20 Master Plots (20 page)

THE FIRST DRAMATIC PHASE

D.O.A.
begins with the protagonist, Frank Bigelow, entering a police station to report a homicide. When the police ask him who was murdered, he answers, "I was."

Flashback to the setup: Bigelow is a small-town accountant. He's about to leave for San Francisco. His secretary, who's also his fiancee, characterizes him for us: "You're just like any other man only a little more so. You have a feeling of being trapped, hemmed in, and you don't know whether or not you like it."

He leaves for the bright lights of the big city.

On the first night of his stay he goes to a jazz bar. Enter hot blonde. The place is undulating with sexual tension and a life that's much different from the staid life Bigelow's been living back home. He makes a pass at the blonde; she accepts. While they're having a drink together, a sinister man switches drinks on Bigelow while he's distracted by the blonde. The drink is bitter and he orders another.

Bigelow pays the price for "straying" the same way Michael Douglas' character does in
Fatal Attraction,
even though Bigelow only talks to her. He returns to his hotel room, has second thoughts about the blonde, and tears up her telephone number.

He wakes up sick. At first he thinks he's hung over, but he keeps getting sicker. He goes to the hospital. The doctors examine him and tell him that he's been poisoned and has three days to live.

The twist here is that the detective is also the victim. He must solve his own murder. His time frame is specific, since he'll be dead in three days. Like the riddle of little Nancy Etticoat, the first part of the riddle introduces the general. We meet the victim; we witness the crime; we meet the detective who will try to solve the crime (in this case the same person as the victim). The riddle is presented in its widest sense. Who did it? And why? The characters are presented in general terms; this is a physical plot, and action is more important than character depth. We find out what we need to know about Bigelow, and that he's a lot like the rest of us: slightly bored with life and looking for a taste of excitement. We easily identify with him. His focus for the rest of the story will be on one thing: finding out who killed him.

THE SECOND DRAMATIC PHASE

The hospital makes arrangements for a room for Bigelow to make his last days comfortable, but he flees in a panic. He cannot die without knowing why someone would want to kill him. His search at first is frantic and disorderly. When he realizes his panic is keeping him from getting anywhere, he settles into a more methodical search with the help of his fiancee. He finds out a man is desperately trying to get hold of him. Bigelow had notarized a bill of sale for a shipment of iridium for the man, and since iridium is radioactive and Bigelow is dying of radioactive poisoning, he knows this is the connection he seeks.

But when he flies to Los Angeles to find the man, Bigelow learns the man has supposedly killed himself. One clue points to another, and Bigelow gradually unravels the plot against him.

Like the structure of the riddle, the second dramatic phase includes the specifics. Having learned what we need to know about the basic cast of characters, the nature of the crime, and the detective's dedication to solve the puzzle, we now begin the pursuit of clues.

It has often been said that the rule of the best mysteries is that they have all their clues in place for the careful reader to find and deduce the culprit, as Sherlock Holmes would. Raymond Chandler claimed that half his books violated this so-called rule. It is certainly more satisfying for the reader to play the game along with the detective, because the whole point of a riddle is to solve it before the protagonist does. We have our suspicions, we infer motives, we make accusations. We enjoy being armchair detectives and outwitting everyone. To do this, we must have all the proper clues so that we can reach the proper conclusions. But the clues shouldn't be so obvious (as with riddles) that we immediately solve the mystery.

Mary Roberts Rinehart's point about a mystery story having two stories in one is good: There's the story of what appeared to have happened, and the story of what actually happened. The same holds true for the riddle itself: There's what the language
seems
to mean, and there's what it
actually
means. The plot derives its conflict from the tension between the two. Appearance vs. reality.

Go back to the concept of casual and causal discussed in chapter two. The casual disguises the causal. As you write, don't give away your hand by telegraphing clues. If a clue sticks out, you've lost the advantage. But if the clue is cleverly disguised in the background so that it seems a natural part of the scene, you've done your job. The problem with many mysteries is that the clues stick out, and the reader reacts by saying, "Ah-hah! A clue! What does it mean?" By making clues obvious, you cheat the reader who wants to discover them for himself. All stones should look alike; only one should contain the diamond.

As you write, figure out the best way to camouflage important information so that it seems a natural part of the action. Otherwise you'll tip your hand. The rule of thumb about "couching" important information is the basic rule of camouflage itself. Make sure whatever you want to hide has the same coloration as the background. Information becomes obvious only when it "sticks out." Information is camouflaged easily when it is a natural part of the environment. A gun hides easily in a gun rack. Hide a chicken in a henhouse, not in a bedroom. Create an environment (background) that is natural to the object/person/information you want to present. You want the reader to notice the information in a passive way. If the information "pops out," you're being too obvious and won't fool anyone.

THE THIRD DRAMATIC PHASE

The riddle has been presented both in its generals in the first dramatic phase and in its particulars in the second dramatic phase. Now it's time to solve the riddle. In
D.O.A.
there's confrontation and chase, as Bigelow uncovers the plot against him. Bigelow avenges his murder and then turns himself in to the police. "All I did was notarize one little paper, one little paper out of hundreds." The antagonists thought he was wise to their scheme when in fact he knew and suspected nothing.

Bigelow dies in front of the police. He is avenged, the riddle is solved. (You might wonder why this isn't a revenge plot. The focus in this story is not getting even but finding out what happened to Bigelow. Revenge is secondary, rather like cleaning house.)

The answer to the riddle must fit both the generals and the particulars. Like pieces of a jigsaw, each piece contributes directly to the picture. Individually, a piece may look harmless and unimportant, but in fact it may be key to understanding the big picture.

PSEUDO-NEO-CRYPTO SYMBOLISM

A story like
D.O.A.
has its story line and its clues, and in the end it isn't that hard to figure out. You're given all the major clues, and they aren't all that subtle. Sometimes the story is more devious, such as the film
Chinatown,
in which there are two riddles, one within another, each relating to the other.

But there is another class of riddle that is impossible to solve. Perhaps they're not meant to be solved, only pondered. Anyone who reads Kafka knows not to ask the question "Why?" because the reader won't get a satisfactory answer. That's Kafka's point: Real life doesn't give whys. Things happen, period. No explanation. One day Gregor Samsa wakes up and he's a bug. Why? Kafka predated the beer commercial, but the slogan could just have easily been his: "Why ask Why?" We're spoiled as readers—we
expect
answers. Good answers. Answers that make sense. And if we don't get them, we feel cheated. We get angry. We want an orderly world that answers our questions. Kafka didn't think that was necessary. In his world, you can wake up a bug and it wouldn't occur to you to ask why.

So it is with Kafka's
The Trial.
Joseph K (he doesn't even get a real name) is accused of a crime he doesn't understand by a court he can't communicate with. There are no clues because there are no particulars, only generalities. There's a riddle, but it doesn't seem to have a solution. Lots of events
seem
to mean something, and we must struggle to make sense out of them. In a sense it's like the princess or the tiger, except at a more abstract level. Kafka seems to say, "Life's that way, there are no clear answers ... just what you can come up with." Only in fiction is there a godlike figure that can come forward to give the "correct" answer. A philosopher might reply that there are no correct answers, only fabricated ones.

So that's what we must do with riddles like
The Trial:
Construct a meaning. No one will tell us how all this fits together; it's up to us to make it work.

When Stanley Kubrick released
2001: A Space Odyssey
(based on Arthur C. Clarke's story "The Sentinel of Eternity"), audiences were bewildered. The film was filled with objects and events that seemed to have meaning, and we struggled to put it all together. Many dismissed it as psychedelic babble, a sign of an unhinged mind. Critics were unimpressed. And yet the film was clearly a riddle begging solution. What is the rectangular monolith that keeps appearing from the prehistoric past to the future? What happens to David Bowman at the end of the film, when he's suddenly drawn into a Louis XIV drawing room somewhere near the moons of Jupiter? Why does Bowman transform from a decrepit old man in a Howard Hughes bedroom to a celestial embryo?
What does it all mean?
Figuring it out was like trying on new clothes at a department store. If you didn't like how it fit, you tried on something else. Who knew what it meant? Maybe it didn't really matter. The fun was in coming up with possibilities. Of course, for some, that's terribly frustrating and unfulfilling, rather like someone telling you a joke without a punchline.

To present a problem supposes an answer, but that's not always how it is. Writers who are serious about dealing with and reflecting the true nature of existence often find it presumptuous to present life as finite and clear. Your decision as a writer is whether you want to deal with a closed system that offers absolute answers or an open system that is uncertain and may not offer answers.

If you're interested in writing for the widest general audience, your options are more limited. The general audience prefers absolute answers. It wants its riddles solved. So decide whom you're writing for first.

CHECKLIST

As you write, keep the following points in mind:

1. The core of your riddle should be cleverness: hiding that which is in plain sight.

2. The tension of your riddle should come from the conflict between what happens as opposed to what seems to have happened.

3. The riddle challenges the reader to solve it before the protagonist does.

4. The answer to your riddle should always be in plain view without being obvious.

5. The first dramatic phase should consist of the generalities of the riddle (persons, places, events).

6. The second dramatic phase should consist of the specifics of the riddle (how persons, places and events relate to each other in detail).

7. The third dramatic phase should consist of the riddle's solution, explaining the motives of the antagonist(s) and the real sequence of events (as opposed to what seemed to have happened).

8. Decide on your audience.

9. Choose between an open-ended and a close-ended structure. (Open-ended riddles have no clear answer; close-ended ones do.)

W
hat happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object? No question captures the spirit of a plot better than this one.

A rival is a person who competes for the same object or goal as another. A rival is a person who disputes the prominence or superiority of another. Nowhere else is the concept of deep structure more apparent than in a rivalry. Two people have the same goal—whether it is to win the hand of another or to conquer each other's armies or to win a chess game—and each has her own motivation. The possibilities are endless. Whenever two people compete for a common goal, you have rivalry.