Plot Events

How to describe a full plot event.

We’ll talk here about describing events, since the usual term scene is more general and has different meanings for different media. Furthermore, a scene may conceivably contain more or less than one entire event.

An event in a story requires three elements: characters, function, and (perhaps most importantly) a difference between expectation and result.

In describing each plot event, it is useful to consider the six wh- questions as a guide: Who does what to whom, where, when and why? With this approach, each plot event gains its own logline, which is a good exercise since it forces you as an author to figure out just what dramatic function each plot event has in the context of the overall narrative.

Characters

Characters causing events make story. As we have noted in our article on Plot vs. Character, a plot does not work if there are no people (or rabbits, or robots, or whatever) to make the decisions and perform the deeds that combine to make the story. And a character is not a character until he, she or it does something.

Function

A plot event has a function. An event in a story changes something either in the plot or in the way we, the audience or readers, perceive the characters. If an event has changed nothing, we will probably find it boring and redundant.

Expectation and result

The internal structure of an event creates a tension or conflict between a character’s expectation of what an action will achieve and the actual result of that action. The difference between expectation and result keeps us engaged. It creates surprise (remember the parrot’s advice), or dramatic irony if we already know that the character’s expectations will not be met. A story or a stretch of story in which things turn out as the character has planned and envisioned is boring. So an author has to bear in mind the gap between expectation and result for every event.

“Man” is not a plot event. The verb or action is missing, not to mention the gap between expectation and result that turns such an action into a plot event.

“Man sits in a room” may be a cue for a plot event, but is not the event itself since the character is passive and there is no change of state.

“An old man in a hotel room gets up from the edge of the bed and shuffles to the window” is an event because it describes a character taking action. But it is not yet a plot event, because the function is not clear.

“An old man in a hotel room gets up from the edge of the bed and shuffles to the window expecting to open it in order to jump out, but is disappointed to find that it is locked” is formally a plot event, since the character has taken a purposeful action without it having the result he hoped for. The function or at least one of the functions of the event is to convey that the character is suicidal.

So the question is not only: Who does what and to what purpose? A plot event is most likely to emotionally involve the reader or audience when there is a difference between what the character expects and what actually happens, and a subversion of what the audience or reader is led to believe may happen.

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