When it IS a plot

The reason I started the last post with a bunch of examples of what plot is not was twofold: first, as I said, lots of people’s plot-problems seem to happen because they are starting from something that sort of looks like a plot, but actually isn’t one, and second, because it’s a lot easier to pick out what plot isn’t than to clearly define what it is.

For this post, I wanted to come up with some examples of story-seed-ideas that are plots. It took me a while, because…well, I’m a natural novelist; my idea of explaining the plot tends to run to 80,000 words, rather than to the one-line elevator pitch. What I ended up doing was going back to Heinlein’s three plots: Boy Meets Girl, The Little Tailor, and Man Learns Lesson.

As stated, none of those are actually plots, but they aren’t intended as such. Those are the names of plots; the shorthand Heinlein used for the actual plot-patterns he was talking about. “Boy Meets Girl,” for instance, is short for “Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl” and its many variation. “The Little Tailor” is the title of the fairy tale, in which the tailor sets off into the world, repeatedly gets into more trouble than he ought to be able to handle, and successfully overcomes all obstacles. “Man Learns Lesson” sums up the journey in which somebody believes one thing, seriously examines that belief for some reason, and comes to believe something truer and better.

In short, plots have a beginning, a middle, and an end. And in the process of getting from start to finish, something changes.

One of the reasons those not-quite-plot story seeds in the last post aren’t plots is that they don’t have that movement. One of the reasons they look as if they do is that human beings are very good at finding patterns, even when they aren’t there, and “beginning, middle, end” is such a common, natural progression that many people automatically assume the missing bits without thinking about it too much…until time comes to turn the idea into a story and they can’t figure out what’s wrong.

Implication is the first dicey part about looking at “not quite plot” things, especially events and incidents. “Perseus rescues Andromeda from a sea monster” is an event, like “bandits attack the caravan” or “George apologizes to Carol.” An event has an implied beginning and an implied end: first the caravan is not being attacked, then bandits attack, then the attack is over and the bandits flee. First Andromeda is tied up to be sacrificed, then Perseus comes in and kills the sea monster, and then Andromeda is free and safe. First George thinks he’s right, then he changes his mind and apologizes, then he and Carol are friends again.

But “Andromeda is free and safe,” “the attack is over,” and “George and Carol are friends again” are none of them actually stated in the not-plot idea. The end of the event could just as easily be “Andromeda is now Perseus’ slave,” “the bandits take everyone hostage,” and “Carol rejects George’s apology.” The initial idea doesn’t actually include the end point, the place the plot would be trying to get to.

It also doesn’t necessarily include the beginning. Andromeda may have chosen to be sacrificed to a sea monster in preference to an unwanted husband, the caravan may be an elaborate decoy, George may have decided to lie and make an insincere apology instead of actually changing his mind. The plot depends on where the characters start and where they end up, physically, emotionally, and mentally, and “Andromeda is being sacrificed, Perseus rescues her, Andromeda is free” is a totally different story from “Andromeda is willing to be eaten rather than marry, Perseus rescues her, Andromeda is now Perseus’ slave.” The plot is different, even though the event is the same.

The above examples presume the event is the middle of the plot, which, again, is common for this kind of not-plot-idea, because it is a lot easier to assume an implicit beginning and ending (which is one step back and one step forward, so to speak) than it is to extend the idea forward or backward two steps in the same direction. But “Perseus rescues Andromeda” could very easily function as a dramatic “Boy meets girl” beginning, leaving “boy loses girl, boy gets girl” to become the rest of the plot. It could be an equally dramatic “boy gets girl” ending. Furthermore, it could be the beginning, middle, or end of a Little Tailor plot or a (Wo)man Learns Lesson plot – it depends on the author’s assumptions and on which direction he/she chooses to develop the story.

If what you have is an actual plot story-seed, it doesn’t need that kind of development. You can’t move it from beginning incident to ending incident or from “boy meets girl” plot to “Woman learns lesson” plot without completely changing the essence of the idea. (Which, of course, is sometimes exactly what you want to do, but if that’s the case, you are not usually fussing over whether it’s a plot – you’re usually fussing about whether it’s the right plot.)