Post History

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/27996
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

I'd like to add a different perspective to this focus on plotlines and plot formulas. For that, I'd like to tackle the question the OP presented in the comments:

> I essentially mean to ask "What concepts do you use when you break down someone else's novel?"

I did a four year university course on Literature (in Portugal) and I never talked about plotlines and plot formulas (which led to a. my deeply ingrained notion that these are geared towards 'entertainment genres', which are incredibly 'corseted' by rules, and to b. my feeling of complete 'alienness' when plotlines take the stage in writing circles). Nevertheless, we did study Propp's morphology when we studied Popular Literature, and we did talk about climax and theatre play structures.

The **concepts** we focused on in order to **break down _novels_** weren't plots (or structure in general), but the collection of narrative elements and how they were used to produce certain effects. Besides that, two of the most important focuses were actually on:

a) tension and how the author created and managed that tension;

b) how the events and the characters represented the author's contemporary society and, at the same time, how they represented humanity as a whole.

So, what concepts do I use to break down novels? The narrative elements and how they can be used to underline an idea (whether that idea is a philosophical message worthy of 'capital L Literature' or it's simply the state of mind of a character, or maybe just the excitement of a car chase scene).

As for structure, specifically, we focused on how the sequence of events (including any narrator monologues that might be dropped in) produced the tension and how it fluctuated throughout chapters and novel. Then, we would focus on how that tension would underline this or that idea (whether it belonged to the main plot or a subplot). But never did we talk about how the events should happen in one or the other way. We viewed structure as 'descriptive' rather than 'prescriptive'.

Of course, I studied literature and not creative writing. Nevertheless, (and since I started writing in highschool) my course taught me, as a writer, to look at the structure of my stories not as plot formulas but as a collection of events that must produce a certain effect, whether they follow genre rules or not. In fact, it taught me to go beyond prescription of plotlines (in the shape of formulas) all together.

* * *

I apologise if I sound dismissive of plotlines and plot formulas. I do think being aware of those is useful, but I see that focus as simply one perspective and the OP's question in the comments made me feel that mentioning a different perspective (and where that perspective derives from) was relevant.

Original score: 0