High School Writing Tip Sheet - The Plot Thickens (Part Two)

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For the past few years I have been teaching high school writing in our homeschool tutorial co-op. Having seen several groups of students through the courses, I've noticed some issues and questions coming up regularly. I hope these Tip Sheets will be helpful to my students, their parents, and perhaps to other students and parent/teachers as well.

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Last week we explored The Hero's Journey as a plot framework, and although it was meant to be a brief overview, it was quite long! Today I'm outlining another plot framework that is taught in my Creative Writing classes based on Writing Fiction [In High School] from Writing with Sharon Watson, and I promise this article will be shorter!

This plot framework is based on a 1900 play by Austrian Arthur Schnitzler. Schnitzler's play, which was titled La Ronde, was a series of two-character scenes in which something was given from character to character. The first scene is between a prostitute and a soldier, the second between the soldier and a maid, the third between the maid and another character, and so on until the final scene between a count and the prostitute from the first scene. The 'something' that is passed from character to character until the story comes full circle is a venereal disease. The play was making a social commentary on morality and class boundaries, but the point was made through the disease being passed on regardless of class or outward show of morals.

So here's the basic idea of the structure: A thing of some kind is passed from one person to another in the story, until it comes full circle, and that thing represents or symbolizes something else―an idea or concept which is the theme of the story. 

Let's look at some examples mentioned by Watson in the textbook. There are two episodes of the classic TV series M*A*S*H* that were written by Alan Alda using the idea of passing something around. In "The Long John Flap" a pair of long johns arrives at the army hospital during a very cold winter, and everyone there wants those long johns. The characters barter, threaten, and wager to get those long johns. Of course it's funny, but the story is not about who gets the long johns, but about the characters themselves and the relationships between them. What are they willing to do in order to get what they want? The other episode is "The Rooster Crowed at Midnight". In this one, one of the soldiers receives a book in the mail. It's a murder mystery and everyone wants to read it. The book is passed around―sometimes being stolen or traded for―but no one finished reading until the end of the episode. At that point it's discovered that the final pages have been ripped out of the book and so no one knows how it ends! What is this one about? Perhaps it's a commentary that no matter what we do, no one really knows how things will turn out in the end or even what might happen next in life.

A book from a few years ago, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants by Ann Brashares, also uses a la ronde style plot. Four teen friends have to spend the summer apart and don't know if they'll see each other again. They find a pair of pants that fits them all, and decide to send the pants around to each other over the summer as a way to stay in touch. They establish rules for what to do with the pants and what can be done while wearing them. The story is really about the girls' relationship and how each one deals with her own struggles.

If you are writing a story of your own with this plot framework, here's what to consider. Decide what will be passed around among the characters. Will it be passed unwittingly or on purpose? If it's passed on purpose, will there be rules established or will each character make their own decision about who gets it next and how it will be given? Remember that the object should come back to the first character somehow. What is the story really about? What does the object being passed around symbolize or represent?

 A family decides to pass a cherished heirloom or diary from one character to another as a way to remember the loved one that has passed on. This is a very intentional symbolism that each member of the family is aware of from the start.

A character gives a small gift to another character to cheer them up, not knowing that the recipient will pass that gift on to another character and so on until the gift is given back to the first character. This is another intentional symbolism where the object may represent hope or encouragement. There may or may not be any instruction given by the characters to pass it along to someone else. The object passed may have very little monetary value, which emphasizes that it is a symbol.

An object can be found and passed from one character to another until it finds its way back to the original owner. This idea can be done with a prologue in which someone loses the object or is unable to take it with them. Again, this one can be very intentional or serendipitous in how the object is passed around and this lends itself to either serious or lighthearted in the symbolism, as long as the idea the object represents is consistent from one character to another.

You can write something like Alda's screenplays for the M*A*S*H* episodes, with a sought-after object being traded and stolen and argued over, with a lot of humor involved, but the object and interactions needs to represent something more than just the object everyone wants. So while a story about teenage boys having a game of stealing a baseball cap from each other in silly ways might be entertaining, it still should be clear that the cap represents something such as their support of each other despite their disagreements. 

One example from my family that I've shared with classes as a story idea is the squishy minion at my house. A couple years ago, I got a minion toy that is kind of like one of those spongy stress relief balls in a gift basket. He sat out on my counter for awhile because I wasn't sure what to do with him. Then one of the kids decided to hide him to see how long it would take me to notice. He was very cleverly hidden! And once I found him I hid him and then the game was on to see who would find him next. This game has been going on for awhile, and the rules are that whoever finds the minion gets to hide him next, and he must be hidden in a part of the house that everyone has access to (so not in your own bedroom), and where he's very unlikely to be accidentally discarded or destroyed (so not in the bottom of a trash can or in the dryer vent). What does the minion represent? That's not quite as clear, but maybe family ties or perseverance. When I visit the kids in a couple weeks, one of my goals will be to find the minion and then hide him for the kids to find after I've left.

There are only so many plots in the world. It's how they unfold that makes them interesting. ~Lauren Beukes

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See High School Writing Tip Sheet - The Plot Thickens (Part One) for more about The Hero's Journey.

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