This week: Predictable Plotlines Edited by: Annette  
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“The word adventure has gotten overused. To me, adventure is when everything goes wrong. That’s when adventure starts.”
– Yvon Chouinard
“Adventure should be 80% ‘I think this is manageable,’ but it’s good to have that last 20% where you’re right outside your comfort zone. Still safe, but outside your comfort zone.”
– Bear Grylls |
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Predictable Plotlines
There are several different ways to tell a story. Each has its benefits and drawbacks. No matter which pattern of story telling is chosen, the story beats are so recognizable that the stories themselves don't offer much in the way of surprises any longer.
The typical three act story:
Beginning with the inciting incident.
Middle with rising action that culminates in the story's climax, highest point of tension.
Denouement that explains everything and wraps the plot up.
The backwards narration:
The story begins by telling the reader the end.
The remainder of the story takes the reader through all the events leading up to the end.
Flashbacks galore:
A story kind of starts with an inciting incident, but is continuously interrupted by events that took place before the main story line. This can be helpful, or very annoying. If overdone, it feels like a cop-out to slap characterization and emotions into the plot without having to show them.
The story that begins with the climax or moment of highest tension:
Similar to backwards narration. The story starts during a moment that is breathless, scary, bloody, full of action or mystery.
The remaining story explains how we got here and then, once it arrives at this middle part, recaps it and then moves on to solve it.
Each one of these can be useful in action adventure writing. One thing not to miss though is that adventure must include elements that the protagonists can't easily control. However, it's not enough to throw the main character into snake pit and then watch him figure out how to escape. This is going to be boring because his status as main character means he will make it out. To make it something to worry about for the reader, the snake pit has to have more than snakes. There has to be an element of uncertainty that can't be brushed away. Something that makes the reader believe the chaos and danger is so complete that there is a chance the main character will not get out alive.
The art is to find what that is and insert it into the story at just the right moment so that it is neither predictable nor too unbelievable.
Do predictable plotlines kill a story? Or can even a small unexpected element make the whole story new and different? |
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I received these replies to my last Action Adventure newsletter "Bingo Card of Plot Points" that asked: "Have you ever used a whole bingo card of plot points in a story?"
Quick-Quill  wrote: Have you been following the Gabby Petito? your plot points almost start with her story. I will print this and see how the real-life story plays out against your list
You are so right. First she was missing and then she turned up dead. And so many more of those "plot points" fit. Now I wonder if the bing card of plot points was taken straight out of a crime report.
Legerdemain  wrote: "What would it be like if several writers were each given a set of 25 plot elements that have to be included in a story? Would we all write something similar or would we come up with wildly different stories?"
I'm positive that most of the stories would be very different given that many plot points. I've judged contests with a single image or phrase prompt and it seems if the prompt is an image, many of the stories end up similar. The stories vary more if the prompt is a phrase.
That is so interesting! Who would have thought that there is a larger overlap in shared imagination when there is an image involved. You have a good bit of experience after all these years of running contests here. I do wonder if this could be a contest in and of itself, to find out if that pattern persists.
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Action/Adventure: June 29, 2022 Issue [#11409]
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