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Plot devices and techniques

21:05 / 29.09.07

Sup Barbaliterates. This thread has been on a merry adventure through the forums today and now presents itself to you.

I'm a writer by nature, and I just started on a piece where I'm considering using amnesia as a plot device, but I'm finding it almost makes no sense.
ie: character had no memory of where he's from or why the world is a wasteland, but he remembers learning English as a dead language, because he communicates with a cryonaut from our era that thawed out in his time.
I find that just doesn't jive for me, seems too selective.

Anyways, it got me thinking on plot devices like that, and in an effort to sharpen up my tools, I thought I'd see what this particular nest of bookworms had to say on the subject.
So what do you think? What are some good devices when well used? What should be avoided like an Ebola monkey? and so forth.
Cheers!

Happy Dave Has Left

21:20 / 29.09.07

This is a really interesting question, because I think it has a few levels. In SF circles, there's the word 'McGuffin', which essentially means any plot element which is put in place specifically to allow something to happen in the story. There are common McGuffins, like faster than light travel, nanotechnology and so on. But generally, McGuffins are broadly recognised plot devices that are given somewhat of a free pass by devotees of the genre, because they enable something in the plot to happen.
Then there's the broader idea of plot devices which are a fundamental phase of the story, like the Deus Ex Machina that comes along and saves the hero, or the start of a Quest, or a Stranger Comes to Town. We're overlapping with the idea of there only being X number of stories in the world, but I think these are worth looking at.
Ultimately, plot devices are shorthand - they're a way of advancing a story through the use of known cues that people may or may not have seen before. Like any element of written communication, when used clumsily or too often, they jar and make your story seem overly familiar, and not in a good way - yawwwn. But when used in interesting, unfamiliar, creative and original ways, plot devices are just another element in the toolbox.

21:36 / 29.09.07

I find the best method with tropes or predictables, is to first have something interesting to say with/through them, and secondly, tackle them head on, unabashedly. Tapping into the readers' familiarity with a device can allow you to use it to a greater effect than trying to disguise it in some way so the reader doesn't feel it's familiar, or, worse, simply diluting the purity of mechanism.

Also, Barthes' S/Z has many good ruminations on these narrative patches, frames, and glosses, from an overtly technical standpoint.

01:57 / 30.09.07

Quad: I think you're slightly misusing the term "McGuffin." The things you've described—FTL travel, nanotech—are scenery; they're part of the background, and allow things to happen, but they're not happenings in themselves.

As defined by Alfred Hitchcock, who coined it, a McGuffin is an event, or a character, or an object that moves the plot forward—but which, having done so, can safely be forgotten about. The classic Hitchcock example is the first twenty minutes of Psycho—all the stuff with Janet Leigh embezzling the money and going on the run. It seems important at the time, but in the long run it's simply a device for getting her checked in at the Bates motel. The dirty money, the unscrupulous boyfriend—these have no real meaning except for moving the story forward.

The idea of shooting a movie on location on Skull Island is the McGuffin for King Kong; once the big ape shows up, nobody's very excited about any movie—but hey, they had to have some reason for going to Skull Island.

And that's what a McGuffin does, really. It's not about providing a means; it's about providing a reason.

Jawsus-son Starship

09:10 / 30.09.07

character had no memory of where he's from or why the world is a wasteland, but he remembers learning English as a dead language, because he communicates with a cryonaut from our era that thawed out in his time.

Like a futuristic Jason Bourne!

I've heard it said that people will only swallow something fantastical and unbelievable once, but you can make that trope as big as you like an people can still swallow it. But if you try and introduce something that doesn't work well with that trope, people won't buy it, kinda like putting superheroes in Lord of the Rings.

With regards to the above, I think you've got to much going on. I think you can do one big thing, i.e no memory of why the worlds a wasteland, or english as a dead language, or cryonauts. All three and you get the impression that too much is going on, and it starts to feel like a mess. Or like 50's scifi.

All Acting Regiment

12:03 / 30.09.07

It's well worth reading the Golden Ass and the Decammeron if you want plot ideas for short stories or novels - they've been a source for the basic "mathematics of plot" for centuries.