same with women about business. Women are interested in the resulting income, but seldom in the methods of obtaining it.

A woman’s reality functions in reverse. Success solely motivates this man. He desires to kiss or marry the pretty girl as expeditiously as possible. She, however, is perhaps less interested in the consummation of his caress than in the preliminary interplay of courtship. Her world mirrors his: she’s intensely interested in love, as he is business/sport strategy.

Each sex in its own world is practical and concerns itself with practical methods. In the world of the other it may be concerned only with results. Remember this when writing for either men or women. Although similar in thought, men and women concentrate on different facets of their concerns.

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There is an art to plotting. And four elements that always show up in any plot.

Now we can identify those and hang all our other plotting work on those pegs. We can start learning devises to use, and those to avoid...

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

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This excerpt is from “Forgotten Bestseller Secrets” — one of the Writerpreneur Series. You can get instant access to your own digital ebook copy and all its three mini-course transcripts from that author-direct, pay-what-you-want link.

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