Tobias Master Plot Examples

Revenge

Keep in mind the following points as you develop this plot:

1. Your protagonist seeks retaliation against the antagonist for a real or imagined injury.
2. Most (but not all) revenge plots focus more on the act of the revenge than on a meaningful examination of the character’s motives.
3. The hero’s justice is “wild,” vigilante justice that usually goes outside the limits of the law.
4. Revenge plots tend to manipulate the feelings of the reader by avenging the injustices of the world by a man or woman of action who is forced to act by events when the institutions that normally deal with these problems prove inadequate.
5. Your hero should have moral justification for vengeance.
6. Your hero’s vengeance may equal but may not exceed the offense perpetrated against the hero (the punishment must fit the crime).
7. Your hero first should try to deal with the offense in traditional ways, such as relying on the police—an effort that usually fails.
8. The first dramatic phase establishes the hero’s normal life; then the antagonist interferes with it by committing a crime. Make the audience understand the full impact of the crime against the hero, and what it costs both physically and emotionally.

Your hero then gets no satisfaction by going through official channels and realizes he must pursue his own cause if he wants to avenge the crime.

1. The second dramatic phase includes your hero making plans for revenge and then pursuing the antagonist.

Your antagonist may elude the hero’s vengeance either by chance or design. This act usually pits the two opposing characters against each other.

1. The last dramatic phase includes the confrontation between your hero and antagonist. Often the hero’s plans go awry, forcing him to improvise. Either the hero succeeds or fails in his attempts. In contemporary revenge plots, the hero usually doesn’t pay much of an emotional price for the revenge. This allows the action to become cathartic for the audience

Riddle

As you write, keep the following points in mind:

1. The core of your riddle should be cleverness: hiding that which is in plain sight.
2. The tension of your riddle should come from the conflict between what happens as opposed to what seems to have happened.
3. The riddle challenges the reader to solve it before the protagonist does.
4. The answer to your riddle should always be in plain view without being obvious.
5. The first dramatic phase should consist of the generalities of the riddle (persons, places, events).
6. The second dramatic phase should consist of the specifics of the riddle (how persons, places, and events relate to each other in detail).
7. The third dramatic phase should consist of the riddle’s solution, explaining the motives of the antagonist(s) and the real sequence of events (as opposed to what seemed to have happened).
8. Decide on your audience.
9. Choose between an open-ended and a close-ended structure. (Open-ended riddles have no clear answer; close-ended ones do).

Love

THE STRUCTURE OF THE LOVE PLOT

In the other plots, I set out what were the commonly used plot phases. But in this plot, major sets of phases depend on the nature of the plot you intend to use. You must adapt accordingly.

The exception is the plot about two lovers who find each other in the beginning and then are separated by circumstances. In that case the three dramatic phases are:

1) Lovers found. The two main characters are presented and their love relationship begins. The first phase deals primarily with establishing that relationship. By the end of the first phase they are deeply in love and are committed either by marriage, “troth,” or some symbol of connection. Close to the end of the first phase, however, something happens to separate the lovers (as in the case of Eurydice’s death). This may come from an antagonist who does something to deny the lovers each other. (She is kidnapped. His parents make him move to Cincinnati with them. Her ex-husband doesn’t like the fact that she’s taken up with another man.) Or the lovers may be separated as the result of circumstances, or Fate. (He must go off and fight in a war. She gets brain cancer. He has a skiing accident and is crippled.) However it happens, the first phase usually ends with the lovers’ separation.

2) Lovers split. In the second dramatic phase, at least one of the separated lovers makes an attempt to find/rescue/reunite with the other lover. Usually the focus is on one of the lovers who must put forth all the effort while the other either waits patiently to be rescued or actively resists those efforts. For example, Jack has been crippled in a skiing accident. The doctors say he will never walk again. Jack is depressed; he tells Jacqueline he wants to get a divorce so she can find a “real man” (you know the speech). Jacqueline is too much in love with Jack to leave him or to let him drown in his own self-pity, so she fights the battle for him until he comes around and fights the battle for himself.

But the path to salvation is never clear. There are always setbacks. These setbacks are the guts of the second dramatic phase. One step forward, two steps back. The protagonist, the active lover, may have to fight a battle with the antagonist (if there is one), and for the short term, the protagonist only wins minor victories.

3) Lovers reunited. By the third dramatic phase, the active lover has found a way to overcome all the obstacles of the second dramatic phase. As is often the case with most plots, the obvious rarely succeeds. Opportunity presents itself to the diligent, and the active lover finally finds an opening that allows her either to overcome the antagonist or the preventative force (illness, injury, etc.). The final effect for all this is the reunion of the lovers and a resumption of the emotional intensity of the first phase.

The love, now tested, is greater, and the bonds have grown stronger.

CHECKLIST

As you write, keep in mind the following points:

1. The prospect of love should always be met with a major obstacle. Your characters may want it, but they can’t have it for any variety of reasons. At least not right away.
2. The lovers are usually ill-suited in some way. They may come from different social classes (beauty queen/nerd; Montague and Capulet) or they may be physically unequal (one is blind or handicapped).
3. The first attempt to solve the obstacle is almost always thwarted. Success doesn’t come easily. Love must be proven by dedication and stick-to-it-iveness.
4. As one observer once put it, love usually consists of one person offering the kiss and the other offering the cheek, meaning one lover is more aggressive in seeking love than the other. The aggressive partner is the seeker, who completes the majority of the action. The passive partner (who may want love just as much) still waits for the aggressive partner to overcome the obstacles. Either role can be played by either sex.
5. Love stories don’t need to have happy endings. If you try to force a happy ending on a love story that clearly doesn’t deserve one, your audience will refuse it. True, Hollywood prefers happy endings, but some of the world’s best love stories (Anna Karenina, Madame Bovary, Heloise and Abelard) are very sad.
6. Concentrate on your main characters to make them appealing and convincing. Avoid the stereotypical lovers. Make your characters and their circumstances unique and interesting. Love is one of the hardest subjects to write about because it’s been written about so often, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be done well. You will have to feel deeply for your characters, though. If you don’t, neither will your readers.
7. Emotion is an important element in writing about love. Not only should you be convincing, but you should develop the full range of feelings: fear, loathing, attraction, disappointment, reunion, consummation, etc. Love has many feelings associated with it and you should be prepared to develop them according to the needs of your plot.
8. Understand the role of sentiment and sentimentality in your writing and decide which is better for your story. If you’re writing a formula romance, you may want to use the tricks of sentimentality. If you’re trying to write a one-of-a-kind love story, you will want to avoid sentimentality and rely on true sentiment in your character’s feelings.
9. Take your lovers through the full ordeal of love. Make sure they are tested (individually and collectively) and that they finally deserve the love they seek. Love is earned; it is not a gift. Love untested is not true love.

20 Master Plots: And How to Build Them, Ronald Tobias