Date: Fri, 6 Feb 1998 00:00:31 EST From: Smoldering Ashes Subject: EXERCISE: Plot #18: Wretched Excess: 20 Master Plots [posting slightly early since I am scheduled to change offices tomorrow, which often has the undesirable side-effect of making the day a total and complete loss...] Based on the book "20 Master Plots (And How to Build Them)" by Ronald B. Tobias. ISBN 0-89879-595-8. Plot #18: Wretched Excess (p. 209) "We are fascinated with people who push the limits of acceptable behavior, either by choice or by accident." "This fascination for people who inhabit the margins of society is what makes this plot so interesting...." You and I probably fall into the middle... "But life sometimes throws us a curve that we can't handle. ...Now you're on the margins of society and probably on the margin of acceptable behavior." "The scary thing about wretched excess is that it can happen to anyone under any circumstances. It doesn't just happen to people who are on the edge; it can happen suddenly to people who seem to be the rock of respectability. It doesn't really take much to unravel someone." (p. 210) "The real tension inherent in this plot comes from convincing the readers that whatever the excess, it could happen to them, too. Which of us knows what evil lurks in the hearts of those around us? Which of us can see the fatal flaws in our behavior or the behavior of others that lets us become unglued in an instant? True horror...lies in the commonplace. ... to make horror from everyday people and everyday events strikes to the core. ... a good writer could convince me that there are terrors just as great [as a vampire] lurking in all our lives. All it takes is the right turn of events." "...The wretched excess plot is about people who have lost the veneer of civilization either because they are mentally unbalanced or because they have been trapped by circumstances that made them behave differently than they would under 'normal' circumstances...." (p. 215) Basic Structure Part one: an understanding of what life is like before the change...before the character starts being driven to extremes. But be careful--just enough of a hint that we understand the character, not so much that we are bored. And bring in the catalyst "an event that forces change in the life of the main character. Ultimately, the change will result in a total loss of control. The change may be gradual--maybe hardly noticeable at first--but we watch in horror and fascination as the character begins the decline toward whatever his obsession is." Part two...develop the gradual loss of control. "How does it affect the character? How does it affect those who are near him? Each successive complication takes him deeper into a well that seems to have no escape." Part three. Here the character loses control. "It is the turning point of the plot. Clearly things cannot get worse." You don't have to write a tragedy! "Your character may find a more constructive way out and start back on the road to healing. But something important must happen to resolve the excess." Checklist: 1. Does your story show us the psychological decline of a character? 2. Is the decline of the character firmly based on a character flaw? What is it? 3. Does the story show the three phases of the decline: before events force a change; during successive deterioration; and at/after the crisis, with the flaw overcoming (in tragedy) or with heroic recovery? 4. Do you develop the character fully enough so that the decline evokes sympathy? Do you let the reader know what the character really feels, giving us enough information early enough? 5. Have you spent extra effort on developing the character, making sure that he will be real to the reader and worthy of their feelings for him? 6. Do you avoid melodrama? Make sure the emotion(s) you are trying to evoke are matched to the scene. 7. Are you straightforward with information that allows the reader to understand your main character? Did you hide something that would help your reader empathize with the character? 8. Have you scaled the crimes to match the reader's understanding of who and what the main character is? 9. Does your crisis get resolved? Does the character move toward complete destruction or redemption? 10. Does the action in the plot relate directly to character? Do "things happen _because_ your main character does (or does not) do certain things"? 11. Do you understand (through personal experience or research) the excess you are writing about? Make sure that what you show the character doing is realistic for someone suffering from this excess or madness. And that's Tobias's guidance to the ways of excess... Let's see how you might turn this into your very own story, poem, or other toil of representation, illustration, and personification (otherwise known as a work of art!). I think the right place to start is with the character. So, let's pick a number from one to six, if you would be so kind? 1. Williams 2. Miller 3. Anderson 4. Thompson 5. Taylor 6. Moore Okay, that was interesting...now another number, if you please, maestro? 1. Blair 2. Dakota 3. Daryl 4. Shannon 5. Marlin 6. Jaime So, now you have a name. Daryl Taylor? (Note that the second list is taken from Top-listed Cross-gender Names in Baby Names for the 90's by Barbara Kay Turner, so you will need to pick a gender for your character...) Work a little with your new character. Think about their hair color, where they grew up, what kind of TV shows they watch, have they read the latest novel or do they prefer ancient philosophy for bedtime reading? Do they wear jeans (part of the leisure class, perhaps?) or are they solidly upwardly mobile, encrusted in a suit and tie whenever they are in public? Do they turn the radio on when they are sitting waiting in a car? What kind of music? And, lest we forget, delve into the mind and soul of your character. Plant a "fatal flaw" if you will...oh, can't think of any? Roll your die! 1. Carelessness 2. Gossip 3. Hypocritical 4. Fear of (pick one, phobias are for everyone!) 5. Hypochondriac 6. Loyalty (what, loyalty doesn't look like a flaw to you? Okay, consider loyalty taken to extremes...to the point where it endangers life and limb...well, perhaps there is a flaw there?) So you have a character, with their little personality problem...now think about what might happen to force them face to face with their problem at the extreme. Perhaps the careless person "falls into" a situation where someone's life depends on them being a nitpicking, obsessive person. For example, suppose they are the only person who can rendezvous with the orbitting spacer before they run out of air...and there isn't room for a mistake! Or the gossip spends 24 hours with a live microphone and news crew following them around... The hypocritical person finds out they have been telling their fiancee's father all about the way they have been lying. Or maybe the person who is afraid of... You get the point. Make a list of two or three situations that would push this personality problem into collapse, then think about how to get your character into that position. Then add in that the flood has just destroyed their house, the business has burnt to the ground, something has pulled all the support that they might normally lean on out from under them. Pretend you really want poor old Jaime Thompson to feel as if no one is on their side, and methodically remove all the social underpinning that holds the character up... At this point, you might want to go ahead and write the story. Some people will want to sketch out the scenes first, then write them up using that outline. Either way, take us from the ordinary life of our character through the transformation into extraordinary ways and means...and show us how the character reacts, whether they are broken on the rack of life or learn to go beyond what anyone would expect. Another number? 1. "The road to excess leads to the palace of wisdom." William Blake, "Proverbs of Hell," The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790) 2. "Excess on occasion if exhilarating. It prevents moderation from acquiring the deadening effect of a habit." W. Somerset Maugham, The Summing Up (1938), 15 3. "They are as sick that surfeit with too much as they that starve with nothing." Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice (1596-97), 1.2.6 4. "We deny that it is fun to be saving. It is fun to be prodigal. Go to the butterfly, thou parsimonious sluggard; consider her ways and get wise." Franklin P. Adams, Nods and Becks (1944) 5. "Dry happiness is like dry bread. We eat, but we do not dine. I wish for the superfluous, for the useless, for the extravagant, for the too much, for that which is not good for anything." Victor Hugo, "Jean Valjean," Les Miserables (1862) 5.6, tr. Charles E. Wilbour 6. "What is objectionable, what is dangerous about extremists is not that they are extreme, but that they are intolerant. The evil is not what they say about their cause, but what they say about their opponents." Robert F. Kennedy, "Extremism, Left and Right," The Pursuit of Justice (1964) So now you have a quote to mix in (or ignore, if it distracts you too much from your fine beginning). But no matter how much you use or dismiss, please... WRITE! tink