Elizabeth Barrette (ysabetwordsmith) wrote,
Elizabeth Barrette
ysabetwordsmith
  • Mood: thoughtful

A Different Plot Structure

I came across this interesting bit in an article about bullying:

We’ve all heard that violent screen time makes kids more physically aggressive. But surprisingly, educational TV (which most of our kids watch regularly) seems to make kids mean in a different way. Studies have shown that the more educational television kids watch, the more relationally aggressive (manipulative, insulting, and so forth) they are to their peers. Shows like PBS’ Arthur seem innocuous, but the lessons aren’t as desirable as we think. Researchers say that children’s programming contains a heavy dose of name-calling and put-downs that parents would never condone if it happened in real life. Even though the end of a show might have a nice moral conclusion, if 90 percent of the screen time is rude and hurtful, that will be the take-away.

So that got me thinking, it's based on plot structure. Most stories introduce a conflict early in the line and resolve it near or at the end. But what if we didn't do that? What if we introduced a conflict, went through the steps of solving it, and then did something ELSE with the rest of the story? It would be a very different experience of entertainment.

Standard YA plot: John and Mary are playing. They have a fight over a toy. They go away angry with each other and complain about what happened. Suggestions are made, they try different things, and eventually they make up. The end.

New plot: John and Mary are playing. They have a disagreement. They work it out. Then they go for a walk in the woods, where they discover something really cool, which leads to an environment-based challenge that they solve using at least one of the practical or social skills that first came up in the opening disagreement.  Someone is impressed by their accomplishment/discovery.  The end.

This is a new plot structure, or at least, one I haven't seen in the tens of thousands of stories I've read. I have seen a few -- I can think of two or three -- stories with a double-tapped plot structure but those were either middle peaks, middle and end, or both right at the end. Even that is very very rare. I haven't seen two peaks at beginning and end with a valley or ridgerow between them. I think this could work.

*ponder* Minds me of my centaurs, who are conflict-alert to the point of encoding it into their pronoun grid. (To say "we," you have to specify whether you and someone else are in agreement or in conflict, and how close-knit you are; about like having to specify "he/she" gender in English.) This seems like the kind of storytelling they'd favor.

I think I might be able to make this work. It's new and therefore likely to be tricky. But I could see it meshing well with Hart's Farm in particular, and possibly with Fiorenza the Wisewoman or Schrodinger's Heroes.  Next fishbowl is about "conflict resolution" so I'm open to trying this if anyone thinks it would be fun.
Tags: how to, reading, writing
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  • 26 comments
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siege

siege

August 28 2013, 22:22:27 UTC 7 years ago

If you are able to describe some of the characters, childrens' shows in particular tend to have very distinctive characters. Someone may remember who you are describing and could point to that particular show.
johnpalmer

johnpalmer

August 29 2013, 00:53:19 UTC 7 years ago Edited:  August 29 2013, 00:53:44 UTC

Well, my memory really sucks on this. What stands out most was that they were role playing the three little pigs, and, for example, the first to play Big Bad Wolf was reminded they'd agreed to take turns on playing the wolf, and I remember he gracefully (but disappointedly) agreed - I think he had a "professor puppet" look to him, if that makes sense. I liked that he seemed disappointed - like, "it's okay if you don't like this, but you really ought to do it, even if disappointed". And, at the end, one of them didn't like that they didn't get to break down the brick house, because the Big Bad Wolf can't blow that one down, so they decided, okay, cool, then an earthquake came by, so they could have fun knocking it down.

There was a girl who spoke a few Spanish words, repeatedly, and IIRC, loudly... maybe the point was she didn't actually know much (any?) English, and was just following the lead of the others? but that kind of bugged me, because I thought the wrong message could be pulled from it. (Or maybe I'm letting my own prejudice-fears show.)

I'm also about 20% afraid that if I saw it again, it would suck and I'd have lost a cherished memory of what seemed like an awesome show. I just remember thinking that if *I* had kids who could play together like that, I'd be damn proud of them.