Short+stories+-+PLOT

=**What is a PLOT?**=

It is the sequence of events which take place in your story. The most common mistake is to have too much going on; a short story should have a limited number of characters and probably only one or two key events. So, we want to avoid this:

'John went to the shop and bought a bun. A man ran into the shop with a gun and robbed it. John looked at the man and then threw his bun at the man's head but missed. The man ran out and John chased him. The man stole a car and drove off. John called a taxi and said 'Follow that car!' The man's car crashed and Hong Kong caught fire. The IFC fell over but John managed to clear all the people out of the way. The man jumped into a helicopter. John ran to the police station and borrowed their missile launcher. He shot the helicopter but the man parachuted out...'

This is BORING! It's not a story; it's just a PLOT (and not a very good plot!)

=**STRUCTURE YOUR PLOT**=

A common way to plot stories is to use a THREE ACT STRUCTURE - basically, beginning, middle and end TODOROV's THEORY explains it like this...


 * || What happens? ||  ||
 * ACT 1: EQUILIBRIUM || Descriptive: Establish the tone. Everything is normal, everything happens as usual ||  ||
 * ACT 2: DISEQUILIBRIUM || Action! Something goes wrong! ||  ||
 * ACT 3: NEW EQUILIBRIUM || Sort out your plot: Everything returns to normal. ||  ||

TASK: Choose a story (a novel, a film, a short story, a fairy tale - whatever) with which you are familiar. Discuss with a friend the extent to which it follows Todorov's theory.
Narrative is different from plot. Plot is the sequence of events: narrative is the way you tell the events. The most obvious way is a LINEAR plot - simply tell events in the order they would happen in ral life. But you can be a bit more ambitious!
 * NARRATIVE**


 * IDEAS**:

You might NOT start with the equilibrium - start with the disequilibrium and then go back to explain how this happened.

You might tell the whole story through emails or text messages.

You could use a NARRATOR - telling the story from one character's point of view.

You could have a DUAL NARRATIVE - telling the story from two (or more!) points of view...

===** TASK: Think of a movie or story you're familiar with which does NOT follow Todorov's Theory (for example, everything might not return to normal at the end...) Does this make the story more effective? **===

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