Plot

Plot is the companion to the timeline, which I discussed here. As a brief reminder, I introduced timelines as the part of story which connects the temporal events of the story together. However, we also ran into some problems with timelines. In particular, we found that it was difficult to connect events together in ways other than direct temporal cause and effect. In addition, we found that it was difficult to create adequate suspense without introducing some element beyond events themselves. This element, is the plot.

In some ways, plot works directly against its counterpart. Whereas the timeline is attempting to put events into a temporal order, plot works to suspend that temporality, in order to connect events in other ways. A plot can generate many other types of relevance, in particular character driven cause and effect. While all types of cause and effect have to occur in a specific timeframe, there is no limit on how large that timeframe might be for those types which are dictated by plot. For example, I used as an example a timeline of the Civil War with an extra event tacked on, marking 1776, when the Declaration of Independence was signed. This event isn’t temporally relevant to the Civil War; however, there is no reason why it couldn’t be casually relevant within the story. Suppose that the story was tracing the path of a young black woman who had escaped from the South, and the Declaration of Independence inspired her to return in order to work for the Underground Railroad. Now the event is crucial for the plot of the story, if not the timeline.

Timelines

Writing a story is often a balancing act. Good writers are always aware of these balances, so that they can use them actively. One such balance I have examined is between scene and sequel. Another balance that I want to turn to now lies between timeline and plot. I want to start with the more basic of these notions, the timeline.

Some of what I will be recounting is taken from E. M. Forster’s excellent lectures which are complied in his work, Aspects of the Novel (you can find a mostly complete copy here), which I am currently reading. However, he calls what I will be talking about “the story”. Because I like to use that word in a more general sense, and because I think the word timeline suits my purposes here better, I will use it instead. The timeline is simply the sequence of events that occur in the story. I mean this as literally as possible, simply the different things that happen, connected by an “and then” all the way to the final scene. For example, “Anna got up, then she took a shower, then she ate breakfast, she went to the store, she came home, played with her dog…” and so on and so forth.