CHAPTER VIII

THE SYNOPSIS OF THE PLOT

The synopsis is a brief—­a clear, orderly outline—­of the plot of your story.  However, before considering the preparation of the synopsis, one important element must be considered: 

1.  What Constitutes a Plot[11]

A fictional or a dramatic plot is the working plan by which the story is made to lead up to the crisis (or complication, or cross-roads of choice), and then swiftly down to the outcome (or unfolding of the mystery, or untying of the knot, or result of the choice).

[Footnote 11:  The student is advised to read The Plot of the Short Story, Henry Albert Phillips; and the chapters on plot in the following treatises:  The Short Story, Evelyn May Albright; The Contemporary Short Story, Harry T. Baker; A Handbook on Story Writing, Blanche Colton Williams; Short Stories in the Making, Robert Wilson Neal; The Art of Story Writing, Esenwein and Chambers; and Writing the Short-Story, J. Berg Esenwein.]

There can be no real plot without a complication whose explanation is worked out as the story draws to its close.  A mere chain of happenings which do not involve some change or threatened change in the character, the welfare, the destinies of the leading “people,” would not form a plot.  Jack goes to college, studies hard, makes the football team, enjoys the companionship of his classmates, indulges in a few pranks, and returns home—­there is no plot here, though there is plenty of plot material.  But send Jack to college, and have him there find an old enemy, and at once a struggle begins.  This gives us a complication, a “mix-up,” a crisis; and the working out of that struggle constitutes the plot.

So all dramatic and all fictional plots give the idea of a struggle, more or less definitely set forth.  The struggle need not be bodily; it may take place mentally between two people—­even between the forces of good and evil in the soul of an individual.  The importance of the struggle, the clearness with which it is shown to the spectator, and the sympathetic or even the horrified fascination which it arouses in him, have all to do with its effectiveness as a plot—­note the three italicized words.

2.  Elements of Plot

Dividing the subject roughly, in this brief discussion, three important elements of plot deserve consideration: 

(a) The preliminaries must be natural, interesting, fresh, and vivid.  That is, they must not seem manufactured.  It is all well enough to say that Jack has made an enemy at College, but how did the enmity arise?  The young men will not become opponents merely to suit the photoplaywright.  You must think out some natural, interesting, fresh, and vivid cause for the antagonism.  Such a logical basis for action is called motivation.