Plots in Historicals

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Puma

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This may be a good idea for a thread and it may not. One of the threads in SYW got me thinking about it. The basic question is: what are the basic (or not so basic) plots for historical writing? Obviously ...

Love story
Love triangle
War story / conquest
Escape from oppression
Whodunit

What else? Puma
 

Zelenka

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Redemption
Coming of Age
Tragedy

Also, I know we have 'whodunnit' but we could add 'mystery' as well as a more general type of story, not necessarily a murder type of thing.

Not sure if you'd also count crossover types like alternative histories or historical fantasy too.
 

IceCreamEmpress

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Well, look at Ronald Tobias's "twenty master plots"--I think I've read at least one historical with a central plot that corresponds to each category. Heck, Georgette Heyer alone may have covered all of these:

1. Quest
2. Adventure
3. Pursuit
4. Rescue
5. Escape
6. Revenge
7. The Riddle
8. Rivalry
9. Underdog
10. Temptation
11. Metamorphosis
12. Transformation
13. Maturation
14. Love
15. Forbidden Love
16. Sacrifice
17. Discovery
18. Wretched Excess
19. Ascension
20. Descension

I'm not sure I buy Tobias's taxonomy, but I think that all possible plots are appropriate to historical fiction.
 

Puma

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That's a good list, IceCreamEmpress - thanks for posting it. And thanks too all of you who've contributed ideas. I can feel the gray cells banging around on a couple of them. Puma
 

IceCreamEmpress

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See here.
I couldn't think of one for 'Descension', nor for 'Metamorphosis' if you follow Tobias's distinction from 'Transformation' which seems to require a physical change into some kind of fantasy beast!

You are the coolest!

"Descension" is kind of an odd one, isn't it? And, yes, I see your point about "Metamorphosis" being difficult if you go by the letter of Tobias's definition--although I would suggest that if we went beyond Heyer, we could definitely find some: Christine Sparks's The Elephant Man is an historical that would fully meet Tobias's definition.
 

IceCreamEmpress

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Well, I can't remember if it was a book, but I once saw a film of Beau Brummel's life that certainly qualified as Descension.

Booth Tarkington (turn-of-the-20th-century US author best known for The Magnificent Ambersons, Alice Adams, and Penrod) wrote a novel about Beau Brummell, but I haven't read it. I don't see how it could be anything else but a "Descension" though!
 

pdr

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Um...

aren't these really themes rather than the plot?

Isn't Plot the actual story line, the action of the characters to tell the story and reveal the theme?
 

girlyswot

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If you look at Tobias's descriptions (summary here), they're 'big scale' plot, I think. So, for instance 'love' is described as 'a perennial tale of lovers finding one another, perhaps through a background of danger and woe. Along the way, they become separated in some way, but eventually come together in a final joyous reunion.' Or 'temptation' is 'In the temptation plot, a person is tempted by something that, if taken, would somehow diminish them, often morally. Their battle is thus internal, fighting against their inner voices which tell them to succumb.'

Of course they're only broad brush strokes, but I think you could use one or more of them to structure the details of your plot.
 

Zelenka

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aren't these really themes rather than the plot?

Isn't Plot the actual story line, the action of the characters to tell the story and reveal the theme?

I think quite a few there, like 'sacrifice' or 'transformation' could be either or.
 

wee

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Hmm..I think I saw the same thread that inspired this one.

For fun, I've ordered a couple of books on plot & character (arriving tomorrow), because I've never really thought about either one just wrote the story with my made-up people. The plan is to identify what "types" my main characters are & what kind of plot I'm writing. I figure ... since I'm pretty analytical, if I can't identify either, then I'm probably not writing it well enough. Arguments along this line are welcome.

I was going to add "quest" or "journey" but this one has been mentioned.

Right now I'm guessing my main WIP is .... according to Booker, which must be fairly good because I was able to pick mine out straight away according to his list where some of the others just make me scratch my head in confusion .... mainly "overcoming the monster", I believe. Now I think I'll enjoy that book more than I originally thought. (Seven Basic Plots)


Has anyone else done this, tried to identify what basic plot you are writing or what kinds of characters you're writing? What is YOUR plot? Oh, if that is hijacking then just ignore me.



wee
 

Zelenka

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Has anyone else done this, tried to identify what basic plot you are writing or what kinds of characters you're writing? What is YOUR plot? Oh, if that is hijacking then just ignore me.
wee

I've been thinking about it a bit from this thread, though not really seriously. I was just trying to think which of the things mentioned here best suits my plot. I've generally thought of mine as a mystery, but its got some emphasis on rivalry, love (in the sense of bonds between family members rather than lovers) overcoming other things, and maybe temptation or transformation too in a way. One of the subplots is definitely 'forbidden love', that one was easy.
 

pdr

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Jess?

Every novel you write is a different process because of the internal and external stresses driving you to write it.

BUT

You can never be sure, no matter how much you plan or think or believe, that the first draft is going to end up as you thought it would. So it's always best to FINISH the first draft, then you can analyse for the themes and rewrite to emphasise some and delete others.

I know there are writers, Annnie E. Proulx and Margaret Drabble, for two, who actually do a detailed plan and stick to it!
There are others, me for one, who cannot. No matter what we plan the characters are too real and run their own lives.

Get that first draft finished.
 
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Zelenka

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All I meant was, when wee asked if anyone had tried to determine what sort of plot they're writing, that I only really thought of it when I was looking at this thread, just as something fun, rather than sitting down seriously trying to get my story to fit into any particular mould. I was just thinking when I read this thread which of these suggestions best fits what I have so far.
 

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Actually, I've given plot considerable thought after I finished the books. And no, my plot is not standard, more a hodge-podge (no pun intended) than any particular form. As near as I can tell, it combines coming of age (or at least enlightenment) with bits of romance and lots of adventure. I worry that it is a bit diffuse, because it has elements of a comedy of manners--actually, conflicts of the class system and religious bigotry--too. This is what happens when one is an organic writer, or at least it happened to me.

Can a book with all that going on be a commercial or artistic success?
 

IceCreamEmpress

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Actually, I've given plot considerable thought after I finished the books. And no, my plot is not standard, more a hodge-podge (no pun intended) than any particular form. As near as I can tell, it combines coming of age (or at least enlightenment) with bits of romance and lots of adventure. I worry that it is a bit diffuse, because it has elements of a comedy of manners--actually, conflicts of the class system and religious bigotry--too. This is what happens when one is an organic writer, or at least it happened to me.

Can a book with all that going on be a commercial or artistic success?

A Conspiracy of Paper, by David Liss, is an historical thriller with a protagonist who had to face religious and class bigotry. It also had a lot of stuff about economics in it! And it did very well with critics and in the marketplace.
 

Puma

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I think there's always going to be a main plot, but within that main frame there can be many subplots; the difficulty lies in identifying what the main idea that winds from the beginning to the end really is.

Since we're writing historical, history adds many of the subplots, but the plot should be what the author has contrived to convey that piece or period of history to the reader. As an example, my much referenced Captain from Castille by Samuel Shellabarger - the plot is a simple love story; the Conquest of Mexico was the vehicle that provided the means for telling the story. All of the intriques about burning the ships, being driven out by the Aztecs, etc are not plot.

On the item above about planning stories in advance, I lay all of mine out and stick to the plan without getting throw off into wild tangents. But, using an Excel spreadsheet for the plan leaves lots of room for developing ideas and characters; I just make sure that chapter ideas stay within the framework of the whole. Puma
 

Zelenka

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I think there's always going to be a main plot, but within that main frame there can be many subplots; the difficulty lies in identifying what the main idea that winds from the beginning to the end really is.

Since we're writing historical, history adds many of the subplots, but the plot should be what the author has contrived to convey that piece or period of history to the reader. As an example, my much referenced Captain from Castille by Samuel Shellabarger - the plot is a simple love story; the Conquest of Mexico was the vehicle that provided the means for telling the story. All of the intriques about burning the ships, being driven out by the Aztecs, etc are not plot.

On the item above about planning stories in advance, I lay all of mine out and stick to the plan without getting throw off into wild tangents. But, using an Excel spreadsheet for the plan leaves lots of room for developing ideas and characters; I just make sure that chapter ideas stay within the framework of the whole. Puma

Never thought of it in those terms but I like the idea of the history being a vehicle for our own characters. Makes sense.

On planning, I can never use the laptop for notes. I sometimes jot down stray ideas on notepad or MS Word files, but for actual plotting, I have to do it by hand. Somehow for me when I write out what's to happen longhand it focusses my brain. I like to sketch characters and settings quite often too, so it helps me to have all the stuff in one notebook. I tend to do a broad outline that says what happens in terms of important stages in the plot, then I figure out each chapter in more detail when I get to it. I have tried winging it without an outline a few times, but I've found I prefer having a structure there that I can refer to.
 

wee

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You can never be sure, no matter how much you plan or think or believe, that the first draft is going to end up as you thought it would. So it's always best to FINISH the first draft, then you can analyse for the themese and rewrite to emphasise some and delete others.

I don't think it is necessary that you figure out your plot or theme, etc., and write from that. I don't plan to change my plot to match someone else's idea of a plot -- in fact, I probably won't finish reading the plot book until I'm well into (or nearly done with) my current WIP. What occurred to me, is that if I'm writing a good story, I'll probably be able to fit it into one of those categories, without planning it. And that if I end up with a story where I'm saying, "well, it's kind of this one & kind of this other one" that it will give me a place to start on how to could edit it to be tighter and a more satisfying read.

Just a tool for analyzing my WIP after it's written - and this is my first really long thing to write, so I'm still experimenting! I might be able to post in 6 months and say, "yeah, that's a total waste of time." I was curious if anyone else had looked at their own work in this way, too.


wee
 
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