chandler vs aristotle

[marycatelli]

"Of all plots and actions the episodic are the worst. I call a plot 'episodic' in which the episodes or acts succeed one another without probable or necessary sequence." -- Aristotle

"When in doubt, have a man come through a door with a gun in his hand." -- Raymond Chandler

One danger of applying the second is that you neglect the first. If the man with the gun is not an established character, there is neither probable nor necessary sequence in his appearance.

This is why, although Aristotle was also right when he said

A beginning is that which does not itself follow anything by causal necessity, but after which something naturally is or comes to be. An end, on the contrary, is that which itself naturally follows some other thing, either by necessity, or as a rule, but has nothing following it. A middle is that which follows something as some other thing follows it. A well constructed plot, therefore, must neither begin nor end at haphazard, but conform to these principles.

that applies to the end result, not to the writing process. You have to go back and put in the man, or excise him in revision, or otherwise smooth him out.


Though I've heard of writers who throw a random sentence in and then write on without including it in the events, just to jar things loose.

Comments

[writerjenn.livejournal.com]

I interpret Chandler's advice to mean, "Introduce an element of danger; put your characters at risk." But maybe that is just because I find it the most useful interpretation. I agree that random new elements out of nowhere don't work (except perhaps in experimental writing where randomness is regularly introduced and is part of the whole point).

I think there was an episode of "The Office" that made fun of the random-gun idea ... one of the characters was taking an improv acting class, and all he could ever think of to do in a scene was to have a guy pull out a gun, and so none of the other actors wanted to do scenes with him!

[marycatelli]

an element of danger is a new element unless you are lucky enough to have set it up. . . and the point, I think, is that if you are stuck, to shake it up.

Not the only technique possible, of course. One of my favorites is to decide that whatever I was planning on doing next -- gets reversed. If I was intending that my heroine go to the market and get some news, I instead had a dragon appear and scatter everyone. (That was an odd one. I had introduced a dragon, and even given it reason to fly about.)

But sometimes I decide what the man with a gun is for a work, and throw one in whenever the story refuses to move.

[selenite.livejournal.com]

*looks at WIP*

Yeah, I'm doing the Chandler thing. I hope to work up to something Aristotle wouldn't sneer at but I'm still learning.

[marycatelli]

Revision. A wonderful thing.