7 Basic Plots

"Everything worth writing has already been written." This is an old saying that will undoubtedly turn out to be only partially true. Many scholars agree that there are only so many plots that can be written. Although the number varies greatly, depending on who you ask, perhaps the most well-known list of plots are the seven types of conflicts.

• Man vs. Nature
• Man vs. Man
• Man vs. Environment
• Man vs. Machines/Technology
• Man vs. The Supernatural
• Man vs. Self
• Man vs. God/Religion

If this is it, then where do we fit in? Why do we write? Because the beauty lies in the details. The number of different characters that can be written is infinite. And each character will handle the same conflict in an entirely different way.

Each setting that a writer creates challenges these characters in different ways. Unless you go about to consciously copy a novel, it won't be the same as the one before it.

We have to remember that when we write, it's not an exact science. There is the thrill of deciding how to tell the story we want to tell. That's half the fun!

If you truly believe in your story, then it's worth writing. What do you think?

Holiday Greetings!

Here it is the end of another year! I've had this blog up for one year now and have experienced my ups and downs, as all my readers have seen. But the one thing I've learned this year is: don't quit. Writing is too important to my life and the desire to share keeps me coming back to continue to write. I'd like to share a quote that I saw:

"The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt."  ~Sylvia Plath

May each one of you experience a renewed sense of creativity with the new year and have the courage to share your unique insights with the rest of the world. This world is getting smaller and smaller and we need to reach out to each other in a vested effort.

I want to thank each one of you for taking the time to visit my blog and I hope we all have a successful new year.

Merry Christmas!

Happy New Year!

 

I tried to add a pretty picture, but I can't get the picture to upload. So, imagine a brightly burning candle set among Christmas ornaments and pine boughs, tied with red ribbon. That is my gift to you.

                                                                 
                                                                

Excerpt: The Chameleon Effect #13

Chavez works for The Agency and has been assigned to rescue Kira Rostropovich and return her to Vega Minor, where she resides with her parents. After being in prison and being 'bought' by Chavez in an auction, Kira is not happy about being searched by Chavez. But he finds a tracking device on her right before a mercenary, Captain Maddeson, finds them and demands that Kira be turned over to him. Chavez immediately makes a sudden jump across the galaxy, much to Kira's surprise! Kira continues to have nightmares and is haunted by the fact that her life is in danger. She demands to go back to Prison Planet 452, but Chavez has someone to add to his crew complement first.
Kira's dream keeps coming back. Is it a warning? All she knows is that her destiny lies intertwined with the prison planet. Will Chavez understand? It is six hours away from rendezvousing with Dr. Winters, who will attempt to help Kira with her problems. But Captain Maddeson is on an intercept course to capture them and return them to the warden. Will they escape? Dr. Winters has diagnosed Kira with the Chameleon Effect and in an attempt to halt its progress, he will use Chavez's DNA. But Kira has other plans and escapes off Chavez's ship, without a word to anyone. Chavez decides to go after her.

Kira entered her destination into the shuttle’s computer and engaged the engines. After she was underway, there nothing for her to do except wait. All the changes to her body from the Chameleon Effect made her so hungry and fatigued that she could barely keep her eyes open. But the last thing she wanted to do was fall asleep and dream about the white room again. She decided to eat and find out something about this Chavez who was supposed to be her savior. She sat chewing on a food packet and requested his information from the computer, but received a denial. No data available. On her second try, she tried the back door.

“Computer, give me information on Chavez at The Agency, Acquisitions and Restorations.”

A single visual image appeared along with the word: “ Deceased”. The image was Chavez, but the information was faulty. What’s going on? Kira thought, There’s a dead guy flying around through space saving people from themselves!

“Computer, give me any information on the deceased Chavez.”

This time, the computer complied. Chavez was listed as a six foot two, Terran-born nationalist. He had a family, a wife and daughter, who preceded him in death by three years. Born on Earth, Chavez was sold into slavery along with his mother. He escaped when he was seventeen and schooled on Darius and Arcturus, then recruited into The Agency from there. All other information was classified.

Kira was so wrapped up in reading about Chavez that she didn’t notice the ship approaching onscreen. She became aware of its presence when a sudden lurch brought her ship to a standstill and she fell head first, out of her chair.

A tractor beam! Damn! It’s probably Chavez!

Kira scrambled up off the floor and stood expectantly toward the forward screen. Whoever did this would be making themselves known soon. But Kira wasn’t giving up that easily, she had a surprise or two waiting when they boarded the ship.

But the surprise was on Kira when the forward screen lit up and Captain Luthius Maddeson appeared with a wicked grin. His green eyes widened as he took in Kira’s appearance. He understood her to be humanoid, but her markings and luminescent green-blue eyes suggested otherwise.

“I’ve been searching the entire galaxy for you, my dear, and I’m most anxious to have you on board my vessel. If you fight me, I will cut off your air supply and starve you of oxygen until you black out. Now you decide - which way will it be?”

“Where are you taking me?”

“What concern is that of yours? Shouldn’t you rather worry whether I let you live or not?”

“If you wanted me dead, I’d already be dead and we wouldn’t be having this ridiculous conversation. So where are you going to be taking me?”

Captain Maddeson licked his thickened lips and smiled. “I like a challenging female. So I will tell you. I am taking you to Prison Planet 452, and am delivering you to the warden.”

Kira nodded in response. “In that case, I will comply with your wishes, without any further hostilities on my part. I will fight you, however, if you should try anything of a personal nature against me.”

Captain Maddeson blinked  his two sets of eyelids as he continued to smile and replied, “You will be well taken care of on my ship, young Kira, and you can be assured that no one will cause you personal tragedy unless you try to escape from my ship.”

“I have no desire to do so, Captain. I am ready to board now.”

Kira gathered her few personal belongings and unlocked the shuttle door. When it slid open, she was inside another cargo bay surrounded by Orgarian guards. They aimed their blasters at her, which made her nervous, but she resisted saying or doing anything until she saw Captain Maddeson enter the bay.

“Captain, is it necessary to have all these weapons aimed at me? I did, after all, make my intentions clear.”

Captain Maddeson spoke to his men in a guttural language that Kira had never heard before. As he did, his men lowered their weapons. Kira filed the language away for future access, in case she needed it.

“In my business, I have learned that one’s doing is worth more than one’s saying, my dear. I have been, how do you say it… crossed double, more often than not by those offering good will.”

Kira nodded in understanding. “I see, double crossed. I am in earnest with you. My goal is to get back to Planet 452 as soon as possible.”

“Then it shall be so. Let me show you to your quarters and tell you a few rules I must insist upon.”

Captain Maddeson led Kira out of the cargo bay and onto his ship as he explained where she could and could not go and what she needed to do to comply.

“I require your presence at meal times and you are not allowed on the bridge unless you feel it is an emergency. Other than that, you will be free to explore the ship, as long as you do not go near the cargo bay.”

Kira nodded as she felt the heat of the temperature the Orgarian ship was kept at. And although it was daylight hours, the ship was kept with low lighting to help with the comfort of the Orgarian eyes. This made Kira sleepy, so after a meal with barely cooked meat and strange vegetables, she excused herself to go to her quarters and sleep. She noticed the guard by her door, but was told it was for her safety. She lay down on her bed and was soon asleep. She began to dream of the white room and the table. Everything was the same until the end! She saw the person coming toward her… it was the warden!

“If you don’t comply with my wishes, your sister will die!”

Kira awoke with a start. And she remembered! My sister! She had to get back to save her sister from the warden. Her sister had been kidnapped when she was thirteen years old and was being held by the warden. She was being kept in a cell in Kira’s place until she returned. But why had she been auctioned off? Was it an accident? She couldn’t remember that being part of the plan. She was supposed to use her powers as a seer’s daughter, if she had any, and combine it with the Chameleon Effect to see if she could become stronger and smarter. But what was she supposed to do? She couldn’t remember what the warden wanted except for one thing. The warden wanted to make her into an advanced being! But why?

 

To be continued...

Subtlety and Misdirection

 

There are tools in writing that add an element of uncertainty and tension, that William Noble, in his book Conflict, Action & Suspense calls “plot-hypers”. They create a rise of anxiety by injecting an unexplained event or circumstance. For example:

A car engine breaks the stillness of the night…or…an unopened letter slips behind couch cushions…

What makes plot-hypers especially useful is the relative ease with which they can be used and the impact they can have on the story. They are the tools that make subtlety and misdirection possible. They raise the tension level. They create uncertainty that might - but doesn’t have to - complicate things.

We speak of subtlety and misdirection because the story moves in whisps and veils and there’s no attempt to ring a bell or blow a whistle to get the reader’s attention. It must, however, take a careful assessment of how much or how little to offer the reader, keeping in mind that we don’t want to be unfair, and we don’t want to confuse the issue. It means we must come up with at least one plot-hyper, and plant the key somewhere in the text. It doesn’t do much good if we expect the reader to deduce things from vague clues, because then, we’ve exchanged subtlety for unreasonable expectation.

Consider Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Hound of the Baskervilles, and Edgar Allen Poe’s The Purloined Letter. Both planted their plot-hypers in the body of their stories, the subtleties and misdirection came not from confusion or vagueness, but from the knowledge of the way we tend to think. How many of us are lulled by the steadiness of routine? Always the same thing, done the same way, at the same time and same place. Would we wonder about sinister consequences if the routine broke down once or twice? Human nature, we’d say, nothing works perfectly every time!

But Sherlock Holmes wasn’t quite so fooled.

How many of us go on a search for something and assume that what we are searching for must be hidden, and can’t be picked out by the naked eye. Poe showed us that the best place may be somewhere in plain sight because human nature assumes this could never be a possibility.

Why do we use subtlety and misdirection in the first place? And do they actually build action and suspense? The answers lie in a simple equation that becomes an element of the partnership we develop with our readers: The longer we keep our readers guessing, the more attention they will pay to what they are reading. Simple as that.

Subtlety and misdirection make the plot-hyper work by:

·         Offering a thread of information.

·         Forcing the reader to deduce the relevance.

·         Not highlighting the information (making it seem a natural outgrowth of the conversation) but not burying it either - remember, no unreasonable confusion.

Suspense and action can both use subtlety and misdirection to give them depth and zip. Uncertainty is the lifeblood of suspense, and when we provide a bare clue about something sinister, we can’t help but heighten the uncertainty. The clue won’t give the answer, we’re only offering a whisp of something, but it does increase the suspense.

With action sequences, things happen. Suppose a fact is misread or ignored (such as out-of-date blueprints that become a basis for a rescue during a construction fire). The subtlety or misdirection comes in avoiding overemphasis of the plot-hyper - the use of the old blueprints, for example - and keeping things simple. Mention the wrong blueprints in passing, or have the character unaware they have been superseded. Play fair with your readers, give them a chance to catch the subtlety or misdirection. But don’t make it too easy!

Excerpt: The Chameleon Effect #12

Chavez works for The Agency and has been assigned to rescue Kira Rostropovich and return her to Vega Minor, where she resides with her parents. After being in prison and being 'bought' by Chavez in an auction, Kira is not happy about being searched by Chavez. But he finds a tracking device on her right before a mercenary, Captain Maddeson, finds them and demands that Kira be turned over to him. Chavez immediately makes a sudden jump across the galaxy, much to Kira's surprise! Kira continues to have nightmares and is haunted by the fact that her life is in danger. She demands to go back to Prison Planet 452, but Chavez has someone to add to his crew complement first.
Kira's dream keeps coming back. Is it a warning? All she knows is that her destiny lies intertwined with the prison planet. Will Chavez understand? It is six hours away from rendezvousing with Dr. Winters, who will attempt to help Kira with her problems. But Captain Maddeson is on an intercept course to capture them and return them to the warden. Will they escape? Dr. Winters has diagnosed Kira with the Chameleon Effect and in an attempt to halt its progress, he will use Chavez's DNA. But Kira has other plans and escapes off Chavez's ship, without a word to anyone.

Chavez couldn’t stop thinking about Kira as he plotted his course to Prison Planet 452. He finally satisfied his curiosity by deciding to review her file again. He’d read through all the essential parts and now he wanted to know everything he could find about her. Although he had perused the file before, he hoped there was something that he’d missed.

“Computer, open the file on Kira Rostropov.”

“Searching.”

A few seconds later, her entire file flashed onscreen, starting with a recent visual of her at her home on Vega Minor. She was standing next to the family swimming pool, dressed in a white cover-up, with her thick, curly hair piled on top of her head. What Chavez noticed most about the image was the smile that adorned her face. It lit up her entire face and sent out a non-verbal message of happiness. Chavez automatically smiled back as he felt a yearning for her in his gut. He wished that she was able to smile like that now, but he’d only seen hints of it from her. He frowned at the thought he suddenly had, and decided to follow through on it.

“Computer, shown me Kira’s mother and her history.”

 

Chavez searched through her history and found what he was looking for. Kira’s mother was the first wife of Ambassador Rostropov and was descended from a line of seer’s that were from the planet Darius. They had mental powers that were unequal to no other in this part of the galaxy. She died after giving birth to two female children. If Kira had even part of the powers her mother had, what would the Chameleon Effect do to her and how much power would it give her? He wondered if the warden had figured this out and that was why she was targeted. But unless they had a way of controlling her, the power would be useless.

Chavez pulled up the file on Ambassador Rostropov’s second wife. She was his current wife, who was freed from slavery by the Ambassador. She had one child who followed her into slavery, but had become lost when he or she was thirteen.

Chavez reminisced about his own mother who had worked so hard to protect him while they were bound in slavery. But it was at thirteen when he met the warden, who gave him his lasting disfigurements and sent his mother away to the slave auctions. The last word he had received about his mother was that she had died under someone’s hand. Chavez vowed he would make the warden pay for his cruelty not only to him, but to his mother. He had caused her to work herself to death in slavery.

Chavez continued to dig through the family history until he came to the line about a younger sister that had been born three years after Kira, and then kidnapped at age 13. She was never found and although they continued to look for her, the family rarely mentioned her because of the pain it caused their father. But Chavez was curious. Why had Kira insisted that she had to get back to Planet 452 or she would die? She only knew bits and pieces about the Chameleon Effect, nor did she know what happened to her while she was there. Or did she? She was so insistent about going back, that she actually commandeered a shuttle and headed off into space, not knowing which way to go. Were the two incidents related somehow? The answers lie on the prison planet amidst a crowd of greedy, backbiting individuals who would sell their own mother for a credit. Chavez knew he needed to go there to get the answers he was searching for. He needed to find out what had happened to Kira.