CHAPTER I
What Plot Material Is[A]
THE PLOT GERM; THE PREMISE ADVANCED; ANCIENT THEME AND ORIGINAL TREATMENT.
THE PLOT GERM; THE PREMISE ADVANCED; ANCIENT THEME AND ORIGINAL TREATMENT.
TO the producer a plot is material capable of being dramatized thru visualized action into a life-like story. To the playwrighta plot is suggestive material capable of being developed into the nucleus of a story.
[A]“The Plot of the Short Story—an Exhaustive Study, Both Synthetical and Analytical, with Copious Examples, Making the Work a Practical Treatise,” is recommended to students desiring to study this important subject exhaustively.
[A]“The Plot of the Short Story—an Exhaustive Study, Both Synthetical and Analytical, with Copious Examples, Making the Work a Practical Treatise,” is recommended to students desiring to study this important subject exhaustively.
The average plot builder makes the mistake of looking upon plot material as ready-made plots. He thus confuses plot germ (or material) with complete plot. Plot germs lie about us by the score; complete plots are hidden in the most evasive creases of our imaginative genius. The plot germ is merely an item of suggestive plot material, which may be lost sight of entirely in the search for the logical incidents to complete the plot that is eventually led up to. Plot germs, then, are ready-made; but complete plots are made-to-order.
The source, manifestation and aim of all plots is Man (or humanity), his desires (or passions) and his emotional relationships with his God and his fellow-man. A plot germ is an isolated incident, phase, deed, relationship, fragment, or moment, vitally connected with and suggestive of man’s emotional life. A plot germ is seldom used exactly in the form in which it originally presents itself. It is valuable principally assuggestivematerial. Like other germs, it must be pregnantwith a life of its own that will vitally affect any other mass upon which its energies are concentrated. Carrying the simile further, we find that plot germs, too, often so change the nature of the ideas they fasten upon, that they lose their own identity in the master idea.
(EXAMPLE 47.)Man’s relations with the Devil is in itself plot material, but too general. We must become more particular. Crime is one of man’s relationships with the Devil, but that is not available as definite plot material; at least it is not a plot germ as yet. We further particularize, and select sub-divisions of crime: Bomb, Thief and Finger prints. Here again is elemental plot material, but there are further steps still to be taken before we can class them as legitimate plot material, or plot germs. At last, we arrive upon pregnant material—among the items of the daily newspaper—which we can seize upon as plot germs: “Bomb Throwers Trailed by a Boy;” “Caretaker Locked in Closet by a Thief;” and “Take Finger Prints of Everybody.”
(EXAMPLE 47.)Man’s relations with the Devil is in itself plot material, but too general. We must become more particular. Crime is one of man’s relationships with the Devil, but that is not available as definite plot material; at least it is not a plot germ as yet. We further particularize, and select sub-divisions of crime: Bomb, Thief and Finger prints. Here again is elemental plot material, but there are further steps still to be taken before we can class them as legitimate plot material, or plot germs. At last, we arrive upon pregnant material—among the items of the daily newspaper—which we can seize upon as plot germs: “Bomb Throwers Trailed by a Boy;” “Caretaker Locked in Closet by a Thief;” and “Take Finger Prints of Everybody.”
The discovery of a plot germ, however, merely marks the beginning of the exercise of one’s plotting power. This starts our thoughts in a definite train in search of an idea. The idea proves to be somethingbigthat comes to pass; that is our story. Now we will begin to build our plot by seeking acauseforthe great deed that culminates the story. That cause becomes the beginning of our play. The effect of the causal condition, ambition or deed, results in the events that happen between the beginning and climax of the play, and raises three standard questions that our complete plot must answer: (1) What is the Cause? (2) What is the Effect of the cause? (3) What Climax does the effect lead to?
A great photoplay plot should concern a ludicrous, a pathetic, an heroic or a tragic episode in the lives of two or more people. A complete plot is, in fact, a perfect syllogism. We advance our first premise for the action to follow in the Cause; our second premise is the Effect, or action; there can be but one conclusion, which we demonstrate in the Climax.
Original themes are few in number and were all used scores and scores of times before this generation was born; original plots are inexhaustible and admit of as many variations as there are products in literature from different minds based upon the original twenty-six letters of the alphabet. Do not be afraid of the ancient theme, because the fact that it still survives shows its popular sway; butyour survival as a playwright depends on your originality in treatment of plot material in its application to theme.