Creative Writing Course – Week #12
Week 12 of my writing course spent a lot of time talking about themes and basic plots in literature. More accurately, we spent most of the class talking about films, but the principle is the same. In a class with about 15 people it's easier to use films to provide examples as more people are likely to have seen them than they have certain books.
We went around the class talking about the themes we'd employed in our writing, and while some people were quite clear about what they were exploring, others were less certain, but once they'd talked about their work the themes started to reveal themselves. I'm not sure if writers consciously start out to explore certain themes, but they certainly manifest themselves in the text, if only to the reader.
Several people read extracts from their second chapters, and were given feedback from the group. Before they read, they were asked if there was anything in particular they wanted to focus the feedback on – which is useful if you have areas you are uncertain about.
The '7 Basic Plots' concept was something we spent a lot of time looking at, to give an idea of the storylines universally applied in literature (or in last night's case – films). Some of the examples looked at were both figurative and literal – where possible I'll try to give an example of this.
Overcoming the Monster – examples;
Jaws – the big shark is the literal monster – but Brody is also scared of water, a fear he must overcome.
Alien(s)
The Machinist – this one is all but figurative – he must overcome his past misdeeds to move on.
Jekyl & Hyde
Silence of the Lambs.
Rags to Riches/Coming of Age – examples;
Brewster's Millions
Pretty Woman
Slumdog Millionaire – this works on both levels too – he gets rich and famous, but it's also a personal journey.
Cinderella
Harry Potter
The Quest – examples
Lord of the Rings – one epic journey!
Indiana Jones
Around The World In 80 Days
Bridget Jones – no actual journey or quest, but she is hunting for a man (this was not my suggestion)
Voyage/Return – examples
Gulliver's Travels
The Chronicles of Nania
Odyssey
Back to the Future
Comedy/Miscommunication – examples
A Spot of Bother
Life of Brian
Fawlty Towers
Tragedy – examples
Hamlet
McBeth
Philadelphia
A Perfect World
One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest
Titanic
Re-Birth – examples
A Christmas Carol
It's A Wonderful Life
Groundhog Day
Love Story – examples
Romeo & Juliet (plus a few more Shakespeare plays)
See Hollywood for many other examples!
Of course there are plenty of examples where films/books cross over. I would also include LOTR in 'Voyage & Return' – Frodo comes back to the Shire – but there you go. It's all open to personal interpretation of course.
Another big aspect of story telling and development we covered was Character Archetypes – those set figures that often re-occur in literature and film. Let's look at some of them here (standby for another long list);
Superhero
Bully
Rebel
Father/Mother
Child
The Fool – see Forrest Gump
Hero/Anti-Hero
The Devil – see also 'Villian(s)'
The Traitor
Lover
Martyr
Monarch
Damsel in Distress
Guardian/Gatekeeper
Loyal Servant – See Sam in LOTR.
the list goes on…
This was all useful fodder for looking at our own plots and characters. Using the Basic Plots premise, it should be easy to pigeon-hole your work into one or more slots. For me and my embryonic noir crime novel, I'd have to go with 'Overcoming the Monster' – my protagonist creates a monster of his own through his own mis-deeds and fights to control the consequences. As for character archetypes – I'd say my protag is an Anti-Hero (you want him to succeed – but his methods are dubious) and one of my antagonists is definitely The Devil/Villian role. There's also a Father figure in a senior policeman role too. No doubt others will come to the fore once I start properly writing the thing!
Where do your storylines fit into the 7 Basic Plots? Are your characters archetypal? Did you set out with these kind of structures in place, or did they only evolve after closer inspection?
