20 Master Plots (26 page)

Once he realizes his mistake, Higgins finds Eliza and pleads with her to return to him so they can live together (with Colonel Pickering) as three dedicated bachelors. At the end of the play, he is sure she will come back, even as she tells him goodbye forever. The transformation of Eliza Doolittle also transforms Henry Higgins. But the play does not have a happy ending. Shaw resisted it even when his audiences demanded it. The point of the story wasn't to show two people falling in love, but to show the human costs of meddling in another person's life. But audiences from his day to ours have refused to listen.

SMALL-SCALE TRANSFORMATION

The incident that changes the protagonist doesn't have to be on such a large scale as Hemingway's story or Shaw's play. Anton Chekhov showed that sometimes even the smallest events can reverberate through our lives with the awesome power of an avalanche.

"The Kiss" is set in a small Russian village in the 1880s. The protagonist is an inept lieutenant in the Russian artillery. "I am the shyest, most modest, and most undistinguished officer in the whole brigade!" he laments. He's a lousy conversationalist, a clod of a dancer—altogether a pathetic mix of officer and gentleman.

The occasion is an evening of dining and dancing at the home of a local retired lieutenant general. The protagonist attends but is ill at ease because of his lack of social graces. He wanders away from the gathering into a dark part of the house when suddenly a woman throws her arms around him, whispers "At last!" in his ear, then kisses him on the lips. Realizing her mistake, she runs from the room before the officer can identify her.

Lt. Ryabovich is stunned. The kiss penetrates him to the core. Although the room is too dark for him to identify the woman, he leaves the room already changed. "He wanted to dance, to talk, to run into the garden, to laugh aloud."

This is the heart of the first dramatic phase: the incident that starts the change in the protagonist's life. Since this plot is about character, it's important to understand who the protagonist is before the change takes place. Chekhov does this with a few simple brush strokes. We should understand enough about the character before the transforming event that when it happens, we also understand how it can affect the protagonist in such a profound way. An accidental kiss by a mysterious woman in the dark would be a great source of amusement for most men, but it wouldn't have the profound impact it has on Ryabovich. We know the lieutenant has low self-esteem, that he feels lonely and unloved, out of the mainstream of human affairs. So suddenly, when this woman's kiss makes him feel connected to the world, we understand why. He has been, as they say, primed for this event. To anyone else, it would've been an insignificant moment, but for Ryabovich, it's the moment of a lifetime.

Ryabovich rejoins the party. The kiss has already started to turn into a romantic fantasy. He scans the women at the party and wonders which was the one in the dark room. The mystery excites him. Before he falls asleep that night, the fantasy is rooted deeply in his imagination.

After the transforming incident, we begin to see the first effects of it. Action, reaction; cause, effect. The personality of the protagonist begins its transformation. This is a process plot. We follow the changes in the protagonist as he transforms from one personality state to another. He may pass through several states in the process of becoming what he will ultimately be. There are lessons to be learned, judgments to be made, insights to be seen.

The next day Ryabovich leaves the Russian village for maneuvers. He experiences a rational moment when he tries to convince himself the kiss was meaningless, that he's making too much out of it. But he cannot resist the temptation of the fantasy; he is already hostage to it. He relates the incident to his fellow officers, who react as normal men might. To them it's one of those wonderfully absurd moments we encounter from time to time. Ryabovich is disappointed by their reaction, for in his mind, the mysterious woman is his goddess of love. He loves her and he wants to marry her. He even begins to fantasize that she really loves him, too. He wants to go back to the village to be reunited with her.

In the second dramatic phase we see the full effects of the transforming incident. We might better describe the transforming incident as an inciting incident, because it begins the process of change in the protagonist. It's an internal process, an expression of the human mind. Whatever actions the character takes are a direct expression of what the character thinks. The character's nature determines the action, just as Ryabovich's nature determines his resolution to go back to be reunited with the woman he is convinced waits for him.

The third dramatic phase usually contains another incident that defines the result of the transformation. The protagonist has reached the end of his experience. It's common for a protagonist to learn lessons other than what he expected to learn. The real lessons are often the hidden or unexpected ones. Expectations are baffled; illusions are destroyed. Reality overtakes fantasy.

Ryabovich returns to the village full of anticipation and tortured by questions: "How would he meet her? What would he talk about? Might she not have forgotten the kiss?" He knows that once the old general hears he's in the village he will be invited back to the house. He can go back to the dark room where it all started.

But the closer he gets to the house, the more uncomfortable he feels. Nothings looks right or feels right. The details he remembered with such clarity have vanished. The nightingale that sang in May is silent; the trees and grass have lost their fragile scent; the village looks crude and cold. Ryabovich suddenly realizes the true nature of his fantasy. "And the whole world, all of life seemed to be an unintelligible, aimless jest...."

When the invitation comes from the general, Ryabovich instead goes home to bed. "How foolish! How foolish!" He is saddened by his realization. "How stupid it all is!"

The clarifying incident of the third dramatic phase allows the protagonist true growth. Ryabovich is sadder but wiser for his experience. Oftentimes that is the lesson of life itself: that sadness comes with greater wisdom.

CHECKLIST

As you write, keep the following points in mind:

1. The plot of transformation should deal with the process of change as the protagonist journeys through one of the many stages of life.

2. The plot should isolate a portion of the protagonist's life that represents the period of change, moving from one significant character state to another.

3. The story should concentrate on the nature of change and how it affects the protagonist from start to end of the experience.

4. The first dramatic phase should relate the transforming incident that propels the antagonist into a crisis, which starts the process of change.

5. The second dramatic phase generally should depict the effects of the transformation. Since this plot is about character, the story will concentrate on the protagonist's self-examination.

6. The third dramatic phase should contain a clarifying incident, which represents the final stage of the transformation. The character understands the true nature of his experience and how it has affected him. Generally this is the point of the story at which true growth and understanding occur.

7. Often the price of wisdom is a certain sadness.

T
hink about all the books you've read and the films you've seen. In what percentage of them does the character change for the
better
during the course of the work? Definitely the majority, right? Writers are free to write about whatever they please in any way they please. So why do an overwhelming number of works show characters improving themselves and their lot? It's a curious phenomenon. Could we say that ultimately the writer's nature is to be optimistic? Sure, Hollywood prefers happy endings—we know that. But that doesn't account for the predisposition of writers to create stories that are socially and morally constructive.

The maturation plot—the plot about growing up—is one of those strongly optimistic plots. There are lessons to learn, and those lessons may be difficult, but in the end the character becomes (or will become) a better person for it.

The maturation plot is a close relative to transformation and metamorphosis plots, and yet it's distinct enough to have its own category. You could argue it's a metamorphosis from childhood to adulthood (from innocence to experience), and it certainly includes a physical change. But this plot isn't a metamorphosis plot in the sense that I've outlined it. You could also argue that matura-

tion is a transformation plot as well, but the maturation plot relates only to the process of growing. One way to look at it, perhaps, is to say the transformation plot focuses on adults who are in the process of changing, and the maturation plot focuses on children who are in the process of becoming adults.

ENTER THE HERO

The protagonist of the maturation plot is usually a sympathetic young person whose goals are either confused or not yet quite formed. He floats on the sea of life without a rudder. He often vacillates, unsure of the proper path to take, the proper decision to make. These inabilities are usually the result of a lack of experience in life—naivete—as in John Steinbeck's "Flight."

This coming-of-age story is often called the
Bildungsroman,
which is German for "education novel." The focus of these stories is the protagonist's moral and psychological growth. Start your story where the protagonist has reached the point in her life at which she can be tested as an adult. She may be ready for the test, or she may be forced into it by circumstances.

Ernest Hemingway wrote a series of short stories called the "Nick Adams" stories, about a young boy in upstate Michigan. These stories are about growing up. In "Indian Camp" the boy goes with his father, who's a doctor, to treat an Indian. The Indian has killed himself and for the first time the boy must confront death. But the boy is too young to grasp the experience and rejects the lesson. That is the point of story: He isn't yet capable of dealing with the adult world. In many of Hemingway's other stories, however, the young protagonist learns quickly the lessons of growing up. In what is arguably Hemingway's most famous story, "The Killers," an older Nick Adams must confront evil for the first time in his life.

"THE KILLERS"

"The Killers" is a template for the maturation story. As a story it is deceptively simple (as is much of Hemingway's work), but it contains the thrust and understanding of the difficulties a young person must confront in the process of growing up.

The story is seen through the eyes of Nick, who remains a spectator rather than a central character through most of the story. This position of observer is quite common, because the young person isn't old enough to understand or to participate in the action in any meaningful way.

Two Chicago hoods, Al and Max, come to a hick town to kill Ole Andreson, a fighter who's double-crossed them by not throwing a prize fight when he was supposed to. The hoods go into a diner where Nick works. The dialogue takes place among George, the counter man, Sam, the black cook, and Nick. When Nick learns what the hit men plan to do, he decides to try to help Ole. Young and idealistic, he wants to save Ole from his fate. He runs to the boarding house where Ole is staying and warns him, but the old Swede is tired of running and is ready to accept death. Nick doesn't understand Ole's resignation and refuses to accept it. He is too young and too optimistic. By the end of the story, Nick rejects Ole's attitude and decides that one must resist death and evil no matter what the cost.

BEFORE: THE FIRST DRAMATIC PHASE

The actual process of maturation in a young person covers many years. You can pick up at any point, from a young, impressionable child to someone in young adulthood. You may explore one day in the life of the protagonist, or you may follow him for months or even years. Two works that are consummate masterpieces of the maturation plot are Dickens'
Great Expectations
and Twain's
Huckleberry Finn.
We follow Pip and Huck through all the agonies they must confront, and we follow their adventures hoping that they will eventually choose the right course. When they do, we feel a sense of justified satisfaction.

We begin with the protagonist as he is before events start to change his life. We need to see who this character is, how he thinks and acts, so we can make a decision about his moral and psychological state before he undergoes change. Your character may exhibit a lot of negative (childlike) traits. Perhaps he is irresponsible (but fun-loving), duplicitous, selfish, naive—all the character traits that are typical of people who haven't accepted the responsibilities of adulthood or who haven't accepted the moral and social code that the rest of us abide by (more or less).