NEW PLOTS FROM OLD

Work with the bare bones

In his excellent article ‘Losing the Plot?’ (BBC Get Writing Website) writer Mike Phillips points out that there are only a limited number of basic stories in any culture. He says ‘Look hard enough at any story and you will always find the fingerprints of an earlier one.’ In Chapter 3 we considered the three basic elements – what we might call the ‘bare bones’ of the average plot. They are:

• 1.conflict
• 2.character response
• 3.resolution.

In a love story these bare bones generally turn out to be:

• 1.Girl meets boy and there is an obstacle to their relationship.
• 2.Through the endeavours of one or both the obstacle is overcome.
• 3.They live happily ever after {Cinderella) or they part (Brief Encounter) or resolution comes about because of their death (Tristan and Isolde, Romeo and Juliet, West Side Story).

In an adventure story they probably look like this:

• 1.The hero or heroine set out to get something or prove something, but there is at least one obstacle in the way of their doing so.
• 2.Through courage, determination and resourcefulness (which may include wisdom in seeking help) obstacles are overcome.
• 3.The goal is achieved.

Once you have chosen a hero and/or heroine and an obstacle or obstacles, these bare bones can be fleshed out and recycled endlessly. Try a numbered grid like the ones we made in Chapters 2 and 3, heading your columns HERO, HEROINE, OBSTACLE and select them at random, then follow the three steps above.

Work with the basic form

Another way of recycling plots is reduce an existing story to its most basic form, and then give all the elements a makeover in the ways described at the beginning of the chapter. For example the story of Little Red Riding Hood can be broken down into these six basic steps:

• 1.A little girl goes to the woods to visit her grandmother, who is ill.
• 2.A wolf tricks her into revealing where her grandmother lives.
• 3.The wolf goes ahead of her and eats grandmother.
• 4.When the little girl arrives, the wolf tricks her by dressing up as her grandmother.
• 5.The wolf eats the little girl.
• 6.Her father kills the wolf, cuts it open and frees the little girl and her grandmother.

By using a grid, a dictionary opened at random, or just your imagination, you can change characters, settings and responses to come up with what appears to be a completely different story. Using a mixture of the dictionary and some imagination I came up with:

• 1.A famous actor goes to Paddington to surprise his lover.
• 2.A Sun reporter tricks him into revealing where his lover lives.
• 3.The reporter goes ahead and photographs the lover.
• 4.When the actor arrives, the reporter tricks him by dressing up as a beggar.
• 5.The reporter photographs the actor.
• 6.A policeman apprehends the ‘beggar’, causing the camera to fall and break open, erasing the photos of the actor and his lover.

A group of experimental novelists decided to recycle the basic steps of plots in a more complex way, and came up with the idea of branching narratives.

Branching narratives – simple version

Red Riding Hood is a good story to practice with, because it is relatively uncomplicated. Look at those six basic steps again. Now, to create a simple branching narrative, invent an alternative for each of the steps from 2 onwards. For example, in Little Red Riding Hood, step 2(a) could be She loses her way and ends up at a house she has never seen before – which would take the story along an entirely different route. Or, keeping the original step 2, step 3(a) could be the wolf is a DSS Inspector in disguise. As with changing one aspect of a character, the original is radically altered from the point at which you intervene.

If you were following this procedure for real, rather than as an exercise, you would combine it with a change of basic details (as in the previous exercise) prior to your intervention.

For example, intervene at step 3 in Little Red Riding Hood, keeping the the gist of 1 and 2 the same, but making the main character a little boy in a blue anorak on his way to see a friend. Have a woman trick him into revealing his friend’s address.

Or, having intervened at step 3 and finished the story, write backwards from 3, inventing an alternative step 2 and a new beginning.

Or work backwards from either the old or new beginning – as in dreamwork when you asked what was happening before the dream began. What were the events in the life of Red Riding Hood or the boy in the anorak, which led them to set out alone that morning? A whole family saga could be awaiting revelation.

After you have made your alterations, the finished product will be unrecognisable in terms of the original – a real George Washington’s axe-job.

Many short stories in women’s magazines can be broken down and used as templates in this way (and many were probably devised in a similar way to begin with). Most have a fairly simple plot which would fit the six-step model.

Some stories are more complex than they might at first appear. Cinderella for example takes roughly 13 steps:

• 1.Cinderella’s stepmother and her two daughters are jealous of Cinderella’s beauty and treat her as a servant.
• 2.They receive an invitation to the ball the king is giving for his son, and are determined that Cinderella shall not go.
• 3.When they have left for the ball, Cinderella’s fairy godmother changes her rags into a satin gown and glass slippers, and turns a pumpkin into a coach.
• 4.She sends Cinderella off to the ball, warning her to be home by midnight, when the spell will wear off.
• 5.The prince falls in love with Cinderella and dances with her all evening.
• 6.Midnight strikes. Cinderella remembers the warning and flees in panic.
• 7.Everything changes back except the glass slippers. One is left behind.
• 8.The prince orders every woman in the land to try the slipper, and vows to marry the one it fits.
• 9.The sisters lock Cinderella up and try the slipper. Their feet are too big.
• 10.Just as the prince’s entourage is leaving, Cinderella escapes.
• 11.She tries the slipper and it fits. She also has the other one.
• 12.Cinderella marries the prince.
• 13.They live happily ever after.

(War and Peace is not recommended for the branching narrative treatment!)