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    Plotting the Short Story
    Plotting the Short Story
    Plotting the Short Story
    Ebook70 pages1 hour

    Plotting the Short Story

    By Seymour Cunningham Chunn

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    About this ebook



    How Successful Authors Write Short Stories: Learning the Plot

    Most beginners seem to have the idea that the
    writing game is a very easy game to play, as easy as ping-pong, for
    instance. 

    A few of them have acquired a fair education; others, not
    so fortunate, are equipped with nothing but a gnawing desire to
    write, and on first appearances it seems to them that it should prove
    to be a very simple matter to weave their ideas into readable
    stories.

    Some of them have a vague idea of what a plot is, but they
    know-nothing about BALANCE, INCITING MOTIVES, CRUCIAL SITUATIONS,
    CLIMAXES, etc., and care less. 

    When they read in their favorite
    magazine a cameo-like story by some master writer, they do not
    realize that the author may have labored for days over that story,
    rearranging words, eliminating paragraphs and even whole pages from
    the original draft, and reconstructing the plot after he has torn it
    to pieces half-a-dozen times. 

    The words flow so smoothly, the
    characters stand out so clearly, the plot is so simple — how easy
    it must be! But these writers are soon disillusioned when the
    rejection slips begin to roll in on them with the regularity of
    well-oiled clockwork. 

    Not until they have served a long
    apprenticeship do they learn that authorship is as much of a
    profession as surgery is and that, as in all other pursuits, it is
    simply a matter of the survival of the fittest.


    No writer can hope to achieve real success in the
    writing field unless he is well-grounded in the fundamentals of plot
    construction, nor can he avoid an atmosphere of SAMENESS in his
    stories and give them the stamp of cleverness and originality unless
    he constantly adds to his store of plot material. 

    "The plot's
    the thing," and the writer who relies solely upon inspiration to
    furnish him with suitable plots for his stories cannot begin to
    compete with his more practical brother craftsman who stimulates his
    imagination with tid-bits from real life, as it were, and builds the
    foundations for his stories with the same care and exactitude that a
    stone mason would employ in building the foundation and framework of
    a house.  

    Get Your Copy Now.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPublishdrive
    Release dateOct 8, 2017
    ISBN9781387281893
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      Book preview

      Plotting the Short Story - Seymour Cunningham Chunn

      Plotting the Short Story

      A Practical Exposition of Germ-Plots

      by Culpepper Chunn

      First published 1922. Cover and added text copyright © 2017. Midwest Journal Press. All Rights Reserved.

      Table of Contents

      CHAPTER I - GERM-PLOTS: WHAT THEY ARE AND WHERE TO FIND THEM

      CHAPTER II STRUCTURE OF THE PLOT

      CHAPTER III - PLOT DEVELOPMENT

      Simple Plots

      Complicated Plots

      CHAPTER IV - RELATION OF THE PLOT TO THE STORY

      BONUS

      CHAPTER I - GERM-PLOTS: WHAT THEY ARE AND WHERE TO FIND THEM

      A comprehensive system of plot development, and an adequate supply of material to draw from, are almost indispensable to the writer who turns out a large number of stories each year, and to the occasional scribbler who has little knowledge of plot form and structure it is of even greater value. Years of experience as a writer, literary critic and student of the short story have brought out these facts: The writer who is long on writing is generally short on ideas, and an inadequate knowledge of the plot and its development causes more aspiring authors to fail than any other one thing.

      Most beginners seem to have the idea that the writing game is a very easy game to play, as easy as ping-pong, for instance. A few of them have acquired a fair education; others, not so fortunate, are equipped with nothing but a gnawing desire to write, and on first appearances it seems to them that it should prove to be a very simple matter to weave their ideas into readable stories. Some of them have a vague idea of what a plot is, but they know-nothing about BALANCE, INCITING MOTIVES, CRUCIAL SITUATIONS, CLIMAXES, etc., and care less. When they read in their favorite magazine a cameo-like story by some master writer, they do not realize that the author may have labored for days over that story, rearranging words, eliminating paragraphs and even whole pages from the original draft, and reconstructing the plot after he has torn it to pieces half-a-dozen times. The words flow so smoothly, the characters stand out so clearly, the plot is so simple — how easy it must be! But these writers are soon disillusioned when the rejection slips begin to roll in on them with the regularity of well-oiled clockwork. Not until they have served a long apprenticeship do they learn that authorship is as much of a profession as surgery is and that, as in all other pursuits, it is simply a matter of the survival of the fittest.

      No writer can hope to achieve real success in the writing field unless he is well-grounded in the fundamentals of plot construction, nor can he avoid an atmosphere of SAMENESS in his stories and give them the stamp of cleverness and originality unless he constantly adds to his store of plot material. The plot's the thing, and the writer who relies solely upon inspiration to furnish him with suitable plots for his stories cannot begin to compete with his more practical brother craftsman who stimulates his imagination with tid-bits from real life, as it were, and builds the foundations for his stories with the same care and exactitude that a stone mason would employ in building the foundation and framework of a house. Inspiration is, without a doubt, a very great thing, although personally I know very little about it, never having had time to sit down and wait for it to visit me. But it is a fickle creature at best, and requires as much attention as a teething baby. Even those rare exceptions among the writing fraternity who possess the divine spark need a solid base from which to start on their flights into the realms of imagery. It is not difficult to build an occasional plot. With one girl and one man, or two girls and one man, say, for a starting point, almost any writer who has touched a few of life's high spots can build a plot of some sort, but he cannot repeat the process over and over again with any great degree of success for the reason that he must attack each new story from a different angle, and when he relies entirely upon his own limited experience and his imagination, he soon finds this a very difficult thing to do. For this reason experienced writers always keep on hand a varied assortment of story-ideas, original and otherwise, to be used as starting points when they

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