Plot

In fiction, a plot or storyline is the rendering and ordering of the events and actions of a story, particularly towards the achievement of some particular artistic or emotional effect.

Structure

Plot has structure at several levels and forms.

Cause and effect

At the smallest level, plot consists of a stimulus and response, also referred to as action and reaction, or cause and effect. (Bickham 1993, pp. 12-22)

Scene and sequel

At midlevel, plot is structured in scenes and sequels, with scenes providing drama and sequels providing an aftermath. (Bickham 1993, pp. 23-62)

Beginning, middle, and end

The larger structure of plot is often divided into three parts: beginning, middle, and ending.

Story arc

Plot is often schematically represented as an arc reflecting the rising action described in the following phases:

1. Initial situation – the beginning. It is the first incident that makes the story move.
2. Conflict or Problem – goal which the main character of the story has to achieve.
3. Complication or Rising action – obstacles which the main character has to overcome.
4. Climax – highest point of interest of the story.
5. Dénouement or Resolution – what happens to the character after overcoming all obstacles and reaching his goal, or failing to achieve the desired result and not reaching his goal.
6. Conclusion – the end result

Subplot

In addition to the main plot, a story may have one or more subplots. The main plot is sometimes called the A-Plot while a subplot may be referred to as the B-Plot.

Suspension of disbelief

Suspension of disbelief is the reader's temporary acceptance of story elements as believable, regardless of how implausible they may seem in real life.

Forms

Plots have been developed in a wide range of genres and forms: tragic, comedy, romance, satire.

The term plot-driven is sometimes used to describe fiction in which a preconceived storyline is the main thrust, with the characters' behavior being molded by this inevitable sequence of events. Plot-driven is regarded as being the opposite of character-driven, in which the character is the main focus of the work.

History

According to Aristotle's Poetics, a plot is "the arrangement of incidents" that (ideally) each follow plausibly from the other. The plot is like the pencil outline that guides the painter's brush (compare sketch), and as such can be distinguished from the story or narrative that is framed by the plot. When a plot is like the pencil outline that guides the painter’s brush, the story is comparable to the finished painting. An example of the type of plot which follows these sorts of lines is the linear plot of development to be discerned within the pages of a Bildungsroman novel. Aristotle notes that a string of unconnected speeches, no matter how well-exhausted, will not have as much emotional impact as a series of tightly connected speeches delivered by perfect speakers.

Aristotle used the term mythos to denote plot. In literature, mythos is a traditional or recurrent narrative theme or plot structure. The description is deceptively simple, because the actions are performed by particular characters in a work and are the means by which they exhibit their moral and dispositional qualities.

The concept of plot and the associated concept of construction of plot, emplotment, has developed considerably since Aristotle made these insightful observations. The episodic narrative tradition which Aristotle indicates has systematically been subverted over the intervening years, to the extent that the concept of beginning, middle, end are merely regarded as a conventional device when no other is at hand.

This is particularly true in the cinematic tradition, in which the folding and reversal of episodic narrative is now commonplace. Moreover, many writers and film directors, particularly those with a proclivity for the Modernist or other subsequent and derivative movements which emerged during or after the early 20th century, seem more concerned that plot is an encumbrance to their artistic medium than an assistance. Avant-garde novelist and critic Giorgio Manganelli said, "Personally, I'm interested in books that have a theme rather than a plot; which is not possible, or is excessively tough, to summarize."

Plot of historical events

Epistemological historian Paul Veyne (1971: 46-47; English trans. by Min Moore-Rinvolucri 1984: 32-33) applies the concept to real-life events, defining plot as “the fabric of history,” a system of interconnected historical facts:

“Facts do not exist in isolation, in the sense that the fabric of history is what we shall call a plot, a very human and not very ‘scientific’ mixture of material causes, aims, and chances—a slice of life, in short, that the historian cuts as he [sic] wills and in which facts have their objective connections and relative importance...the word plot has the advantage of reminding us that what the historian studies is as human as a play or a novel....then what are the facts worthy of rousing the interest of the historian? All depends on the plot chosen; a fact is interesting or uninteresting...in history as in the theater, to show everything is impossible—not because it would require too many pages, but because there is no elementary historical fact, no event worthy atom. If one ceases to see events in their plots, one is sucked into the abyss of the infinitesimal.”

See also

• Dramatic structure
• Plot device
• Plot hole
• Georges Polti's The Thirty-Six Dramatic Situations

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Bickham, Jack M. Scene & Sequel: How to Construct Fiction with Scene-by-scene Flow, Logic and Readability. Cincinnati, OH: Writer's Digest Books, 1993.  ISBN 0898795516 ISBN 9780898795516

External links

• Movie Plots - movieplots.googlepages.com. Retrieved November 3, 2007.

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