Doubt about the double action of the concept of plot in fiction writing [closed]
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In the first discussion of the concept of "plot" given by [1] I, maybe, understood two different, but complementary, concepts of plot.
Mckee gives us a definition of Plot as:
To PLOT mean to navigate through the dangerous terrain of story and when confronted by a dozen branching possibilities to choose the correct path. Plot is the writer's choice of events and their design in time.
So, here, plot means that "organization of events" in a structural sense: for instance, scene 3 will occur after scene 2. But also could mean something that deals with "deeper things" like emotion, and then the scene 2 could occur after the scene 3 just because something about scene 2 fits better concerning the "emotional time-line" of a character.
So how to use the concept of plot in writing?
[1] MCKEE.R. Story. Itbooks, New York, 1997.
This post was sourced from https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/47898. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
2 answers
A story is characters facing a serious problem they must struggle to solve.
That is my own definition, though it is simple enough others may have come to the same conclusion. The "plot" flows from there.
Why do they struggle? Because the problem isn't easy for them.
Why must they solve it? Because by design we make the problem "serious", meaning if it goes unsolved it is going to affect something or someone they care about a lot, whether that is because they are in love, or because they love humanity and want to save it, or because their life's work is in danger. Somehow, they will be miserable (or dead) if they don't solve it. Or if they are dead anyway, they don't want to leave misery behind them, the problem doesn't have to be solved with them surviving, as we've seen in many a cancer-reconciliation story.
In order for the audience to care about this struggle, they first have to know the characters, their strengths and weaknesses, what they care about and what they find repellent, generally before we introduce them to the problem, so the audience is not watching a total stranger (they care nothing about) dealing with an issue. We have to show our character(s) are the good guys before they audience will root for them.
In order to struggle, the characters need obstacles to overcome on the road to the solution. These obstacles cannot be easily defeated, hence "struggle".
To make the story interesting, most authors ensure a series of obstacles that result in hard failures along with moderate successes so the audience does not lose all hope, but then through these experiences the characters DO solve the problem.
The plot is the sequence of escalating struggles the characters must face. We can give them (when we introduce them and the setting) weaknesses that cause or contribute to the failures, and strengths that salvage something from each struggle, so they accumulate the material, knowledge or character traits or understanding they need to finally defeat the serious problem, the main problem of the story, and secure the better future instead of the miserable one. Or at least partially. (A tragedy is when they fail completely.)
We do generally want our characters to seem real, often the "weakness" we give them will result in a difficult choice for them. This may be a moral choice, but isn't always, many stories end with a hero risking their life (or giving it) to save someone, and IMO that is not a moral choice, just a commitment to love, even a love of strangers or humanity.
Usually the struggle demands personal growth, becoming a better person, but this is also optional. Sherlock Holmes goes through most of his stories overcoming obstacles but without any personal growth. Same for 007 and other super-heroes, they don't evolve emotionally into better people, but the stories can still be good: They overcome daunting obstacles that seem impossible.
The plot is just the series of struggles you devise for your characters to overcome.
For your introduction of the characters, which we combine with the introduction to the setting, and rules of the world (e.g. magic, advanced tech, etc), as a pragmatic thing I'd hold off on the "serious problem" and give them day-to-day struggles they'd encounter. Show their normal world, and devise normal irritations or "routine" problems they have with it, this creates tension that carries the reader through this introduction (10% to 15% of the story).
Then introduce the "serious problem," followed by a series of struggles of escalating difficulty, until the climax when the key to solving it all is revealed (or learned or decided).
Your plot is that series of struggles. If you want them to cause personal growth, build personal struggles and weaknesses into the characters and situations. Because they need to escalate (to maintain audience interest), many authors begin by concealing the true nature and extent of the serious problem, the characters instead see some manifestation of it early (an Inciting Incident) that makes the problem seem not that bad, something they can solve, but it turns out not to be so easy; thus making it easier for the author to escalate the difficulty. e.g. metaphorically speaking, we see one roach in the kitchen, kill it, then upon investigating flush a thousand more. A drip from the ceiling causes us to investigate upstairs, where we find a broken pipe in a bathroom flooding the entire floor. So the first thing the characters see is a small manifestation of an actual huge problem they were not aware of.
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You may be interpreting McKee too narrowly. "Design in time," for instance, does not have to imply a strict sequence.
But I would suggest that you look at the word "plot" in much the same way as you would look at it in the real world. A plot in the real world is a conspiracy to make something happen without the people affected being aware of what is going on. Transfer that concept to fiction and the author plots to force his characters into a situation that, if they were real human being, they would not want to be in.
I think it is useful to think of the structure of a story as hinging on a moment of decision, generally a decision between competing values. This is the moment that Christopher Vogler calls "the inmost cave" and James Scott Bell calls "the mirror moment". It is the point at which the character has to face some choice they would rather not make, and the rest of the story depends on what choice they make at that agonizing moment.
The thing is, no normal person wants to come to such a moment of choice, to enter the inmost cave, to look in the mirror and decide if they are man or mouse. If you are going to create characters who resemble real people in their emotions and their decisions, you are going to have to create situations that force them to make that choice, to enter that cave, to look in that mirror. In other words, you are going to have to plot against them to force them into a position they don't want to be in. This forces the character toward the will she/won't she choice that is the main source of tension in a story.
A plot, in this sense, is very much concerned with emotions, with "deeper things" because it is the instrument that forces the character to face the deeper questions which provoke the deeper emotions. But it does this by arranging events in time in order to force the characters into those situations.
A plot, in short, is the instrument you use to put your characters in situations that create emotions and force them to face deeper things, leading toward a central choice of values that lies at the heart of a story.
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