PLOT
"Story" Versus Plot
A story= a narrative of events arranged in their time-sequence.
A plot is also a narrative of events, the emphasis falling on causality.
“The king died, and then the queen died of grief”
"The queen died, no one knew why, until it was discovered that it was through grief at the death of the king."
the death of the queen
a story: "And then?" a plot we ask: "Why?"
= fundamental difference
grief = motive for the death of the queen
cause and effect
=> death of the king → death of the queen
The Elements of Plot
the plot of a work of fiction - deliberately arranged sequence of interrelated events = basic narrative structure of a novel or a short story
Events ← people = plot ← characters
"What is character but the determination of incident? What is incident but the illustration of character?" ("The Art of Fiction" Henry James asks)
=>major function of plot= representation of characters in action (internal and psychological or external and physical)
catalyst → plot begins
equilibrium brakes → sequence of events
conflict → most plots
external conflict = the protagonist (=hero /focal character) is pitted against some object outside himself; may reflect a basic opposition between man and nature, man and society, man and man (protagonist vs antagonist)
internal conflict = the issue to be resolved is one within the protagonist's psyche or personality; confined to the protagonist; opposition is between two or more elements within the protagonist's own character
Most plots ← more than 1 conflict
Sometimes difficult to determine the basic conflict
The conflict may exist prior to the formal initiation of the plot itself, not explicitly dramatized or presented in an early scene or chapter.
Some conflicts never made explicit and must be inferred by the reader from what the characters do or say as the plot unfolds
Conflict = basic opposition (tension), sets the plot in motion; it engages the reader, builds the suspense or mystery, and arouses expectation for the events that are to follow.
The plot → 5 stages:
Sometimes repeated in many of the individual chapters, the novel as a whole builds on a series of increasing conflicts and crises.
EXPOSITION:beginning section, author gives necessary background information, sets the scene, establishes the situation, and dates the action; may introduce the characters and the conflict, or the potential for conflict; may be 1 sentence, paragraph or chapter.
COMPLICATION: rising action, breaks the existing equilibrium and introduces the characters and the underlying or inciting conflict (if they have not already been introduced by the exposition). The conflict is then developed gradually and intensified.
CRISIS: (= climax) is that moment at which the plot reaches its point of greatest emotional intensity; it is the turning point of the plot, directly precipitating its resolution.
FALLING ACTION: Once the crisis, or turning point, has been reached, the tension subsides and the plot moves toward its appointed conclusion.
RESOLUTION: (=conclusion or denouement) The final section of the plot; it records the outcome of the conflict and establishes some new equilibrium or stability.
Highly plotted works (detective novels and stories)with distinct beginnings, middles, and ends, usually follow such conventional plot development.
Example(Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories)
Exposition:
One summer night, a few months after my marriage, I was seated by my own hearth smoking a last pipe and nodding over a novel, for my day's work had been an exhausting one. My wife had already gone upstairs, and the sound of the locking of the door some time before told me that the servants had also retired. I had risen from my seat and was knocking out the ashes of my pipe, when I suddenly heard the clang of the bell. ... I went out into the hall and opened the door. To my astonishment, it was Sherlock Holmes who stood upon my step.
"Ah, Watson," said he, "I hoped that I might not be too late to catch you."
Complication:The crime is reported, and with Holmes's famous "Come, Watson, the game is afoot," the period of rising action and suspense begins. Holmes = hero-protagonist; Professor Moriarty (or some other villain) = antagonist.
Conflict: of will and intellect.
Crisis (climax): Holmes solves the crime or mystery. The suspense and tension drop away.
Falling action: Holmes's detailed explanation of his method of detection.
Resolution:short andbelongs either to Watson ("A few words may suffice to tell the little that remains" – "The Final Problem") or to Holmes:
"And that's the story of the Musgrave Ritual, Watson. They have the crown down at Hurlstone - though they had some legal bother, and a considerable sum to pay before they were allowed to retain it. I am sure that if you mentioned my name they would be happy to show it to you. Of the woman nothing was ever heard, and the probability is that she got away out of England, and carried herself, and the memory of her crime, to some land beyond the seas."
Selectivity
The shorter the narrative, the greater the degree of selectivity required.
Short story - limits the amount of plot included
It is not possible to tell the reader everything that "happened" to the characters.
James Joyce wanted to write a short story recording everything that happenedduring a single day in the lives of Stephen Dedalus and Leopold Bloom. The result -Ulysses, (767 pages = 21,5 hours.)
Author must select those incidents that are most relevant to the story to be told.
The most significant incidents - emphasized and expanded into full dramatic scenes using description, dialogue, and action.
Other incidents - given less emphasis (telling, rather than showing).
All these episodes, major or minor, need not advance the plot in precisely the same way or at the same pace, although the reader does have the right to expect that each will contribute in some way to a completed story.
The Ordering of Plot
Chronologically = to approximate the order of episodes’ occurrence in time.
A variety of ways:
1) tightly controlled (as in the conventional 5-stage detective story or in many historical novels where separate episodes are linked closely and visibly in a firm cause/effect relationship → impression of historical reality – "the way it was.").
2) loose, relaxed, and episodic structure:plot composed of a series of separate and largely self-contained episodes (beads on a string); protagonist = unifying element. (Henry Fielding's Tom Jonesand Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn),
3) encountered in psychological novels, (James Joyce's Ulysses, Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse, and William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury), reader's attention → protagonist's unfolding state of mind fighting with some internal conflict or problem.
"psychological time" presented through stream of consciousness = illusion of overhearing the actual workings of a human mind by recording the continuous and apparently random flow of ides, feelings, sensations, associations, and perceptions as they register on the protagonist's consciousness.
In some chronological plots, the temporal sequence is often deliberately broken and the chronological parts rearranged for the sake of emphasis and effect.
Some authors begin in the middle of things; other authors may begin at the end and then, having intrigued and captured us, work backward to the beginning and then forward again to the middle.
In other cases, the chronology of plot may shift backward and forward in time (William Faulkner's A Rose for Emily)
Interrupting the flow of a chronologically ordered plot =flashback, a summary or fully dramatized episode framed by theauthor in such a way as to make it clear that the events being discussed or dramatized took place at some earlier period of time.
Flashbacks are often very important for understanding of the story, for they introduce us to information that would otherwise be unavailable and thus increase our knowledge and understanding of present events.
The key point- it is open to infinite variety. An author doesn’t have to follow any scheme or pattern but his own. The only requirement- the plot must be interesting.