What is the plot of a story in literature? What is the difference between a story and a short story?
Two things make a book fascinating - character and his fate. If you managed to create something bright, charming and original, then half the battle is actually done. Reader's interest in your book is guaranteed. For the first hundred pages. But to justify it is the task of the plot.
What is a plot?
In Russian-language literature there are two concepts - plot and plot. They mean approximately the same thing, but there are differences.
To put it briefly and simply:
- the plot is the facts of your story, bare and impartial, arranged in chronological order;
- the plot is that (through the eyes of which character they were shown, what assessment they gave, maybe even changed the chronological order, i.e. first they told about what happened, and then showed the reason for what happened).
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For example, in Dostoevsky’s novel “Crime and Punishment” the plot is as follows:
A poor student committed the murder of an old moneylender. Afterwards he suffered for a long time and repented. He confessed, went to hard labor and found peace and happiness.
And the plot is more complicated:
A poor student, reflecting on the latest philosophical concepts of his time, perceives the old moneylender as an impersonal evil who stands in his way, the path of an enlightened and potentially great man, and everything in his life depends on his determination and courage to admit that he superior to her and has the right to destroy her in order to achieve all that he can; can he be a real person, and not a trembling creature.
To prove to himself that he is a man and not a creature, the student kills the old woman - with an ax, ineptly and with horror; the murder scene shocks him so much that he falls into a state of shock and gradually slides into a mental disorder... and so on.
I think this is enough for you to understand the difference between plot and plot.
The plot (as opposed to the plot) can be internal and external.
The internal plot is what happens in the head and heart. The path of his character development. After all, you already know that a hero is a hero because his character, his personality changes during the course of the work. These changes are the internal plot.
The external plot is what happens around the main character and with his direct participation. These are all the actions that happen in your story. Actions that affect the people you are talking about. Actions that generate facts.
Most often, these two types of plot coexist peacefully and support each other. But, of course, there are also stories where one of the plots prevails.
In the above novel by Dostoevsky, the advantage, as you understand, is on the side of the internal plot.
But in stories about Conan the Barbarian, the external plot prevails.
In many ways, the ratio of internal and external plots story depends on the literary niche you intend to write for.
If your goal is the mainstream, then the stories should be brought into balance. If - or, in other words, entertaining - literature, then it is better to work hard on the external plot. If you intend to get into elite literature, then you can safely study only inner world your hero!
However, remember: best books any of the named directions are always built on an organic fusion of both types of plot. Rich spiritual world the main character, his active inner life acute conflicts in the external world also stimulate.
And vice versa.
Inspiration and good luck to you!
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When you read or hear reviews about films you have watched or books you have read, you come across such comments on the plot as: unusual, trivial, dynamic, exciting and many other various epithets. But what is plot as a concept? What does it mean?
Definition of the concept in various sources
The word itself is borrowed from French(subjet), which literally translates as “subject”. In many sources (including in various dictionaries) the meaning of the word varies. What is a plot? The definition on average is a system of events and relationships between characters and their development in time and space. In short, the plot is denoted by a set of events and actions that reveal the main content of the work. However, for example, the 1989 Dictionary of Aesthetics calls plot the dynamic aspect of works of art, the unfolding of action, the development of relationships between heroes, their characters, and actions. The narrative core of a work of art is considered to be the plot in the Dictionary literary terms", a system of location and mutual orientation of persons in this work, as well as provisions and events developing in it. In big encyclopedic dictionary" And " Modern Encyclopedia" (2000) plot is considered a way of unfolding the plot, as well as the sequence of events depicted.
Plot and plot: identity or addition
What is plot and plot? Are they the same or different concepts, complementary or mutually exclusive? The Modern Illustrated Encyclopedia states that these terms are used in different ways to refer to the event series of works. In general, both concepts are closely related. Modern Russian literary criticism denotes the plot by the course of events, and the plot by the main artistic conflict. Although, besides this version, there are many others that deserve the right to exist. It is believed that plot theory in its classic version formed in Ancient Greece. According to it, the main components of a plot are event and action. Aristotle considered myth to be the basis of any dramatic or epic work, and the myth itself was formed from events intertwined into actions. There has been confusion with translations, in particular with Latin language, and the myth became a plot. What is a plot in Ushakov’s “Explanatory Dictionary of the Russian Language”? This is a set of events and actions that reveal the main content of the work, but the plot is the content of the events themselves and their sequence. But the Russians XIX critics centuries the meanings of these terms have been swapped. As a result, there is still no consensus on this matter.
Plot elements
The set and sequence of actions and events is a complex whole concept. But what is a plot in detail? It is a combination of elements, each of which has its own function. At the heart of any plot is a conflict that develops gradually. The work begins with an exposition, which carries the first information about the characters, events, time of the story and motivates the reader to continue getting acquainted with further history. Next comes the plot (this is the precursor to the conflict), a clash of some kind occurs. This could be a meeting, conversation, news, something suggesting further development events. The next stage is the development of the action itself - this is the most significant moment of the work, where already familiar characters are revealed in the twists and turns of history. At this stage it is impossible to quit the work, since you are already wondering how it will all end. The climax is the moment high voltage, when the goals and characters of the heroes are most clearly expressed. It contains the very essence of the work, the reason for which the reader or viewer gets to know it. At the denouement, the tension begins to subside and the conflict is resolved, ending the events associated with it. An epilogue usually shows the state of affairs after some time has passed since the main events. Also, a work may have a prologue, which opens the work; it is a kind of introduction to the course of the narrative and reveals the root causes of the events that will occur next. Each of the plot elements may or may not be present, depending on the author’s idea.
Types of plots
There is such a thing as " wandering stories" They are distinguished in quite large group, When we're talking about about the typology of plots. What is a wandering plot? This is repeated in folk art different nations complexes of plot motifs that form the basis of the work. IN " Terminological dictionary-thesaurus in Literary Studies" it is indicated that such wandering plots are repeated in different eras and countries due to the proximity of social experience, similarity social conditions, historical connections and other things. There are four main genetic groups into which traditional stories are divided: historical, mythological, literary, folklore. However, this is only one of the classifications proposed by writers. Perhaps one of the most logical and convenient. Thus, the answer to the question: “What is plot in literature?” was most fully obtained.
Regarding theater and cinema
The concept of plot is generally accepted for all directions. What is the plot of the film? The same as the plot of a literary work, theatrical production, games, paintings - it represents the basis of the form of a particular work. This is a series of events that take place on the screen, twists and turns in the lives of the characters, this is something without which no film can exist.
People ask me: “Where do you get the images for your poems and stories?” Yes, everywhere: in a cafe, at work, on the street...
I once bought train tickets and decided to take a walk from the Perm station: warm weather, Indian summer. I’m going to go and bask in the sun, let me sit on a bench, I think, and I took out my notepad. What if, as they say, something comes to mind? In general, a note on a napkin... And I wasn’t mistaken.
I sit with my eyes closed and wait for the rhyme to come down. And what do you think, faster than rhyme, but very quietly, the plot for the story was suitable.
“Cough, cough, excuse me, sir,” a soft voice brought me out of nirvana.
My eyes saw a certain middle-aged citizen, pretty battered by life. The owner of the crumpled suit had not shaved, combed his hair for a long time and probably had not washed. But for some reason all this did not repel me at all. I remembered Panikovsky. However, he also looked like the artist Moshkov, which I was soon very convinced of. I looked at him questioningly, and he began:
- Hello dear! Forgive me for the involuntary intrusion, but I could not help but stop next to you. Judging by your forehead, you are a person endowed with reason...
I involuntarily became agitated and somehow even wanted some other people to hear these words.
“You’re not mistaken,” I tried to answer somehow, “and he straightened the non-existent tie and continued:
- You immediately impressed me good impression, and believe me, I saw people in different places...
At these words, I suddenly noticed on his hand a tattoo in the form of a mermaid, the tail of which was decorated with the name Anya. In front of the letter A was thickly shaded, as I understood, the letter T or M. Or maybe B. Well, anything can happen in life...
You see, my friend,” he put his hand under his jacket, scratched his armpit, and it became noticeable that his unbuttoned pants were holding different color suspenders - I really want to go home, but every step hurts me unbearable pain. I took part in various battles defending the Fatherland, and my spine was broken in several places. I can take off my modest clothes and show my unhealed wounds,” and despite my protest, the Hero of the Fatherland began to take off his jacket, without ceasing to say:
-I want to go to Motovilikha to my native land, like a person, by bus and at the same time remember you kind words. Please give me ten rubles...
He stood illuminated by the sun, and under his unbuttoned shirt, blue rays shone as if in a distorted mirror, and I was surprised by this combination of humiliation and dignity. I was captivated by such a subtle psychological approach. I was amazed by the almost professional artistry. And I couldn't help but let it to an unusual person ten, which he will most likely turn into a bottle of some tincture at the nearest pharmacy. God bless him…
-Thank you very much, sir. You know I'm through long haul, about ten shops, and no one gave me a single penny, the bastards were greedy. Forgive me for this involuntary rudeness. Well, have a nice rest, I have to go...
He limped about ten steps, and then, at a brisk trot, dusted off, as I had expected, towards the stupid sign “World of Medicines.”
Not at all regretting the gift of ten, I took up the pen...
The plot is an essential component of any work. Be it a film, book, play or even a painting. Moreover, without him these works simply could not exist. So what is plot?
There are many definitions. The most accurate one sounds like this: plot is a compositionally constructed order of events taking place in a work. It is he who determines the sequence of presentation of the story for the viewer/reader. In literature, the concept of plot is closely related to the concept of plot, but they should not be confused. The plot is a means that the author rather than the viewer needs. events. In books and often in films, the plot presents us with actions that are far from chronological. But, despite this, the narrative is perceived as integral and harmonious.
Exposition. Preface to action. Typically, an exposition is a descriptive piece that introduces us to the work.
The beginning. The beginning of the action, where the conflicts of the work are outlined and the characters' personalities are revealed. This is a mandatory element, because what is a plot without a plot?
Development. The main effective twists and turns of the plot.
Climax. The highest intensity of action, the peak of the plot. Usually after the climax there are dramatic changes in the lives of the characters.
Denouement. As a rule, the characters find something for themselves, and their future lives are clearly presented.
The final. Otherwise, it can be called an afterword. Here the author puts everything in its place and sums up the work. It's interesting that in Lately the tendency to leave the ending open-ended is clearly outlined, so that the viewer/reader can figure it out for himself future fate characters.
Sometimes plot elements may change places. Thus, there are films and books with both direct and delayed exposure. With the first, everything is clear - first the viewer gets acquainted with the characters and the scene of action, after which a conflict ensues. In the second case, we learn about the conditions after the start. There are works without any exposition at all, where the reader has to get to know the characters during the action itself.
Currently, there are adherents of some avant-garde movements who create works without a plot at all. Such “experiences” are difficult for viewers to perceive and represent frivolous parodies of art. But there are also schemes for constructing a composition that completely overturn our idea of what a plot is. They will be discussed below.
To complement the answer to the question of what the plot is, it must be said that this is what holds the viewer’s attention throughout the work. When coming up with a plot, the author of a book first of all thinks about how to interest the reader. Moreover, to interest him not for a couple of pages, but so that he cannot tear himself away from the work. Therefore, in our time, more and more new plot construction schemes are appearing - stories are told backwards, endings completely turn the entire narrative upside down, and so on. Perhaps in the future there will no longer be any standard schemes. And the answer to the question “What is plot?” It will be much more difficult and confusing than it is now. For now, this is just a scheme and method of building a narrative.
Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language, Dal Vladimir
plot
m. French the subject, the plot of the essay, its content.
Explanatory dictionary of the Russian language. D.N. Ushakov
plot
plot, m. (French sujet).
A set of actions, events, in which the main content of a work of art is revealed (lit.). Plot " Queen of Spades"Pushkin. Choose something as the plot of a novel.
Explanatory dictionary of the Russian language. S.I.Ozhegov, N.Yu.Shvedova.
plot
A, m. In a literary or stage work - the sequence and connection of the description of events; in the work visual arts- subject of the image. Fascinating s.
adj. plot, oh, oh. Story line novel.
New explanatory dictionary of the Russian language, T. F. Efremova.
plot
Row sequentially developing events, constituting the content of a literary work, film, etc.
The subject of the image (in fine arts).
Theme of a piece of music.
Encyclopedic Dictionary, 1998
plot
PLOT (French sujet, lit. - subject) in an epic, drama, poem, script, film - the way the plot unfolds, the sequence and motivation for presenting the events depicted. Sometimes the concepts of plot and plot are defined the other way around; sometimes they are identified. In traditional usage - the course of events in literary work, spatiotemporal dynamics of the imaged.
Plot
(from French sujet ≈ subject),
in literature ≈ the development of action, the course of events in narrative and dramatic works, and sometimes in lyrical ones. To literature the word "S." first used in the 17th century. classicists P. Corneille and N. Boileau, meaning, following Aristotle, events in life legendary heroes antiquities (for example, Antigone and Creon or Medea and Jason), borrowed by playwrights of later times. But Aristotle in “Poetics” used the ancient Greek word “myth” (мýthos) in the sense of “tradition” to refer to such incidents, which in Russian literary criticism is usually translated incorrectly by the Latin word “fable”. Latin word“fabula” (from the same root as the verb fabulari ≈ to tell, narrate) was used by Roman writers to designate all kinds of stories, including myths and fables, and became widespread much earlier than the French term “S.” In German classical aesthetics (Schelling, Hegel), the events depicted in works were called “action” (Handlung). The difference in terms denoting one phenomenon has made them unstable and ambiguous.
In modern Soviet literary-critical and school practice, the terms “S.” and “plot” are understood either as synonyms, or the whole course of events is called the “plot”, and the “plot” is the main artistic conflict that develops in them (in both cases the terms are doubled). In literary criticism, two other interpretations collide. In the 1920s representatives of OPOYAZ proposed an important distinction between two sides of the narrative: the development of the events themselves in the lives of the characters, the order and method of reporting about them by the author-narrator; giving great importance Based on how the work was “made”, they began to call the second side, and the first ≈ plot. This tradition continues to be preserved (see “The Theory of Literature...” in three volumes, vol. 2, M., 1964). Another tradition comes from Russian democratic critics of the mid-19th century, as well as from A. N. Veselovsky and M. Gorky; all of them S. called the development of action (Belinsky V.G.: “Gogol’s poem can be fully enjoyed only by those who... the content is important, and not the “plot”” ≈ Complete collection soch., vol. 6, 1955, p. 219; Gorky M.: “... The plot... connections, contradictions, likes and dislikes and in general the relationships of people...” ≈ Collection of works, vol. 27, 1953, p. 215). Such terminology is not only more traditional and familiar, but also more etymologically accurate (S., in the meaning of the word, is “subject”, that is, what is being narrated, the plot; from the same point of view, the story itself about S.). However, it is important for supporters of this theory to grasp the theoretical innovation " formal school"and, calling S. the main, objective side of the story or stage action, use the term “plot” to designate the second, actually compositional side (see Composition).
C. work ≈ one of essential means embodiment of the content ≈ the generalizing “thought” of the writer, his ideological and emotional understanding of the real characteristics of life, expressed through a verbal image fictional characters in their individual actions and relationships. S. in all its unique originality is the main aspect of the form (and thereby the style) of a work in its correspondence with the content, and not the content itself, as is often understood in school practice. The entire structure of the story, its conflicts and the relationship between narrative and dialogic episodes that develop them must be studied functionally, in its connections with content, in its ideological and aesthetic meaning. At the same time, it is necessary to distinguish S. in its uniqueness from abstract plot, or more precisely, conflict “schemes” (A loves B, but B loves C, etc.), which can be historically repeated, borrowed and each time find a new concrete artistic embodiment .
On early stages historical development His epic stories were built on the temporary, chronicle principle of combining episodes ( fairy tales, knightly and picaresque novels). Later in European epic Concentric conflicts arise, based on a single conflict. In the concentric style of epic and drama, the conflict runs through the entire work and is distinguished by the certainty of its beginning, culmination, and denouement.
Only on the basis of the analysis of S. can one functionally analyze the plot of a work in all the complex relationships of its own aspects (see Plot).
In the visual arts, a specific event or situation depicted in a work and often indicated in its title. In contrast to the theme, S. is a specific, detailed, figurative and narrative disclosure of the idea of the work. S.'s particular complexity is typical for works of everyday and historical genres.
Lit.: Aristotle. On the art of poetry, M., 1937; Lessing G. E., Laocoon, or On the Borders of Painting and Poetry, M., 1957; Hegel, Aesthetics, vol. 1, M., 1968: Belinsky V.G., Complete. collection soch., vol. 5, M., 1954, p. 219; Veselovsky A. N., Poetics of plots, in his book: Historical poetics, L., 1940; Shklovsky V.B., On the theory of prose, M.≈L., 1925; Medvedev P. N., Formal method in literary criticism, Leningrad, 1928: Freidenberg O. M., Poetics of plot and genre, Leningrad, 1936; Kozhinov V.V., Plot, plot, composition, in the book: Theory of Literature..., vol. 2, M., 1964; Questions of film dramaturgy, in. 5 ≈ Plot in cinema, M., 1965; Pospelov G. N., Problems literary style, M., 1970; Lotman Yu. M., Structure literary text, M., 1970; Timofeev L.I., Fundamentals of the Theory of Literature, M., 1971; Wellek R., Warren A., Theory of literature, 3 ed., N. Y., 1963.
G. N. Pospelov (S. in literature).
Wikipedia
Plot
Plot- in literature, drama, theater, cinema, comics and games - a series of events (sequence of scenes, acts) occurring in work of art(on the theater stage) and built for the reader according to certain rules of demonstration. The plot is the basis of the form of the work.
According to Ozhegov's dictionary, plot- this is the sequence and connection of the description of events in a literary or stage work; in a work of fine art, the subject of the image.
Examples of the use of the word plot in literature.
For famous group fairy tales, Aarne even deviates from his principles and suddenly, completely unexpectedly and somewhat inconsistently, instead of dividing into stories switches to division based on motives.
Last paragraph So, having a topic and a concept, collecting and processing material, making a plan and thinking plot, protecting yourself from cliches, overcoming the resistance of the first paragraph and thus finding the right tone of the narrative, etc.
Such a certain image would weigh down the adventurous plot, would limit adventurous opportunities.
Tasks dictated by his eternal human nature, - self-preservation, thirst for victory and triumph, thirst for possession, sensual love - define adventurous plot.
Tasks dictated by his eternal human nature - self-preservation, thirst for victory and triumph, thirst for possession, sensual love - define the adventurous plot.
But it is enough to make Dostoevsky’s hero an adequate bearer of adventurous plot.
The formal similarity of Dostoevsky’s hero with the adventurous hero that we have established explains only artistic opportunity introduction of adventurous plot into the fabric of the novel.
plot, so to speak, is a physical and physical-spiritual person.
But it is enough to make Dostoevsky’s heroes possible bearers of adventurous plot.
Answering this question, Leonid Grossman points out three main functions of the adventurous plot.
True, this eternal man of adventurous plot, so to speak, a physical and physical-spiritual person.
Much more sad was the fate of Melanie Treat, a frail old maid whose favorite pastime was painting watercolors on stories from the life of the Zenkali people.
Maybe your religion is on plot the legend you wrote helped support Acceleration in some sense - I don’t know, and the gods don’t know either.
And the living beauty of Ramo’s music usually triumphs over the cold allegorism or courtly pomp of traditional mythological stories.
One gets the impression that the microplot associated with it, built on alogism, itself represents an alogism, an incongruity within the framework of the larger plot and only distracts the reader’s attention, creates a short, but still excessive slowdown.
