Forum / There are only seven story plots.
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Adam SifreOct 21, 12:20pmSomeone once told me there were only seven story plots. Or maybe they said five. I don't remember, but it doesn't matter, since I can only think of maybe two plots on my best days.
Post a one-line plot here. It doesn't have to be from any book you've written or are writing. It doesn't even have to be one line. I mean, it's not like I'm going to hunt you down and ruin your life if you post a two line plot. I'll start:
An amateur writer obsessed with the internet, hunts down and kills people who contradict him on a web forum.
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Henry Standing BearOct 21, 01:13pmA man dies and is hunted/helped through six realms of the afterlife by his widow.
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Adam SifreOct 21, 01:33pm
That's a good one. I'm putting that in my "possibly steal" folder.
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James Lloyd DavisOct 21, 01:39pmMan's wife cheats on him with his best friend and when he finds out, he goes to the neighborhood Texas Pawn to find an old fashioned shaving kit with a straight razor.
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strannikovOct 21, 02:13pm -
Adam SifreOct 21, 02:28pm
Thirty-six? That is way too many.
Who can remember thirty six? How many are there if we discount all the plots that don't involve lasers?
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Adam SifreOct 21, 02:29pm
An Ape learns to talk and type, and becomes obsessed with arguing against Obamacare in chat rooms.
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Adam SifreOct 21, 02:30pm
Edit: The result of an accident involving lasers, an ape ...
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Henry Standing BearOct 21, 02:49pm
That one's the one line plot to the novel I'm working on now called Alice, Adam. Writing the plot out in one line helped me to focus it a lot. I was immediately grateful to you when it came out so clean :)
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Mathew PaustOct 21, 02:55pmPlot complication: The ape is persuaded by progressives in the chat rooms that he is an embarrassment to his species. He then switches sides.
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James Lloyd DavisOct 21, 05:57pm
Sheldon? Sort of like Dante's Divine Comedy? Sounds interesting, loaded with thematic possibility.
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Henry Standing BearOct 21, 11:29pm
It's based more on the Tibetan Book of the Dead, James. It has been fun to write so far. I'm wondering if it's working thought. I'm writing fast with this one. Started in mid Oct. and should finish first draft by late Dec. Thanks, man.
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Sam RasnakeOct 22, 01:10pmA meets B
Playing God
Rite of passage
Science run amuck
Dragon in its lair
Journey
Bringing back the sacred stone -
David AckleyOct 22, 01:23pmB leaves A and takes up with C with predictably disastrous results.
A takes to drink but marries his rehab counselor and takes again to...
Playing pool. ("The Hustler.")
Rite of laundry.
Amok.
Dragon devours itself tail first.
Home At Last
Kissing the Blarney stone.
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Adam SifreOct 22, 01:30pm
A widower develops an unhealthy obsession with his dead wife's dog, and believes the animal's refusal to answer his questions is hiding a darker intent.
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Mathew PaustOct 22, 03:23pm
Adam, I think you've stolen that one from David Berkowitz.
I like "Rite of Laundry", David. Sits well on the tongue, has an insouciant tang and you can dance with it, what?
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Lynn BeighleyOct 22, 05:12pmA teen girl in a utopia believes she's actually in a dystopia and makes everyone around her miserable.
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Lynn BeighleyOct 22, 05:15pm
A man becomes obsessed with a woman and badgers her until she gives up and he lives happily ever after.
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Mathew PaustOct 22, 06:46pm
Lynn, your teen girl is straight out of Walker Percy.
Your second one is sci fi.
I'd buy the first one.
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James Lloyd DavisOct 22, 07:12pm
A young man drops out of university in 1958 to fulfill his boyhood dream of becoming a gun running dope smuggler but is unable to raise enough capital, so he joins the CIA and becomes a patriotic gun running dope smuggler who topples third world governments on the side.
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James Lloyd DavisOct 22, 07:13pm
Oh, wait... are we talking about fiction? If so, forget my last.
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Mathew PaustOct 22, 07:20pm
Edwin Wilson,I presume.
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James Lloyd DavisOct 22, 07:51pm
A fine fellow, yes, but only one of many. I'm thinking of one who got away.
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Mathew PaustOct 22, 08:41pm
His is the only name who comes to mind. Oh, wait. Frank Sturgis?
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Smiley McGrouchpants, Jr-Esq-IIINov 07, 06:55am"A man and a woman fall in love, get married, have kids, and regret it -- for life."
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Godard said, "All you need to make a movie is a girl and gun." Provided you keep these elements in play w/other ones, of course!I've conjectured, recently, there are only three (3) types of Fiction: Historical (à la McEwan's "Atonement"), Science (à la Philip K. Dick's "The Man in the High Castle" or William Gibson's "Neuromancer"), or Satirical (à la Pynchon's "V.", DeLillo's "White Noise" or Coover's "John's Wife"). I know you're all so glad I've included examples!
Fit any Fiction, though, into these three categories: I promise you, it'll work, or double your money (none) back!
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Ann BogleNov 07, 10:47amA semi-omniscient narrator is forced to become a character herself and move to "land of a thousand lakes" to assist her immobilized main character, a woman whose Ph.D. is taken by an academic department that faults her East German heritage and her rock musician boyfriend's disciplined past.
On p. 147 a minor character named Floyd parks in the Target parking lot en route to meet his brother-in-law for happy hour at his regular spot. Floyd needs shoe laces and a shoe horn. He thinks he can just run in and run out and be on his way. Forty-five minutes later, Floyd has still not picked up one of the red information telephones to ask where the foot section of the store is. He is feeling enraged that there is no foot section. When at last he checks out in the express lane with chocolate turtles, he snaps at the clerk to put his suffering away. In the parking lot, he cannot remember where he parked; he paces one lane once, then, rather than look foolish, he considers getting a drink at the bar-lounge nearby and returning to find his car when the Target lot is closer to empty. He goes to the bar-lounge and finds he is the only customer near 4 p.m. He orders Belvedere and begins to wait. There is nothing to look at, no one to notice, and nothing to eat except the chocolate turtles stashed in his inner jacket pocket. In walks a stoner named Linda who knows Mike behind the bar. Linda is 6'3", Floyd estimates, and wears a basketball jersey that says Minnesota across the back near her shoulders. Linda has long, roping blond braids separated and parted equally in back. Floyd guesses correctly that she sells pot. He has an instinct for these things and engages Linda in a chat. He last smoked pot in 1973, and now he wants pot. He wants free pot. He wants something free, and the idea of something for nothing sets a blizzard of snow specks before his eyes that Linda cannot see and that he deftly hides from her. The blizzard of snow specks clears, and he follows Linda to her car. They drive to one of the office spaces he is trying to lease and sit on the low-pile green office carpet. There is a rock garden outside with one evergreen living in dryness and no furniture that will get thick with pot smoke. He loses his ride.
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Mathew PaustNov 07, 08:55pm
Gadzooks, this is the original screenplay Pynchon is developing as we type! Working title, Savonlinna. With Cockney subtitles.
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Nonnie AugustineNov 13, 01:47pmCorn crosses the line from unhealthy engineered food to downright poisonous. Millions die before source of plague is discovered.
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Mathew PaustNov 13, 05:04pm
GMO'd by MonSINto, of course.
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Ann BogleNov 18, 03:58am
Real life: Cornmeal kills ants. Their systems cannot digest it. And cornmeal is safe for humans to handle, not toxic as ant poison. I tried a wheat elimination diet. I carried the spelt bread home in the canvas tote as if it were a bowling ball. There had been no need to go without wheat, since I had no allergy, but it was good discipline.
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Mathew PaustNov 18, 04:52pm
Wally World has started carrying the Wild Oats Marketplace brand. I've been getting this bread awhile now. Tasty and not too heavy. http://wildoats.com/product-post/marketplace-wheat-ancient-grain-bread/
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Oliver HuntNov 26, 10:02pmI'd heard there were actually only two plots: Someone leaves on a journey or a stranger comes to town.
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David AckleyNov 27, 03:38pm
I thought that was one plot: A stranger leaves on a journey and comes to town.
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Adam SifreNov 29, 02:36pm
There are no plots. A stranger stays home.
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David AckleyNov 29, 02:57pm
End.
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Mathew PaustNov 29, 04:14pm
The Death of Fiction
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Mathew PaustNov 29, 04:17pm
Oh, and for Ann, Wal-Mart has just started carrying Eureka organic bread. Saw it for the first time this morning: http://www.eurekabakingcompany.com/
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