20 Master Plots

by Ronald B Tobias

  But life sometimes throws us a curve that we can't handle. Twenty years on the job and suddenly you're jobless. You can't find another job and suddenly you're homeless. Your spouse and your children leave you and you're alone in the streets without any idea where your next meal is coming from and where you'll spend the night. Now you're on the margins of society and probably on the margins 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.

  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, authors like Stephen King have pointed out, lies in the commonplace. Vampires are easy (although fascinating), but to make horror from everyday people and everyday events strikes to the core. I don't expect to meet a vampire any time during the rest of my life, but a good writer could convince me that there are terrors just as great lurking in all our lives. All it takes is the right turn of events.

  I don't want to give the impression that there is an evil scheme afoot, that some mastermind is spearheading a plan to take over our lives (although that wouldn't be such a bad interpretation of the Christian fear of Satan). 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. Another way to put it: normal people under abnormal circumstances, and abnormal people under normal circumstances.

  Knut Hamsun (sometimes called the literary father of Ernest Hemingway) wrote an extraordinary novel, called Hunger, about a normal man under extraordinary circumstances. The book chronicles a man's descent into madness as a result of his gradual starvation. The protagonist, a writer, slowly gives up his literary aspirations as finding something to eat becomes more and more his focus. As he descends into madness (because of his starvation), his perceptions of the world and the people in it get increasingly distorted. Hunger is stunning because of its feeling of authenticity; we actually witness the hero's descent by stages, from a normal young man with dreams of success to a deranged man who is capable of almost anything to get food.

  Hollywood has always been fascinated with the extreme. William Wyler directed The Little Foxes with Bette Davis (written by Lilian Hellman and Dorothy Parker) about the Hubbard clan, a ruthless, upwardly mobile family in the American South. Or what about Michael Curtiz' direction of Mildred Pierce, a story about ambitious people with shadowy motives who live in a world of fear and violence. You could probably name a dozen films yourself, everything from Lost Weekend to Monsieur Verdoux (Charlie Chaplin's only talkie, in which he plays a mass murderer—it wasn't a hit) to Paddy Chayefsky's Network to John Milius and Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now to Wall Street. The battleground can be alcoholism, greed, ambition, war or any number of other difficulties. These characters have been pushed to extremes, and almost any one of them, under the right circumstances, could be us.

  ALL RIGHT, SO DON'T DO THE RIGHT THING

  We can't talk about wretched excess without talking about one of the most perfectly written plots of this type, Shakespeare's Othello.

  I know what you're thinking: Oh, no, not more Shakespeare. I can defend my choice by saying the author is just so good that you can't ignore him. In all fairness, as I pointed out earlier, his stories were derived from a variety of sources, but he made those stories distinctly his. If you go back and read the sources that he took from, you'd realize the real quality of his genius. And he could rhyme.

  Othello was written during what historians called Shakespeare's period of despair. Besides Othello he also wrote King Lear, Hamlet and Macbeth—all of them about wretched excess when you get down to it. But none of the stories captures the character of excess better than Othello's jealousy.

  ENTER, VILLAIN

  The villain of a wretched excess plot can be a person (as in the case of Othello's Iago) or it can be a thing, such as a bottle of whiskey (to the alcoholic in Lost Weekend). Iago is the epitome of villain. He has no redeeming characteristics. From beginning to end, this guy is bad news.

  An ensign in the armed forces of Venice, Iago's superior is a Moor (that is, a black man). When Othello passes over Iago for promotion, Iago decides to get revenge. (This isn't a revenge plot, because the focus of the story isn't Iago's revenge, but Othello's paranoia.) Iago is clever and knows how to manipulate people, but the tragedy is Othello's. Iago is merely the instrument that pushes Othello beyond the boundaries of proper behavior.

  Iago is a sadist: He enjoys giving pain (revenge ultimately is just an excuse for him to do what he wants to do anyway) and he doesn't care who gets hurt along the way. (A test of this is that, when Iago's punishment at the end of the play is to be tortured to death, we feel that's too good for him.)

  Iago starts off by telling Brabantio, Desdemona's father and a powerful politician, that Othello has stolen his daughter and forced her to marry him. Not good.

  Brabantio confronts Othello, who denies forcing his daughter to do anything she didn't want to do. Desdemona backs him up. Not much the father can do. But Othello must go off to fight a battle, so he leaves his bride in the care of Iago's wife. Not a smart move, although he doesn't have any reason to suspect Iago yet.

  Iago is busy plotting against Othello, who doesn't have the faintest idea that Iago's "mad" at him. The fact that Othello is unaware of Iago's feelings toward him is a plus because it heightens the tension for the audience. Think of how many first-, second- and third-rate films you've seen—ranging from psychological thrillers to cheap slasher flicks—that involve a person who's unaware of being stalked. (Iago's quest for revenge is out of balance for the slight against him. He's just mean. If he does have a strength, it's his deviousness.)

  Iago cooks up a clever plan to get Cassio, the man who has gotten the promotion Iago believes he deserved, fired. Then he sidles up to Cassio and says he'll put in a good word with Othello's wife to help him get his job back.

  Iago sets up a meeting between Desdemona and Cassio, then makes sure Othello sees the two of them together while he—as they say—casts aspersions about them. He even suggests that the officer and Desdemona had an affair before Othello married her.

  Iago is an excellent judge of character. He finds people's soft spots and exploits them. Othello's soft spot is his insecurity about his wife. Iago feeds that insecurity, and jealousy, the "green-eyed monster" (the phrase comes from this play) raises its head.

  Iago is on a roll now that he sees Othello has taken his bait. He even plants Desdemona's handkerchief—which had been a wedding gift from Othello —in Cassio's bedroom, then tells Othello he saw the two of them in bed together. Othello goes crazy and orders Iago to kill Cassio and promotes Iago to Cassio's rank.

  It's all downhill for Othello from there. He demands Desdemona show him the handkerchief, which, of course, she can't do because Iago's stolen it. Othello goes into deep depression and becomes increasingly unstable. Meanwhile, Iago is busy covering his tracks, stabbing people who know too much.

  THE NOT-SO-GOOD GUY

  Othello's descent into madness is the play's real focus. It's not about power or treachery or revenge. It's about the extreme of emotion that dooms Othello and his wife. A psychiatrist would've had a great time analyzing Othello, trying to get at the root of his suspicions and inadequacies. But Othello can't deal with the fact that his wife might have been fooling around when even common sense would've told him Desdemona loved him dearly. He loses reason and gives in to jealousy and rage. Everything gets out of proportion. He continues his sp
iral into madness and loses control, finally smothering his wife beneath a pillow.

  When Iago's treachery finally comes to light, Othello tries to kill Iago but fails. He has only one option left: suicide.

  Iago is certainly a sick man, but he alienates us. We don't feel for him; he is a villain. Othello commits sins that are arguably just as bad if not worse, and yet we feel for him. Why?

  The reason has to do with character development and the attitude the writer takes toward his characters. Shakespeare wasn't sympathetic to Iago. The character was a rotten apple, and rotten apples need to get thrown out. But Othello's psychology is more complex. Shakespeare felt a lot more for Othello than he did for Iago. Othello has a tragic flaw (as do MacBeth and Lear) that leads to his downfall. Othello's fear (that his wife was cheating on him) and his jealousy (that she might have eyes for anyone else) take him out of control. When you write about someone like Othello, you're writing about aberrant behavior. In his jealous rage he even lies to his wife that her so-called lover had confessed to him.

  Othello's descent into madness horrifies us, yet we feel the depth of his tragedy, especially when the truth is revealed and he must confront the horror of his actions. It is a horror he can't overcome, so he kills himself. It's his only way out.

  VICTIMS AND VILLAINS

  We also feel deeply for Desdemona. She is the real victim of Iago's plot. Othello is only the tool. True, it's Othello that Iago's after, but we see the effect of Othello's jealousy on poor Desdemona, whom we know all along is innocent.

  Shakespeare was clever enough not to play the game of "did she do it or not?" That's a common game today. Maybe she's fooling around and maybe she isn't. We must wait until the end to find out. The problem with playing that game is that the audience gets no chance to feel sympathy for the character. If we know she's innocent and is being falsely accused, we can feel for her. But if we're not sure, we hold off making any kind of commitment and avoid any emotional connection to the character. Shakespeare wants us to feel for Desdemona. It's one of the strongest emotions in all of literature: an innocent character unjustly accused. Othello works because the playwright allows us to feel for both Othello and Desdemona. We feel for his loss of control and the horrible consequences of it, and we feel for her because of the undeserved treatment she gets from all the men around her.

  There's a good lesson in this that you should keep in mind while writing: Don't be coy about your characters by hiding sympathetic information about them until the end of the story. You give up too much that way. The name of the game of this plot (like many others) is sympathy—making us feel for your characters. But if you withhold too much sympathetic information so we can't make a judgment about them (whether they're victims or villains), then neither can we.

  BASIC STRUCTURE OF THE PLOT

  This plot is about character driven to extremes and the effects of those extremes. As you conceptualize your story, consider moving your character from a stable state to an unstable state. That means your reader will see the main character in what we might describe (or what might appear) to be "normal." She's living her everyday life without major complications. The reason to give us a picture of your major character in normal circumstances is so that we can see her as if she were like one of us. That's the implied horror of excess: that it isn't just the realm of totally crazy people, but that it happens to ordinary people, and the implication is that it might even happen to you, the reader. We try to dismiss people who have gone off the deep end by separating them from the mainstream of society. They're not any of us. But the truth is, in most cases, they are part of us. By showing your character living a normal life in normal circumstances, you allow the reader to understand that this character is an ordinary person under extraordinary circumstances.

  Of course, you don't want to dwell on this aspect because in terms of the plot, little may happen. Tension, you may remember, is the result of the conflict of opposites, and if you're busy showing a normal person enjoying a normal life, your story probably lacks sufficient tension.

  Ask yourself, how would you tell the story of the temptation in the Garden of Eden? At what point would you begin the story? Would you spend a lot of time talking about the idyllic life sitting around eating fruit and watching the animals play? It may sound great, but in terms of literature, it's boring. Why? Because the situation is static.

  Introduce the serpent. Now you have the tension of opposites, and the story gets interesting. The best place to begin the story might be a day or two before the serpent tries to seduce Eve. We get a good picture of what life is like before the serpent, but we're also immediately introduced to the conflict.

  As you develop the plot of wretched excess, keep the same thought in mind. In the first movement, give the reader an understanding of what life was like before things started to change. But don't dwell on them.

  Then introduce the serpent.

  The serpent is 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.

  The second movement of the plot develops this 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.

  The point at which the character loses control—when he can no longer contain himself—is the start of the third movement. It is the turning point of the plot. Clearly things cannot get worse. In Othello's case it ends with the murder of his wife and his own suicide. (As I said before, once Othello kills his wife, there's no other way out for him.)

  Of course, your story doesn't have to be 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. That "something" either leads to a destructive end (because a person cannot live long with such emotional excess) or it leads to a turnaround and the beginning of reconstruction. An alcoholic, for instance, after destroying herself and her family, reaches rock bottom and desperately realizes that unless she gets help she will die.

  Think of your plot in terms of tracing the stages of a disease. (Wretched excess is in fact an emotional disease.) Symptoms: The character's behavior indicates that she isn't normal. Diagnosis: realizing there is a problem and correctly identifying it. Prognosis: the prospect of recovery. Your patient may or may not be cured. But in either case the disease is resolved—either happily with a cure, or unhappily, as the disease overcomes the patient.

  CHECKLIST

  As you write, keep in mind the following points:

  1. Wretched excess is generally about the psychological decline of a character.

  2. Base the decline of your character on a character flaw.

  3. Present the decline of your character in three phases: how he is before events start to change him; how he is as he successively deteriorates; and what happens after events reach a crisis point, forcing him either to give in completely to his flaw (tragedy) or to recover from it.

  4. Develop your character so that his decline evokes sympathy. Don't present him as a raving lunatic.

  5. Take particular care in the development of your character, because the plot depends on your ability to convince the audience that he is both real and worthy of their feelings for him.

  6. Avoid melodrama. Don't try to force emotion beyond what the scene can carry.

  7. Be straightforward with information that allows the reader to understand your main character. Don't hide anything that will keep your reader from being empathetic.

  8. Most writers want the audience to feel for the main character, so don't make your character commit crimes out of proportion of our understanding of who and what he is. It's hard to be sympathetic with a person who's a rapist or a serial murderer.

 
9. At the crisis point of your story, move your character either toward complete destruction or redemption. Don't leave him swinging in the wind, because your reader will definitely not be satisfied.

  10. Action in your plot should always relate to character. Things happen because your main character does (or does not) do certain things. The cause and effects of your plot should always relate either directly or indirectly to your main character.

  11. Don't lose your character in his madness. Nothing beats personal experience when it comes to this plot. If you don't understand the nature of the excess yourself (having experienced it), be careful about having your character do things that aren't realistic for the circumstances. Do your homework. Understand the nature of the excess you want to write about.

  Real drama, they've been telling us, is a story about a person who falls from a high place because of a tragic flaw in character. Something on the order of greed, pride or lust. The classic Greek plays have plenty of examples, from Agamemnon to Oedipus. These days there aren't a lot of kings and queens to choose from, but still we have a fascination for stories about people who fall from high places.

  We have an equal fascination with people who rise from humble beginnings to great prominence, the so-called rags-to-riches scenario made famous by Horatio Alger in stories like The Ragged Dick Series and the Luck and Pluck Series. In these stories, the hero is either a shoeshine or newsboy whose virtue was always rewarded with riches and success.

  These two plots—ascension and descension—occupy different positions in the same cycle of success and failure. One plot deals with the rise of the protagonist, and the other deals with her fall. Some stories capture the complete cycle, as in "The Rise and Fall of..." stories. Usually the personality traits that allowed the character to reach prominence (ambition, aggressiveness, etc.) are the same traits that cause her downfall.