A David Langford article

[HConn]

Thomas Covenant haters (and everyone else, I think) will enjoy this article by (http://news.ansible.co.uk/plotdev.html) David Langford (http://news.ansible.co.uk/) on the Art of the Predictable.

[HConn]

Come on, guys! Did no one read it? Did no one care?

Didn't you laugh at the "clench-racing" game?

What do you think about Plot Vouchers (as opposed to Plot Coupons)? Ever use one in a story?

Hello?

[macalicious731]

Sorry, HConn, but most of that article went past me. Haven't nearly enough in the genre for it to click.

Did laugh at the clench racing though. Makes a valid point about an author over-using their favorite words.

Edit: Realized I'm not posting in full sentences. Apologies.

[Terra Aeterna]

Hate just isn't a strong enough word to describe my opinion of Tomas Covenant.

This article was quite fun and quite sad all at the same time. I've also heard plot coupons called plot cookies. Alas, I haven't used any yet, my writing is too ludicrous for such things. But fortunately for me, I have writing friends who can and do use their supply and mine, so my plot vouchers are not languishing in a dark drawer anywhere.

But ouch if you're any of the authors mentioned in the article. :ack

[HConn]

The vouchers and the coupons are different things. I'm not sure from your post if you knew that or not.

"Darth Vader is a servant of the dark side of the Plot."

A lot of what Langford says re: fate and The Gods being nothing more than the desires of the author rings true to me, especially considering the book I'm reading right now.

[Ravenlocks01]

:rollin

And yet it's so true. Those same plot devices pop up time after time in fantasy (I haven't read as much SF, so I can't say). I'm trying to think if I've ever used a plot voucher in a story... Actually I think I have. It was an old prophecy that appeared to be totally irrelevant until the moment it saved the day.

I actually liked Susan Cooper as a kid. As an adult I tried rereading her and couldn't get all the way through the five books. They just got too repetitive.

Good article, HConn. May the Plot be with you. :p

[HConn]

"I sense a disturbance in the Plot."

I believe I have a Plot Voucher in my current WIP. Two, in fact. But in this case the protagonist steals them, instead of receiving them as gifts.

Hope that makes a difference.8o

[ChunkyC]

...escapist adventure stories with no particular pretensions to engage the higher cortical functions....
The road to riches. :grin

[HConn]

:lol

[Flawed Creation]

"Flawed" has none of the things mentioned in the article, but my untitled WIP has both a prophecy that requires them to do stuff for unclear resons (there IS a reson, but i haven't figured it out yet) and a quest for the holy Coupon.

it's filled with vouchers too. all magic is done through vouchers. wizards don't cast spells, ever. only make nifty one-use stuff.

Tomas Covenant has yto be one the worst thigns i have read. the sad part is that there is definitely some good stuff in there, and the world is pretty interesting. but i wanted to strangle Covenant.

[Writing Again]

I think that coupons, vouchers, quests, etc are just more obvious in fantasy, just as mystery, detection, and misdirecting the reader are more obvious in mystery stories. However I believe these things exist throughout literature in more disguised forms.

[Nyki27]

I read the Covenant books when they first came out, and I enjoyed them then. But that was a long time ago, not sure what I'd think of them if I read them now. Ditto Susuan Cooper.

I think my WIP is reasonably free of these things. There's no coupons (it does have a quest, which goes horribly wrong) and a couple of things that could be seen as vouchers, but one is very integral to the story, and the other is simply the result of the protagonist, who's 3000 years old, remembering something from long ago at an opportune moment. And there's a character who represents author intervention, but that's deliberate & explicit, so I suppose it's more like postmodern irony (or whatever).

[vstrauss]

This sheds a lot of light on my total inability to plan more than one book at a time. I need more vouchers.

I always kind of liked Susan Cooper, but it's been a long time since I read her.

Stephen Donaldson--bleah.

- Victoria

[Writing Again]

If you don't have enough vouchers use subway tokens.

The magic of the underground railroad is empowered by subway tokens.

Do not throw the subway token into the abyss.

[Flawed Creation]

i loved the article, but having thought it over, i disagree with one thing. the assertion that Lord of the Rings involved coupons/vouchers. i'm not saying the plot was completely original. but it doesn't commit the sins discussed in this article.

the One ring is not a plot coupon; it IS completely central to the plot, but it's powers are known, it isn't mysterious and it doesn't allow one to "send away for the ending". in fact, the book has one of those epic quests, but the quest to get rid of the ring has little to do with the traditional plot coupon quest. similarly, it doesn't function as a voucher, considering that it hinders the characters every step of the way, not helps them.

[Mukaden]

I think the plot coupon aspect of the One ring is that, if that ring/coupon were destroyed, then everything falls into almost instantaneous harmony.

If only life were that easy:

"Mukaden pens the final word of his novel, and at that very moment his door bursts inward to allow a spill of agents, editors, fans and millions upon millions of dollars in signing fees, royalties and tie-ins. He then jumps a ship to a shining land where he will live happily ever after.

The end."

I think Langford is critiquing this sort of cut-and-dry, all-too-easy plot device in favor of something more realistic and complicated. I think the political intrigue in George RR Martin's "Song of Ice and Fire" series is a good example. In that series, success is won through wit, determination and hard work, rather than being tied to the fate of one mystical object/plot coupon.

[Flawed Creation]

most books do that, though. once the main conflict is resolved, remainingly trouble is skimmed over.

happy endings ignore it, more realistic endings hint that things wont be easy. only truly unhappy endings drag one through the minutiae of what happens after the story is over, and even then it can be just too boring.

[Writing Again]

The nice thing about a joke, or a story, is that you can pretty much end them wherever you want to.

Life just keeps on rolling along.

[Mukaden]

No offense, Flawed, but I think you're missing the point.

It's not that the denoument is unfolded quickly or slowly, but the fact that success or failure at the moment of the climax rests solely on the use or destruction of a single object. In the Lord of the Rings, once the ring is destroyed, the bad guy simultaneously dies. Same with the exhaust port on the Death Star in Star Wars.

In each instance, the tension is raised to such a level that the lives of all the heroes involved hang in the balance. Salvation, though, comes instantaneously, once the plot coupon is dealt with.

Langford finds this sort of plot device to be a cheap and easy way of A) having an excuse to combine certain story elements together, however implausible, B) heightening tension to the point that success seems impossible, without risking writing yourself into a corner and C) dissolving that tension with a snap a finger.

[Flawed Creation]

that makes sense, and i agree with you- on the other hand, similar things have been done without resorting to plot coupons.

so frequently when one problem is solved, everything else suddenly becomes good.

in plenty of books, the death of the antagonist or the resolution of a particular problem is acoompanied by all sorts of toehr good fortune.

still, i suppose that *is* beside the point. the only relevant thing is those boks that do you coupons, and i suppose LotR is one of them.

[Nyki27]

I think it's an exaggeration to say either that everything becomes perfect once the ring is destroyed, or that it's instead of doing it the easy way. Basically, the whole war is a strategy built around getting the ring to Mount Doom - though, as in most wars, very few of the people fighting it actually know that purpose. And there's still plenty to do - like sorting out the Shire.

It's probably fair to say that the ring's a bit couponish, but not flagrantly so.

[MacAl Stone]

I actually see the ring more as a "character" built into the plot...

[Mukaden]

A character can be just as much a plot coupon as an object.

Like a prophet that appears just long enough to utter a bit of foreshadowing; or a mysterious benefactor that aids the protagonist at a key moment.

Basically, anything that allows the protagonist to get from Point A to Point B with a minimum of actual storytelling, by taking a "storytelling bypass" around the problem, as it were...