Wednesday, May 10, 2006

Davo on the verge of insanity

Several times, people have said to me
"Davo, you've lost the plot." My standard reply used to be "Nah, I know what the plot is. Who's writing the script?"

Have recently realised that I really don't know what the "plot" is, so thought that I'd go looking for one. Erk! Apparently there are several. Depending on where one looks, there are anything from 3 to 36. Will split the difference and list 20.
20 Plots:

Tobias, Ronald B. 20 Master Plots. Cincinnati: Writer’s Digest Books, 1993. (ISBN 0-89879-595-8)
This book proposes twenty basic plots:

1. Quest (been there a couple of times)
2. Adventure (and here)
3. Pursuit (here also)
4. Rescue (not sure about here)
5. Escape (many times)
6. Revenge (am not sure, but probably)
7. The Riddle (can't figure this one out)
8. Rivalry (Yep)
9. Underdog (most of the time)
10. Temptation (frequently)
11. Metamorphosis (sounds scary)
12. Transformation (might try that, one day)
13. Maturation (not yet)
14. Love (several times)
15. Forbidden Love (heh, not telling)
16. Sacrifice (probably)
17. Discovery (only if I knew what I was looking for)
18. Wretched Excess (Ohhh, too often)
19. Ascension (?)
20. Descension. (how low can I go?)

6 comments:

Hayden said...

"you've lost the plot" - great phrase, never heard that before.

p'haps the trick is writing your own script. but it sounds like you do that...

Isabella di Pesto said...

You left one out:

weapons of mass destruction

Anne Johnson said...

Seriously, I wrote a novel with All of the Above. No one will ever publish it in my lifetime or anyone else's. Hope you got your blog issues straightened out.

Davoh said...

Hayden, one of these days will write the script for self .."Thou shalt avoid alcohol" ..but not yet.

Isabella, methinks WMD seems to fit neatly into "Revenge".

Anne ..methinks "all of the above" fits somehow into 'the riddle'.

Davoh said...

Or "All of the above" seems to fit into another "best seller" .. called "the bible".

Three Score and Ten or more said...

I find them all useful, interesting and exciting. Not sure which one applies to me.

How can excess be wretched????