2. Retrograde Plotting Perry Glasser

3. What We’ll Learn Plot requires conflict Characters are revealed by struggle Story Structure Stories proceed by causality Climax is the confrontation of opposites Retrograde Plotting

4. Plot & Conflict Character vs. Character – Batman vs. Joker; Rocky Balboa vs. Apollo Creed Character vs. Physical Environment – “To Build a Fire”; The Old Man and the Sea Character vs. Social Environment – Beloved, by Toni Morrison Character vs. Self – The “psychological” story Should Anna Karenina leave her husband and children for her lover? Agonies of choice with an object both good and bad…drugs, alcohol, guilty pleasures, anyone?

5. Characters & Struggle Nice people have nice lives - boring Good characters in trouble – whatever shall they do? Write about trouble and willful characters – We learn what our characters value and what they are like when they perform under stress – Victims make few decisions; the world decides for them and so they are less interesting characters.

6. Structure Exposition – Social or personal stability is upset Rising Action – Complications – character(s) struggle to regain stability Wants Fears Needs Climax – Confrontation of the plot’s opposites Falling Action Resolution – Stability is restored

7. Causality Because stability is upset, characters move through time and space. – That’s called “motivation.” Because they have distinct personalities and talents, characters struggle in specific ways. – That’s called “characterization” Because the challenges they confront don’t immediately restore stability, the story moves forward. – That’s called “rising action” Because they persevere in fulfilling their motives, they eventually confront whatever opposes them. – That’s called “climax” Because, because, because….

8. Climax and Confrontation The climax is exciting because it epitomizes the “fight.” The climax is a necessary scene – sometimes called “payoff.” The issue must be in doubt with the antagonists each capable of victory, though one can be much an underdog. – If the issue is not in doubt, no drama is possible: Godzilla crushes Bambi and Bambi is a victim.

9. Retrograde Plotting The writer turns the story upside down. If I want my protagonist to leave the earth as North America splits in two, what will I need to invent to make my artistic vision plausible? – My protagonist will need certain cognitive characteristics – My protagonist will need a means to leave the planet – My protagonist will need certain physical characteristics to achieve that goal – I will need to invent a reason for North America to split.

10. A Final Thought Your imagination supplies form. N.A. is to split in two because – Terrorists are planting atomic weapons along a fault line: can they be stopped? – An evil wizard is casting a mighty spell, and so we must leave by winged dragon for a better, purer place from which to fight Evil – An evil Emperor has constructed a Death Star and so we must leave by our rickety spacecraft to organize the intergalactic resistance. – Natural causes hastened by poor ecology. No one heeds our heroine, an independent rocket scientist…(to be played by Jodie Foster) – Natural causes, but humankind’s only hope is the mysterious widower, handsome Nobel prize-winning physicist, Lance Recluse, who needs to be summoned from his grief over the death of his wife. The fate of the world is in the hands of star-journalist, the young Belle Innocente as she journeys to his private laboratory on an isolated tropical island…