Friday, July 06, 2012

What If Plotting - Daily Writing Inspiration


I started reading this great ebook by Holly Lislie all about outlining your plot. It's truly great. I LOVE IT. And it's only 99¢ over at Amazon.com.

One of the concepts she refers to is how the Internet Public Library classifies plots. She says that these are not plots but conflicts. And your character should go through about five of these conflicts per story. I've copy and pasted the info from the Internet Public Library's website. They have three different sections about basic plots. 

7 Plots
7 basic plots as remembered from second grade by IPL volunteer librarian Jessamyn West:
  1. [wo]man vs. nature
  2. [wo]man vs. [wo]man
  3. [wo]man vs. the environment
  4. [wo]man vs. machines/technology
  5. [wo]man vs. the supernatural
  6. [wo]man vs. self
  7. [wo]man vs. god/religion

20 Plots:
Tobias, Ronald B. 20 Master Plots. Cincinnati: Writer’s Digest Books, 1993. (ISBN 0-89879-595-8)
This book proposes twenty basic plots:
  1. Quest
  2. Adventure
  3. Pursuit
  4. Rescue
  5. Escape
  6. Revenge
  7. The Riddle
  8. Rivalry
  9. Underdog
  10. Temptation
  11. Metamorphosis
  12. Transformation
  13. Maturation
  14. Love
  15. Forbidden Love
  16. Sacrifice
  17. Discovery
  18. Wretched Excess
  19. Ascension
  20. Descension.

36 Plots
Polti, Georges. The Thirty-Six Dramatic Situations. trans. Lucille Ray.
Polti claims to be trying to reconstruct the 36 plots that Goethe alleges someone named [Carlo] Gozzi came up with. (In the following list, the words in parentheses are our annotations to try to explain some of the less helpful titles.):
  1. Supplication (in which the Supplicant must beg something from Power in authority)
  2. Deliverance
  3. Crime Pursued by Vengeance
  4. Vengeance taken for kindred upon kindred
  5. Pursuit
  6. Disaster
  7. Falling Prey to Cruelty of Misfortune
  8. Revolt
  9. Daring Enterprise
  10. Abduction
  11. The Enigma (temptation or a riddle)
  12. Obtaining
  13. Enmity of Kinsmen
  14. Rivalry of Kinsmen
  15. Murderous Adultery
  16. Madness
  17. Fatal Imprudence
  18. Involuntary Crimes of Love (example: discovery that one has married one’s mother, sister, etc.)
  19. Slaying of a Kinsman Unrecognized
  20. Self-Sacrificing for an Ideal
  21. Self-Sacrifice for Kindred
  22. All Sacrificed for Passion
  23. Necessity of Sacrificing Loved Ones
  24. Rivalry of Superior and Inferior
  25. Adultery
  26. Crimes of Love
  27. Discovery of the Dishonor of a Loved One
  28. Obstacles to Love
  29. An Enemy Loved
  30. Ambition
  31. Conflict with a God
  32. Mistaken Jealousy
  33. Erroneous Judgement
  34. Remorse
  35. Recovery of a Lost One
  36. Loss of Loved Ones.
Here is the link if you want to visit the actual page in the Internet Public Library: "Basic" Plots in Literature - Frequently Asked Reference Questions

She had an exercise where you focused on your main character and picked five of these conflicts (IPL version of Plots).

Then she asked a simple question. What is an interest that your main character has? A hobby, something they love to do. So, she picked ice skiing.

One of the plots she picked was Murderous Adultery. Another was [wo]man vs. the supernatural. Then she went into what if mode. What if one character, her antagonist, was a ghost. That would make her dead. And what if she was murdered. What if the main character went to the lodge at Green Mountain on the one year anniversary of her friend's death. 

Then she added Supplication (in which the Supplicant must beg something from Power in authority). And what if the husband of the murdered gal tried to kill the main character while she was up at the lodge. But she doesn't know who is out to kill her or why.

And the story keeps on going like that.

I find this to be quite an exciting way to plot. And you can just keep adding conflicts until you are happy or the story is concluded.


Hope you have an amazing day plotting your story.

Blessings.

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