#plotting method

[jbrentonparker]

Plotting Method #1: The Freytag Pyramid

Now that I’m over a particularly nasty, week-long cold, I’m going to jump into breaking down the plotting methods I briefly covered in an earlier post! Here’s the quick overview I gave of the first method:

The Freytag Pyramid:

Developed by German novelist and playwright Gustav Freytag, the pyramid was really developed to map out the story structure of five act Greek and Shakespearean dramas, but it can often be modified and applied to short stories and novels as well.

In Freytag’s pyramid, there are five parts (acts) to a narrative:

Exposition, in which the background of characters and events that occurred prior to the plot are given; Rising Action, which is the series of events that lead up towards the greatest point of interest, or the turning point in the narrative; Climax, which isn’t the same as what other people refer to as the “climax” of a story–Freytag means the turning point that changes the protagonist’s fate; Falling Action, when the conflict between the protagonist and the antagonist comes to a head (what is actually usually called the “climax” in novel writing); And Denouement, all the stuff after the Falling Action to the very last scene, in which the narrative is wrapped up for better or for worse.

As mentioned above, Gustav Freytag developed this story structure map specifically in relation to Greek and Shakespearean plays. With a little bit of tweaking though, it can be used to structure prose as well.

Exposition: In Shakespeare plays, this literally comes in the form of exposition in which the background for the play is stated outright to the audience. “In fair Verona where we lay our scene...” etc etc. In a novel, this would be the first chapter of Harry Potter (again, I’m going to frequently use Harry Potter as my example, since most people are at least familiar with the story). In chapter 1, “The Boy Who Lived”, the audience is given the background. Takes place in England in modern times. Strange things which are revealed to be of a magical nature at the end of the chapter are not common, or commonly known about. Wizards are a thing, but they hide from the non-magical world. Harry Potter is special, but he will not know that for many years. We learn the setting, and the state of “normal” within the bounds of the narrative is established. This is important!

Even if you are reading the most wild, out-there fantasy or scifi story ever, the reader has to know what is considered normal in the context of your world before things can start going crazy, otherwise it’s easy to lose their attention along the way. That being said, the establishment of normalcy can be quick. I’ll reference Artemis Fowl, since it’s another fairly popular middle grade book many people have read. The first book starts off in Ho Chi Minh city--bam, we know it’s set on earth. There is a cafe, Artemis and Butler are wearing suits, they drive a hummer. We know it’s set in modern day.  It is explained that Artemis is searching for something, and he worries this may be another failed attempt. We know that whatever is going on isn’t common or usual. We meet the fairy, and it is established that this is not an everyday occurance, and that Artemis’s knowledge of them as a human is singular.

So the fantasy aspect of the plot is introduced very early on, but even so, we are given a very clear concept of what the normal state of things is in these books: fairies exist, but humans do not know about them. Therefore, Artemis knowing about them is unusual, special, and worth writing a book about.

So exposition and establishing the state of “normal” in the context of your novel often go hand in hand. Neither usually last more than a chapter or two however; you don’t want to leave your readers waiting for the “good stuff” for too long.

The Rising Action: All the stuff leading up to your main character taking action, or being forced to take action, or what have you. In Hamlet, this would be all of Hamlet’s whinging about what to do, whether to take revenge or not. In Neverwhere, this would be the bits where Richard is just “along for the ride”, just trying to get his life back while staying as minimally involved in Door’s actual drama as possible.In this part, the protagonist is usually trying to avoid the conflict, or keep it from happening.

Climax: The climax in Freytags’s pyramid is very different than “the climax of a novel”! They are two totally different creatures. I like to think of Freytag’s Climax as “The Point of No Return”. This is the moment the protagonist must face the conflict for better or for worse. This is a major turning point in the story, and there is no going back to the way things were after this moment. In Romeo and Juliet, this is when Romeo kills Tybalt and is banished. Things can never be resolved peacefully now, he has slain a member of Juliet’s family, he is banished, they are now physically as well as socially separated, the rift between their two families is bigger than ever, worst has come to worst (or so they all think at the time). Often during the Climax/Point of No Return, things have gone very wrong. The protagonist is forced into action because there is no other alternative. The can no longer avoid or prevent or flee or peacefully deal with the conflict, they must face is head on like a freight train barreling down upon them. Then comes the:

Denouement: the way the characters deal with the fallout of the climax. Juliet gets her hands on some poison and sends Romeo a letter--which he never gets. Hamet stages a play “wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king”. Now this is the part where Freytag’s model as it applies to plays does no align so well with prose. In Freytag’s model, who more substages follow: Catastrophe, and the Moment of Last Suspense. Catastrophe is Romeo believing he finds Juliet dead, and killing himself, and then Juliet awakens and kills herself as well. In the Moment of Last Suspense, the two families come together and see how their behavior has led to two such bitter deaths, and finally let bygones be bygones. In Prose, however, you have the Climax instead of Catastrophe (though your climax could be a catastrophe, but it doesn’t have to be obviously).

The conflict comes to a head, the protagonist and the antagonist often clash especially in fantasy, tensions are as high as possible, the stakes are as high as possible, and the protagonist must deal with the conflict and deal with it now. In a narrative without a human antagonist, this would be, say, the scene where the protagonist gets trapped in an avalanche but claws their way out of the snow and drags themselves, half-frozen, to the side of the road where they collapse, only to be found (alive? dead?) hours later by a passing hiker. In Monsters Inc, it’s pretty much the entire last twenty minutes of the movie.

Then, hopefully, if you’re a kind writer, you end with your wrap up, your own Moment of Last Suspense--which usually isn’t really all that suspenseful, but the same concept applies. Tensions are released, loose ends are tied up, questions are answered, and we have a sense of how the conflict was resolved. You could, of course, end your story with your character half-frozen on the side of the road after an avalanche for dramatic reasons, but most readers like to see the “after” bit of the “happily (or not so happily) ever after”. I know I once read a trilogy that I otherwise adored, but the ending killed me--it just ended immediately after the villain was defeated, with the characters standing of the edge of a cliff, hundreds of miles from home, after a harrowing, month-long journey to get there in the first place. As a reader, I wanted to see the characters I loved get back home safely as much as I wanted to see the antagonist defeated, so that ending disturbed me a little. An excellent example of a satisfying wrap up, in my opinion at least, is Neverwhere. I won’t go into it because I’d hate to spoil it for those who have not yet read it, but I think it is fantastically satisfying.

I believe that more or less covers the aspects of the Freytag model and how it can be applied to prose. Stay tuned for the next detailed overview, the Three Act Structure!

[sillytheotter]

less than to 3 weeks til Nanowrimo and this nifty lil quiz suggests a plotting method to help us get started!

https://quiz.tryinteract.com/#/5d2513fa4fc6b400143e9004

My results?

not even in quizzes i can make up my mind...

im doomed T.T

[jbrentonparker]

Plotting Method #2: The Three Act Structure

Ah, the Three Act Structure. It’s one we’re all extremely familiar with, even if you aren’t aware you’re familiar with it. It’s a story structure used largely for TV, though this structure can also be applied to prose and used as a scaffolding for plotting out a novel.

One warning though: this plot structure can very very repetitive and predictable. Think about House: any person who has watched two episodes of House could write their own episode. Patient gets sick, goes to hospital. House or one of the other doctors makes a diagnosis. It seems to work, but then suddenly, something bad happens. First commercial break. House makes another diagnoses. It’s not lupus (except that one time it was). It’s wrong. He makes another. It’s almost right, not not. Things go really bad. Second commercial break. Another diagnosis is made, almost kills the patient. Climax. Someone says something poignant, House figures it out, usually in time to save the patient, sometimes not. The end. Every. Single. Episode. The Three act structure is used all over TV and most people aren’t bothered by it, but just a warning: if you use it the exact same way over and over again, readers will start to notice, and it can take the wind from your stories’s sails.

The Three-Act Structure:

Similar to Freytag’s model, but this one has been developed specifically for narrative fiction. The First Act: SET UP  The first act begins with exposition: the introduction of the characters and the setting. It gives the reader a sense of what “normal” is in the context of the narrative. Just like I mentioned in the discussion of Freytag’s model, it’s important that a state of “normalcy” be established. The reader has to know what’s everyday for your characters, so they can be equally surprised when something out of the ordinary happens, rather than confused. One good example I was just reminded of yesterday: In the first episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Picard is speaking to Data and Troi. Picard uses the word “snoop”, and Data asks what that word means. Picard makes a comment about how Data is programmed to know so much about human knowledge, but doesn’t know the word “snoop”. Boom, the viewer knows that Data is an android, and that that is normal in the context of the setting, as no one reacts in shock or surprise to hear Picard or Data talking about his android-ness. A second later, Troi says, “Captain... I’m sensing a... a powerful mind.” Once again, Picard does not react with shock, confusion, or surprise. Clearly, he knows that Troi is psychic (technically empathic, but whatever), and this is not unusual for the setting. So now it has been established for the viewer that things like androids and psychic abilities are within the realm of normal for the setting of Star Trek. However, a second later, alarms start blaring, and a huge barrier is put up blocking the Enterprise’s path. Every reacts with alarm and confusion--it is obvious that this ISN’T normal, that this is outside the bounds of what our characters can typically expect to experience. All within the first four minute of the first episode of the, we are introduced to “normal”, and that state of normalcy is broken. In a novel, of course, a little more time is usually spent on building up what is “normal”, especially if it is a fantasy novel set in another world or a hard scifi novel, but often times, character reactions can serve to show the reader what is every day and what is unusual. And this is important: I wrote a novel, and while having the first chapter critiqued, I received a lot of feedback that readers were confused about how “normal” monsters were in the world, whether it was just my main character who knew about them, or if their existence was widely known and accepted. I did not clearly establish a state of normalcy, and I ended up with confused beta readers.  A little ways into the First Act is the Inciting Incident, the thing that changes everything for the protagonist. The letters start coming for Harry, the Dwarves show up at Bilbo’s house. This incident offers the protagonist the chance to change their situation, a chance for their life to change. Maybe they want to take it, maybe they don’t. But it happens, and the protagonist usually gets sucked up into it somehow. The protagonist getting sucked into this Inciting Incident leads to Plot Point A, and signals the end of the first act. Think of Plot Point A as the dramatic moment in a TV show right before the first round of commercials start (e.g. House’s first guess being wrong and the patient unexpectedly coding). Sometimes it happens right after the inciting incident (Katniss immediately offers to take Prim’s place in the Hunger Games when Prim’s name is called), and sometimes it takes a while for the main character to lurch into action (Richard Mayhew in Neverwhere meets and helps Door, then tries to return to his own life, only getting further involved in the plot when he realizes he’s become forgotten in his own life).

The Second Act: Confrontation  In the Second Act, the protag is reacting to and trying to deal with Plot Point A. This is usually the longest act, and takes up most of the story. This is the long and marshy “middle”. They will start to have to face roadblocks and challenges and learn the “rules” of the situation they’ve been thrust into. They don’t have the necessary skills yet however, and only continue to wind up in increasingly worse situation (this is their character arc, them gradually acquiring the skills to triumph later). At the beginning of the second act, the protag is usually reactionary. They’re simply reacting to the things that are happening to and around them. By the end, they are usually proactive, making things happen themselves or setting out to face conflicts head on and by choice. Now comes the Midpoint! This is the moment everything goes wrong, and, unsurprisingly, comes about halfway through the narrative. The protag is knocked on their ass, plans have failed, the Wizard refuses to send Dorothy Home, Bilbo is trapped in the Goblin cave, Westley is dead and Buttercup will be forced to marry Prince Humperdink. The Midpoint leads to Plot Point 2: the moment the protag is at their lowest. Everything that could go wrong has, and it seems as though they will never succeed, but they have to make a choice: forge ahead anyway, or give up. And Plot Point 2 is them doing just that: reflecting on the failure that was the Midpoint, and making a decision to do something about it. This is usually the moment the protag changes from being reactionary to proactive. And so ends Act 2.

The Third Act: Resolution  The third act, also called “The Dark Night of the Soul”, commences with the protag still trying to clean up after themselves despite the hopeless situation. They have grown stronger, but so has the villain. They know they must face the conflict head on, but they doubt they can handle it. Before the Climax often comes the Pre-Climax, and no, it’s not a weird sex thing. This is the three challenges Harry, Ron, and Hermione must face while trying to retrieve the sorcerer’s stone. The climax is obviously Harry confronting Voldemort, but getting past Fluffy, the Devil’s Snare, the enchanted chess set, and the room of potions constitutes the pre-climax. The protagonist must face danger, sometimes even the villain themself, but it is not yet the final and ultimate confrontation and overcoming of the conflict. Often times, the protagonist is left in a weakened state, and aren’t at the top of their game when heading into the Climax. They are forced to face the conflict head on in the Climax. This is the final moments of the story’s overarching conflict, and it has to be settled here. This usually takes the form of an ultimate clash between the protagonist and the antagonist in fantasy. One or the other comes out victorious, and the remainder of the act follows the same lines as Freytag’s Denouement. The very ending involves the wrapping up all the loose ends, fulfilling any promises made to the reader, and releasing the tension built up from the climax. This part is important as well. Have you ever watched or read a murder mystery when the story just abruptly ends with the killer being arrested? I know I’m often left wondering “But what happened to everyone else? How did the victim’s family react when they found out who the murderer was? What about the subplot about Character A and Character B gradually developing a romance, did that ever pan out? And whatever happened to the guy they THOUGHT did it and got accused and arrested but was actually innocent? He was never mentioned again!”