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| police and taken to court where they are tried
and, if found guilty after hearing the evidence, are sent to
prison for long periods, or even executed. Gangsters in some
novels never seem to get caught. Other unrealistic things which can happen in some novels are that guns are used frequently but people never seem to suffer. The same is true of films and television. In real life more people are wounded by guns than are killed. Many of the wounded suffer for the rest of their lives. Some readers in Africa may be misled by bad plots. We should compare the stories in novels with real life as we know it; and be careful about using them to tell us about real life. If real life were like the plot of a bad gangster novel there would be no society at all. (This does not of course mean there is no such thing as armed robbery, nor such people as armed robbers; merely that there is not as much robbery as there seems to be in bad novels.) (See the section on Popular Writers# ) How does a writer make a plot interesting? Surprise and suspense If the reader cannot tell what is going to happen next and something surprising happens, he will be very interested in the story and keep on reading it. That's what a writer wants his readers to do. If readers don't find a book interesting they won't buy it. A related idea is suspense. The author tries to keep the reader wondering and wanting to know what will happen to the characters next. Suspense can be built up by putting the characters into a dangerous situation so that the reader will wonder whether they will escape safely. The character is saved just as he is about to be attacked by, for example, a lion, or arrested, or shot by the soldiers, or sentenced to be hanged. (Or the reader will be sad if the bad thing does happen. Suspense only works if there is a possibility of the bad thing happening.) This surprise may be achieved by an unrealistic happening but novels which rely for interest mainly on suspense are usually unrealistic if compared with real life. Surprise can of course be achieved merely by something unexpected, which, as soon as it has occurred, can be seen to have been quite natural. It is the reader who has to feel the suspense. The hero may not "know" that there is a lion, or a gang of armed men waiting for him round the next corner of the road, but the author can tell the reader so that the reader wonders what will happen when the hero gets there. In a film the director can show the lion or armed men lying in wait. |
Some people want to read novels in which nothing
surprising happens. For such people writers make novels in which
everything (or nearly everything) is predictable. The experienced
reader can almost tell what the whole story will be after reading
only the first page. Novels like this tend to be those written
mainly for women known as Romantic Fiction. But Westerns
and War stories may also be highly predictable. You will probably find many novels in each of these genres in your local bookshop or library. (See section on Genres). A writer can write a novel in which everyone knows the main story. This is the case with Historical Novels where most people will know what happened because the main events are described in history books. There can still be surprise in the lives of the fictional characters the author introduces into the novel alongside the real historical figures. Readers will enjoy such a book first for the way the author uses the known story and the well-known characters of the past, and then for the possibly minor events which he invents. Or he may try to provide his own explanation for the events of history - see Robert Graves's I, Claudius. Shakespeare's Julius Caesar is an example of a plot based on known events. The interest lies in what Shakespeare does with these events and the characters and speeches he invents. Thus I hope you will see that the plot of a novel does not have to be original# - new to that novel.
Types of Plot Probably there are only a limited number of plots. If you look at a shelf full of novels you may think that they all different. But how many of them have a plot like this one? Boy meets girl Boy falls in love with girl Girl falls in love with another boy First boy is unhappy Girl leaves second boy and falls in love with first boy Both are happy Thousands of novels, most of them not very good, have been written using this plot. Also hundreds of plays. Why is it so common? It's because readers like to buy books with this plot, because almost all human beings have experiences like these in their lives. |
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