TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter One
INVISIBLE FICTION
Chapter Two
THE LOWEST COMMON
PLOT DENOMINATORS
Chapter Three
THE STRONG FORCE
Chapter Four
DEEP STRUCTURE
Chapter Five
TRIANGLES
Chapter Six
TWENTY MASTER PLOTS: PROLOGUE
Chapter Seven
MASTER PLOT #1: QUEST
Chapter Eight
MASTER PLOT #2: ADVENTURE
Chapter Nine
MASTER PLOT #3: PURSUIT
Chapter Ten
MASTER PLOT #4: RESCUE
Chapter Eleven
MASTER PLOT #5: ESCAPE
Chapter Twelve
MASTER PLOT #6: REVENGE
Chapter Thirteen
MASTER PLOT #7: THE RIDDLE
Chapter Fourteen
MASTER PLOT #8: RIVALRY
Chapter Fifteen
MASTER PLOT #9: UNDERDOG
Chapter Sixteen
MASTER PLOT #10: TEMPTATION
Chapter Seventeen
MASTER PLOT #11: METAMORPHOSIS
Chapter Eighteen
MASTER PLOT #12: TRANSFORMATION
Chapter Nineteen
MASTER PLOT #13: MATURATION
Chapter Twenty
MASTER PLOT #14: LOVE
Chapter Twenty-One
MASTER PLOT #15: FORBIDDEN LOVE
Chapter Twenty-Two
MASTER PLOT #16: SACRIFICE
Chapter Twenty-Three
MASTER PLOT #17: DISCOVERY
Chapter Twenty-Four
MASTER PLOT #18: WRETCHED EXCESS
Chapter Twenty-Five
MASTER PLOTS #19 AND #20: ASCENSION AND DESCENSION
Chapter Twenty-Six
PARTING SHOTS
The shelves of libraries are stacked with the stories of centuries, but out in the street, the air swarms with newly made fiction. These living stories are so much a part of us that we hardly think about their role in our lives: They are rumor, gossip, jokes, excuses, anecdotes, huge outrageous lies and little white lies — all daily inventions of fiction that create the fabric of life.
Stories thrive at the company water cooler, in the lunchroom, at the hairdresser's, in taxis and taverns, in boardrooms and bedrooms. Years of schooling have conditioned us to think about fiction as something either on the page or on the screen, so we overlook the fact that our everyday lives are steeped in stories: full of energy, inventiveness and conviction.
An example of a fiction that was passed along by word of mouth around the English-speaking world is a modern legend known as "The Choking Doberman." Modern legends are stories that pass from person to person as if they were true. ("I swear, it happened to a friend of a friend of mine....") The story is both simple and simply told:
A woman returned to her house after a morning of shopping and found her pet Doberman pinscher choking and unable to breathe. She rushed her dog to the vet, where she left it for emergency treatment.
When the woman got home, her phone was ringing. It was the vet. "Get out of your house now!" he shouted.
"What's the matter?" she asked.
"Just do it! Go to a neighbor's. I'll be right there."
Frightened by the tone of his voice, the woman did as she was told and went to her neighbor's.
A few minutes later, four police cars screeched to a halt in front of her house. The police ran inside her house with their guns drawn. Horrified, the woman went outside to see what was happening.
The vet arrived and explained. When he looked inside her dog's throat, he found two human fingers! He figured the dog had surprised a burglar.
Sure enough, the police found a man in a deep state of shock hiding in the closet and clutching a bloody hand.
(For a complete account of the history of this modern legend and many others like it, see The Vanishing Hitchhiker or The Choking Doberman by Jan Harold Brunvand, W.W. Norton & Co.)
"The Choking Doberman" is an invisible fiction. The story was even reported as true by several newspapers. Yet no one has come forward with a shred of evidence that it ever really happened. Small details change from place to place (such as the number of fingers the dog bit off, the burglar's race, etc.), but the basic story remains the same. People who hear the tale generally accept the story as true (if not with a grain of salt). Few think of it as an outright piece of fiction, which is what it is.
The real value of this legend is that it evolved with constant retelling until it became plot perfect, the same process that perfected the fable, the fairy tale, the riddle, the rhyme and the proverb. The story went through thousands of oral rewrites until it could evolve no further.
"The Choking Doberman" is pure plot. The characters and details that describe place and time take a back seat. The story has three movements:
The first sets up the story by introducing both drama and mystery, when the woman comes home to find her Doberman choking. She takes her dog to the vet.
The second movement starts when the woman returns home and the phone is ringing. An element of danger is introduced when the vet, very agitated, tells her to get out of the house. We know intuitively that the danger is connected to the mystery of the choking Doberman. But how? We try to guess. The woman flees her house and the unknown danger.
The third movement begins with the arrival of the police, who confirm the magnitude of the danger, and the arrival of the vet, who explains the mystery. The police prove the theory of the dismembered burglar when they capture him.
Now, no one sat around concocting this tale. "Let's see, I need a good hook (the choking Doberman), followed by a startling complication (the phone call), and a scary climax (the bleeding intruder)." The plot evolved according to our expectations of what a story should be. It has the three movements (beginning, middle and end), a protagonist (the woman), an antagonist (the burglar), and plenty of tension and conflict. What happens in "The Choking Doberman" is not that different from what happens in the novels of Agatha Christie or P.D. James. It's only a matter of degree.
Before we begin exploring the nature of plot, I want to make the point that plot isn't an accessory that conveniently organizes your material according to some ritualistic magic. You don't just plug in a plot like a household appliance and expect it to do its job. Plot is organic. It takes hold of the writer and the work from the beginning. Remove the plot from "The Choking Doberman," and there's nothing meaningful left. As readers we're plot-directed. Some writers have tried to write plotless novels (with some limited success), but we're so in love with a good plot that after a few short spasms of rebellion (angry writer: "Why must plot be the most important element?") we return to the traditional method of telling stories. I can't say plot is the center of the writer's universe, but it is one of two strong forces—character being the other—that affects everything else in turn.
ON SKELETONS
We've all heard the standard instructional line: Plot is structure. Without structure you have nothing. We've been taught to fear plot, because it looms so large over us and so much seems to hinge on it. We've been told a thousand times there are only so many plots and they've all been used and there isn't a story left in the world that hasn't already been told. It's a miracle that any writer escapes being intimidated by the past.
No doubt you've also heard plot described in architectural or mechanical terms. Plot is the skeleton, the scaffold, the superstructure, the chassis, the frame and a dozen other terms. Since we've seen so many buildings under construction, and since we've seen so many biological models of humans and animals over the years, the metaphors are easy to identify with. It seems to make
sense, after all. A story should have a plan that helps the writer make the best choices in the process of creating fiction, right?
Let's take the metaphor of the skeleton, since it's one of the more common ones writing instructors use. Plot is a skeleton that holds together your story. All your details hang on the bones of the plot. You can even debone a plot by reducing it to a description of the story. We read these summaries all the time in reviews and critical analyses of fiction. Screenwriters must be able to pitch their plot in about two minutes if they have any hope of selling it. It's the simplistic answer to the simplistic question, "What's your story about?"
Strong metaphors are tough to shake. The visual image of the skeleton is so graphic that we surrender to it. Yes, take out the skeleton and everything falls apart. It seems to make great sense.
The problem with the skeleton metaphor for plot (and all the other architectural and mechanical models) is that it misrepresents what plot is and how it works. Plot isn't a wire hanger that you hang the clothes of a story on. Plot is diffusive; it permeates all the atoms of fiction. It can't be deboned. It isn't a series of I-beams that keeps everything from collapsing. It is a force that saturates every page, paragraph and word. Perhaps a better metaphor for plot would be electromagnetism—the force that draws the atoms of the story together. It correlates images, events and people.
Plot is a process, not an object.
We tend to talk about plots as if they were objects. All of our plot metaphors describe plot as if it were some tangible thing that came in a box. We categorize plots like items in a story inventory. We talk about plot as if it were a dead thing, something static.
This may be the hardest obstacle for you to overcome: thinking of plot as a force, a process, rather than as an object. Once you realize that plot reaches down to the atomic level in your writing, and that every choice you make ultimately affects plot, you will realize its dynamic quality.
Plot is dynamic, not static.
Let's say you'd written "The Choking Doberman." Someone asks you, "What's your story about?" How do you answer?
You answer, "It's about a dog."
Obviously that won't work. Too specific. Anyway, the dog is the subject matter (and then only half of it). So you try something else.
"It's about terror."
Nope. Too vague.
You try another tack. "It's about this woman who comes home and finds her dog choking on something, only to find out it's human fingers!"
Great gory detail, but is it plot?
No.
Your patience is wearing thin. All right, what is the plot?
The plot is as old as literature itself. "The Choking Doberman" is a riddle.
The point of a riddle is to solve a puzzle. It comes from the same tradition as Oedipus, who must solve the riddle presented to him by the Sphinx, and the same tradition of Hercules, who had the unenviable task of having to solve twelve tasks, the famous labors, each of which was a riddle to be solved. Fairy tales are chock full of riddles to be solved—children delight in them. So do adults. The riddle is the basis of the mystery, which to this day is arguably the most popular form of literature in the world. Today we think of a riddle as a simple question that has a trick
answer. "What has ... and ... ?" But a riddle really is any mystifying, misleading or puzzling question that is posed as a problem to be solved or guessed. And that fits "The Choking Doberman."
The story is designed to give you two basic clues. The first clue appears in the first movement: The dog is choking on something. What?
The second clue comes in the second movement, when the vet tells the woman to get out of her house. Why?
To solve the riddle (who?), we must combine clues (what? and why?). We must try to establish a link between the two (cause and effect) and provide the missing piece before the end of the story, when the vet and the police explain everything to us. A riddle is a game played between audience and writer. The writer gives clues (preferably clues that make the riddle challenging and therefore fun), and the audience makes a go of it before time is up (in the third movement, when all the explanations come). Take away plot, and all that's left is a jumble of details that add up to nothing.
So before we talk about all the different master plots and how to build them, you should feel comfortable with the concept that plot is a force. It is a force that attracts all the atoms of language (words, sentences, paragraphs) and organizes them according to a certain sense (character, action, location). It is the cumulative effect of plot and character that creates the whole.
So the point of this book isn't so much to give you a rundown of twenty master plots, but to show you how to develop plot in fiction. The book also will show you how to apply whatever plot you choose to your subject matter so you develop plot evenly and effectively.
YOUR PLOT, THE FORCE AND YOU
There's that moment when you begin your work and that huge void of empty pages lies ahead of you. You hesitate. The Chinese proverb that says the longest journey begins with the first step is a little help, but what the proverb doesn't tell you is which road to take. The fear always is that you may strike out in the wrong direction, only to have to come back and start all over again. Nothing is more frustrating than to start on something—especially something as ambitious as a novel or a screenplay—and realize halfway through that it isn't right.
What can you do to protect yourself from going off in the wrong direction? The answer is a combination of good news and bad news.
First the bad news.
The bad news is that there are no guarantees. Nothing you can do will guarantee that what you do is right. That shouldn't come as a surprise, but it is a reality.
Now for the good news.
The longest journey begins with the first step, but it helps to know where your journey will take you. This doesn't mean you will know every step of the way, because writing is always full of surprises—twists and turns that the author doesn't expect. That's part of the fun of writing. But most writers I know have a destination in mind. They know where they want to head even if they can't tell you exactly how they intend to get there.
I'm not talking about knowing the ending of the story. That's a different issue. What I'm talking about is understanding the nature of the materials you'll deal with—specifically plot. If you strike out without any idea of destination, you'll wander aimlessly. But if you understand something about the kind of plot you're trying to write, you'll have supplied yourself with a compass that will know when you're wandering and warn you to get back on track.
Even when you get to the end of the work, this compass will guide you through the rewriting, that stage of work that really makes what you've written. By having a clear understanding of what your plot is and how the force works in your fiction, you'll have a reliable compass to guide you through the work.
What explorer ever struck out without a direction in mind?
ON DEFINING PLOT
I once heard a Nobel-Prize winning scientist talk about randomness, and something he said has stuck with me: What is randomness? he asked. The chances of something specifically happening at a certain time and place are astronomical, and yet every second of every day is filled with these unlikely events. You drop a dime on the floor. It rolls in a spiral, then twirls to a standstill. What are the odds that could happen exactly the same way again? Millions, maybe trillions, to one. And yet it happened as naturally as if there were no odds against it. Every event in our lives happens as if there were no odds against it.
The scientist argued that randomness does not exist. We have operational definitions, he asserted, definitions that work for a certain series of circumstances and conditions, but we don't have an absolute definition that works in all cases.
The same is true about plot. We have operational definitions of plot, but no grand, irrefutable definition that is absolute. We have only definitions that work for a certain series of circumstances and conditions. Your work is that series
of circumstances and conditions, and your work ultimately will provide the proper definition of plot.
It sounds like I'm saying, "Hey, you figure it out, I can't do it for you." That's not what I mean. What I am saying is that each plot is different, but each has its roots in pattern, and this book can help you with those patterns. You will choose a pattern of plot and adapt it to your own specific plot, which is unique for your story.
APPLYING PATTERNS TO YOUR WORK
If you've written much, you know the value of pattern. There's the work pattern: If you sit down every day for so many hours and write, you will produce a lot more than if you write when the fancy strikes you. We rely on patterns as structures.
The same is true inside your own work. By building patterns, you construct a scaffolding for your work. You can build two major patterns in fiction, both of which depend on each other: the pattern of plot and the pattern of character. Once you establish a pattern of plot, you have a dynamic force that will guide you through the action; and once you establish a pattern of character (who acts in the pattern of plot), you have a dynamic force of behavior that will guide you through your character's intent and motivation.
THE EXACT NUMBER OF PLOTS IN THE WORLD
Question: "How many plots are there?"
Answer A: "Who knows? Thousands, tens of thousands, maybe even millions."
Answer B: "Sixty-nine."
Answer C: "There are only thirty-six known plots in the universe."
Answer D: "Two plots, period."
Answer A (Who knows?) is commonly heard in classrooms and found in writing textbooks. Plots have endless possibilities, so there must be endless plots. It is also consistent with what I said about adapting patterns to specific stories.
Answer B (Sixty-nine) was Rudyard Kipling's idea. He felt that only sixty-nine of the countless variations of Answer A were plots. He was talking about patterns.
Answer C (Thirty-six) was the invention of Carlo Gozzi, who catalogued them in a book about plot. He too, was counting patterns. Today when we read that book, about half of the plots are no longer used (because they seem hopelessly out of date), so a revised version of Gozzi might say there are only eighteen plots.
Answer D (Two!) has found favor from Aristotle to modern days, and I'll talk about those two plots in chapter three, because they are so basic that all other stories stem from them. This approach goes one step further than the others in that it categorizes the patterns into two groups. (More on that later.)
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