of plots and plotting
Feb. 5th, 2005 08:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nocturnus33This is a question for authors and readers:
Is the plot the main ingredient of a good story?. If is so, what make a good plot?
Of course that would depend on the definition of plot. Of the three I give under the cut, I like the last one.
A sequence of events that contains conflicts, climax, and resolution
www.geocities.com/educationplace/poe/gl.htm
For example, Umberto Eco analyses all Bond novels as it come:
# M moves and gives a task to Bond.
# The villain moves and appears to Bond.
# Bond moves and gives a first check to the villain or the villain gives first check to Bond.
# Woman moves and shows herself to Bond.
# Bond consumes woman: possesses her or begins her seduction.
# The villain captures Bond.
# The villain tortures Bond.
# Bond conquers the villain.
# Bond convalescing enjoys woman, whom he then loses. (http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/S4B/sem04.html)
(I just posted a challenge with this characterization at WIKTT, will people notice the awfully cahuvinistic scheme? If they do, would they recognized most of the ship fics has a similar estructure except for the "loses woman" part?)
A graphic God's-eye representation of the current dataset. By default the plot has a black background but this may be altered by the user.
www.debrief.info/tutorial/html/tutorial_glossary.htm
A carefully measured area laid out for experimentation or measurement.
www.forestinvest.com/glossary.html
The first definition is what I think a traditional, or school like definition, but if we write soap opera we could have a good plot as an eternal round robin of conflicts, climax, and resolution of those conflicts, but it is not necessary a good story.
The second definition is not a writer's one, but the one of a software programmer (?), but I like it. Lots of fics has some engineering (sp?) taste. In which the gender is so tight, that the "author" just need to feel the gap. We all know some cliché in SS/HG that could illustrate. Pity there is no way to alter them as users.
I love the last one, Is not an endless "now what?" (I think long ago I read something like this at Le Café)but the fic as an experimentation, in which all the elements are laid explicit or implicitly to play with.
And there is , allow me to bore you with a quote:
According to the Paris School Semiotics (Perron-Collins, 1989) action is part of the Narrative Schema. The Narrative Schema is one of the schemas that A. J. Greimas (Greimas-Courtés, 1982:203) proposed in order to account for the organizing principles of all narrative discourses; it belongs to the Narrative level [4]. At an abstract level, narration is considered a process of conjunction or disjunction with an Object of value. This process has been divided into four steps: Contract, Competence, Performance, Sanction [Tab. 2]. These four steps describe the interactions between three actants (abstract representations of characters and their functions): the Subject, the Object and the Sender. The Sender assigns to the Subject a quest for an Object and a set of values, coherent with the Object -- this is the Contract. The Subject has to act in order to get in conjunction with the Object: first it has to acquire the right Competence and then it has to perform. Action is, then, considered as the sum of Competence and Performance. Eventually, the Sender, through the Sanction, evaluates the performance of the Subject
taken from: (http://www.reconstruction.ws/032/mottazzi.htm#5A)
I could analyze all HP series in that scheme, but is that all? This narrative scheme is what made the good story?. Of course Greimas is far from that.
In fact the three definitions could fit the latter.
Could we think there are differents levels for a plot, or for a fic? Wich are they?
And I don't want to discuss Greimas but the role of a plot in a fic so we could come close to the eternal, and all to personal problem: what make a good fic?
What do you think about it?.
Is the plot the main ingredient of a good story?. If is so, what make a good plot?
Of course that would depend on the definition of plot. Of the three I give under the cut, I like the last one.
A sequence of events that contains conflicts, climax, and resolution
www.geocities.com/educationplace/poe/gl.htm
For example, Umberto Eco analyses all Bond novels as it come:
# M moves and gives a task to Bond.
# The villain moves and appears to Bond.
# Bond moves and gives a first check to the villain or the villain gives first check to Bond.
# Woman moves and shows herself to Bond.
# Bond consumes woman: possesses her or begins her seduction.
# The villain captures Bond.
# The villain tortures Bond.
# Bond conquers the villain.
# Bond convalescing enjoys woman, whom he then loses. (http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/S4B/sem04.html)
(I just posted a challenge with this characterization at WIKTT, will people notice the awfully cahuvinistic scheme? If they do, would they recognized most of the ship fics has a similar estructure except for the "loses woman" part?)
A graphic God's-eye representation of the current dataset. By default the plot has a black background but this may be altered by the user.
www.debrief.info/tutorial/html/tutorial_glossary.htm
A carefully measured area laid out for experimentation or measurement.
www.forestinvest.com/glossary.html
The first definition is what I think a traditional, or school like definition, but if we write soap opera we could have a good plot as an eternal round robin of conflicts, climax, and resolution of those conflicts, but it is not necessary a good story.
The second definition is not a writer's one, but the one of a software programmer (?), but I like it. Lots of fics has some engineering (sp?) taste. In which the gender is so tight, that the "author" just need to feel the gap. We all know some cliché in SS/HG that could illustrate. Pity there is no way to alter them as users.
I love the last one, Is not an endless "now what?" (I think long ago I read something like this at Le Café)but the fic as an experimentation, in which all the elements are laid explicit or implicitly to play with.
And there is , allow me to bore you with a quote:
According to the Paris School Semiotics (Perron-Collins, 1989) action is part of the Narrative Schema. The Narrative Schema is one of the schemas that A. J. Greimas (Greimas-Courtés, 1982:203) proposed in order to account for the organizing principles of all narrative discourses; it belongs to the Narrative level [4]. At an abstract level, narration is considered a process of conjunction or disjunction with an Object of value. This process has been divided into four steps: Contract, Competence, Performance, Sanction [Tab. 2]. These four steps describe the interactions between three actants (abstract representations of characters and their functions): the Subject, the Object and the Sender. The Sender assigns to the Subject a quest for an Object and a set of values, coherent with the Object -- this is the Contract. The Subject has to act in order to get in conjunction with the Object: first it has to acquire the right Competence and then it has to perform. Action is, then, considered as the sum of Competence and Performance. Eventually, the Sender, through the Sanction, evaluates the performance of the Subject
taken from: (http://www.reconstruction.ws/032/mottazzi.htm#5A)
I could analyze all HP series in that scheme, but is that all? This narrative scheme is what made the good story?. Of course Greimas is far from that.
In fact the three definitions could fit the latter.
Could we think there are differents levels for a plot, or for a fic? Wich are they?
And I don't want to discuss Greimas but the role of a plot in a fic so we could come close to the eternal, and all to personal problem: what make a good fic?
What do you think about it?.
