SKRK121 CREATIVE WRITING: WRITING PROSE

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SU 2 CREATIVE ELEMENTS IN THE WRITING OF PROSE

2.1 PLOT
Plot is the story being told
The plot is the plan of a story, the chain of events. Plot is the story line: something happens as
a result of something else and this causes the next thing to happen. One could therefore say
that the plot is the main event in the story, the chain of events that gives rise to this main
event as well as to events that spring from it.
From the above, it should already be clear that the plot / main event of the story (short story,
short novel, novel or drama) cannot involve a single event only.
Suppose that you should be writing about sunset and everything that you write centres
around this single event only. That would imply that you are probably writing an essay and
not a story. If what is said about sunset is merely a description of the beauty of the scene or
your feelings about it, then a plot is out of the question.
The plot provides the causes and states the consequences. It provides the reader with
answers to the questions what, where and why.
For the basic principles of plot, prose can go and seek information from the television script,
because the essence thereof is valid also for narrative prose.
It is, however, important to keep in mind that plot in prose, especially in more complex prose,
implies more than a mere chain of events since prose can also reflect on relations and values
that are connected with the events.
One of the most commonly asked questions of prospective writers is: Whence (from where)
does one get one’s story? Stories are around us every day – they happen to us, in our vicinity,
or to someone close to us. The first and most important thing for the author is that he or she
must be able to spot or notice the story. Most of us want to go and find the story at some or
other unknown location or even at an imaginary place. Extraordinariness does not necessarily
create a story!
We often come up against people who arrive unexpectedly and state that, by way of an
example, someone close to the prospective writer has just died. As such, this is yet far
removed from being a story – as writer, you must still make a story of it. You must still go and
design a narrative line, create a chain of events, which the reader will find sufficiently
interesting and suspenseful to want to continue reading.
The plot of a story is the line of events that takes place from the beginning to the end of the
story in order to make it a readable narrative.

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SKRK121 CREATIVE WRITING: WRITING PROSE
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This is perhaps one of the most important differences between an essay / composition and a
story. An essay / composition as in our example above (regarding the sunset) centres around
the single event for the entire duration of the essay / composition. It is almost similar to
having your one foot nailed to the ground: you keep walking in circles around that one foot.
A plot presupposes a chain of events that are interrelated. “I got married last Saturday” is an
event. “I got married on Saturday and when we exited the church, my bride’s foot got caught
on something and as she was about to fall, I grabbed at her, losing my balance. I rolled down
the seventy steep steps and that is why I am currently sitting here telling you my story as a
new angel.” In this instance, there is clearly talk of a chain of events that are causally
connected.
The first fact, then, is that plot presupposes a chain of events.
Only, keep in mind that the event does not necessarily have to imply a physical event only:
there is physical action (for instance kicking someone), intellectual action (for instance
arguing with someone) or emotional action (for instance feeling excited).
We might be able to define an event as something that:
 Is accompanied by action;
 presupposes suspense because something unpredictable can arise from it; and
 the reader would like to know what arises from it.
Creative writing literature also uses the term plot point for such an event, and it is a given
that a plot consists of more than one plot point (thus a chain).
Usually there is a dramatic plot point (the most important event) in the story with other plot
points that link up and culminate in the dramatic plot point or arise from it.
The plot of a story is therefore never static – it is dynamic because it moves from point A to
point X.
Do not, however, equate event and chain of events to a physical occurrence. Event, therefore,
does not presuppose only a visible, physical event such as character A attacking character B
with a knife. We need to distinguish between internal and external events, which both qualify
as events as we interpret these in this prose. The nature of the events will indeed make a
difference in the types of stories, for instance that a light thriller will have to include physical
events, a love story relational events, while a literary art narrative can presuppose only inner,
non-physical events.
In conclusion, there is also a connection between the plot and the characters. The plot is the
characters and the characters are the plot! The plot of a story is the line of events that takes
place from the beginning to the end of the story in order to make it a readable narrative.

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The nature of the characters plays a fundamental role in the course of a story. Of course the
contrary must apply as well: the nature of the plot plays a role in the characters. It is indeed
true that something can happen only when it happens to someone.
Needless to say: something can happen only if it happens somewhere at some time or other.
It is in the plot that the creative elements of a story meet.

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