Writing From Scratch #4: The Milieu Plot

Downton Abbey Blues

Downton Abbey is over.  Naturally, I’ve been watching the series over again on Prime.  But that and the latest season of Daredevil aren’t enough for me.  So, I thought I’d share some other period shows with awesome ladies being awesome.  They’re listed in chronological order from the time period. 1928-1931: Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries (on Netflix) The Honorable Miss Phryne Fisher hasn’t taken…

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Writing from Scratch #8

Now that we have gone over the four simple plot-problems (1, 2, 3, 4) and how they are solved through try-fail cycles, we’ll take a look at how to make complex, compound, and compound-complex plots through the same devices as sentence creation.

The first way we’ll try complicating a plot is by making the solution of the first noted plot-problem dependent on the solution of a second plot-problem, which stands in for easy solution prevention. We’re typically going to use dependent plots to strengthen audience satisfaction when the character is finally able to succeed. Or, like in the case-study we’ll look at today, they can be used to draw what appeared to be disparate plots together in longer works.

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Are there any works in the post-apocalyptic genre with post-apocalyptic librarians? People who worked in the public library and after the Bad Thing decide to stay and keep the library clean, safe and available for anyone who needs it. People can’t remove books from the premises anymore, because they’re too precious, but you can stay as long as you want and read them or copy them out–the librarians encourage making copies, so that the information can circulate beyond the physical boundaries of the library. 

After a while it becomes an unspoken reality of the post apocalyptic society that you Just Don’t fuck with the library. You don’t fight there, you don’t steal from it, you don’t allow harm to come to librarians when they have to leave the building for supplies. 

People donate food and books and paper with no expectation of reciprocity, because the librarians don’t ask for anything when you need a place to hide or information or, fuck, to read a schlocky crime novel because you need to escape reality in some purple prose. 

i haaaaaAAATE descriptions of older women in books like “looking at her face it was easy to imagine how beautiful she once was” and the woman is like. 60 years old. 60. so she’s got like, some wrinkles? and gray hair??? but otherwise doesnt look that much different than when she was “young” and she’s still probably beautiful like a description like that isn’t even EDGING on acceptable unless the character is in their 90s and barely resembles what they would have 70 years ago and even in that case fuck you??? they’ve got more important things to do and recollect than missing an allegedly hot body byee

Writing from Scratch #4

The Milieu Plot

The problem of the milieu plot involves a problem of location or setting. The character is often either in a place they need/want to escape from or not in the specific place they need/want to be in. The try-fail cycles will involve traveling away from or to the location. Gulliver’s Travels, The Great Escape, and The Hobbit contain milieu plots.

The Lord of the Rings contains one very large milieu – the problem of getting the One Ring from the Shire where its been hidden for a number of years to Mordor where it can finally be destroyed. We can further break this down into smaller milieu plots. Let’s look at one: the problem of crossing the Misty Mountains. (And we’ll use the events as they occur in the movie, since more people have watched that than read the book)

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Writing from Scratch #7: The Event Plot

The Event Plot

The problem of an Event plot is a disruption to the status quo. The solution comes either from setting everything right again or adapting to the change. The Event plot is probably what most people think of when they think “what is a plot?” Any story that deals with a life-changing or world-changing event is an Event.

The first plot I analyzed, from The Expanse television series, is an Event plot. Let’s look at another: The Princess Diaries. As we did with Lord of the Rings, we’ll look at the movie rather than books because more people will be familiar with the movie (which is a damn shame).

The Event: Mia Thermopolis’s grandmother tells Mia that she is the princess of small European kingdom Genovia, and she must take the throne.

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Writing from Scratch #7: The Event Plot

The Event Plot

The problem of an Event plot is a disruption to the status quo. The solution comes either from setting everything right again or adapting to the change. The Event plot is probably what most people think of when they think “what is a plot?” Any story that deals with a life-changing or world-changing event is an Event.

The first plot I analyzed, from The Expanse television series, is an Event plot. Let’s look at another: The Princess Diaries. As we did with Lord of the Rings, we’ll look at the movie rather than books because more people will be familiar with the movie (which is a damn shame).

The Event: Mia Thermopolis’s grandmother tells Mia that she is the princess of small European kingdom Genovia, and she must take the throne.

First try: Mia tries to reestablish the old status quo of being a nobody by running away from her grandmother to her mother’s house. Fail: No, she is not allowed to ignore that she is a princess, and she must undergo “princess lessons.”

Second try: Mia tries to adapt to the new status quo of being a secret princess by taking princess lessons and letting her best friend in on the secret. Fail: Yes, Mia gets a makeover and goes to a state dinner, but she is kind of a mess emotionally and embarrasses herself.

Third try: Mia tries to ignore everything that is happening to her status quo. Fail: No, everyone knows she’s a princess now, and because horrible school bullies school-bully she is a laughing stock.

Fourth try: Mia tries to run away from the city to avoid reestablishing the old status quo by renouncing the crown or adapting to the new status quo by accepting the crown. Fail: No, she doesn’t successfully run away, and she arrives at the ball looking like a drowned cat.

Final try: Mia tries adapting to the new status quo by accepting the crown. Solution: Yes, Mia adapts to being a princess, and she impresses everyone with her speech.

Prompt: write a flash fiction with an Event in which the plot-problem that disrupts the status quo is a marriage proposal. How a marriage proposal would disrupt the status quo is up to you. You’ll also choose the character, setting, genre, and stakes, as well as what is preventing this status quo from being reestablished or adapted to immediately. This simple plot can create a story from a rom-com to a fantastical action-adventure.

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When writing descriptions, consider what you want to accomplish. Giving the reader an idea of the layout of a room will require different types of descriptions/different descriptive words than evoking emotions. Think also of who is giving the descriptions: a first person or subjective third person narrator should describe based on how they experience the setting, while an objective third person narrator may have more freedom to match the descriptions to your own preference.

Super helpful for writers to take a lot at as well.

For those who do not have Twitter, Bob Schooley posted a Kim Possible series bible on there today. This contains material on the basic outline for the series. This was made about two years before the first episode was aired. There is so many amazing things in here that ended up being changed or did not happen or appear in the show entirely. A must look for any hardcore KP Fan!