20 Master Plots Read online

  While most of us know the story, we know the sanitized version created by Disney, who invented the fairy godmother. Disney's version, while endearing and charming, doesn't capture the true spirit of the tale, which has to do with Cinderella's rivalry with her stepsisters, not her romance with the prince.

  The structure of Cinderella, like most fairy tales, divides itself clearly into three phases, each of which typifies the primary movements of the plot.

  In the first dramatic phase, Cinderella, an only child of a rich couple, kneels beside her mother's deathbed. Typically, the story begins at the point of interruption in the protagonist's life, so we can glimpse her life before the contest between protagonist and antagonist begins. In this case, the mother's death causes a dramatic, irreparable change in Cinderella's life. Her mother's last words are advice: "Dear child, be good and pious, and then the good God will always protect you, and I will look down on you from heaven and be near you." She has her instructions; her mother will protect her as long as she remains virtuous.

  Six months later, Cinderella's father remarries a woman with two beautiful daughters (unlike Disney's three uglies) who are the spiritual opposite of the humble and self-effacing Cinderella: They are vain, selfish, lazy and cruel—a grab bag of the seven deadly sins. They're the mirror reflection of Cinderella.

  The nature of the competition isn't obvious in Disney's version, but it is. in Grimms'. Although Cinderella possesses great beauty, so do her stepsisters. Their ugliness is strictly internal. Since all are young women of a marriageable age, their ambition is to marry as well as possible. (Obviously this happened in the days before raised feminist consciousness.) To avoid direct competition, the stepsisters actively abuse Cinderella.

  Once the rivalry begins in the first dramatic phase, the antagonists have the upper hand. An important attribute of the underdog is disempowerment. The protagonist is overwhelmed by the power of the antagonists. Cinderella is made to work from dawn until dusk carrying water, lighting fires, cooking and washing. The sisters taunt Cinderella by throwing peas and lentils into the ashes of the kitchen hearth and making her pick them out.

  This descending action represents the new status quo. The protagonist now finds herself in a lower, suppressed state, under the rule of the antagonists. But the nature of the protagonist is to resist. Thus, the next important action is to do something that would reverse the descending action.

  In the case of Cinderella, this happens when the father (who is typical of fathers in fairy tales—he has no real presence or authority—goes to a fair and asks each of the three daughters what they would like as a present. The first sister wants beautiful clothes, the second wants pearls and jewels, and Cinderella, still modest and humble, asks for "the first branch which knocks against your hat on your way home."

  The girls get their requests, and Cinderella takes the hazel branch her father has brought back for her and plants it on her mother's grave, watering it with her tears. The branch grows into a tree, and a little white bird (presumably the spirit of her mother) comes to roost in the tree. This bird is no ordinary bird; it grants Cinderella's every wish. Without either strength or allies, Cinderella couldn't compete with her stepsisters, but now she is empowered by both. She is ready to do battle.

  The second dramatic phase begins when the empowered protagonist is in the position to challenge her rival and reverse the descending force in the first dramatic phase.

  The King, who has a son also of marriageable age, invites the kingdom to a three-day festival, during which his son can pick from the local crop.

  The stepsisters make plans to attend, forcing Cinderella to comb their hair, brush their shoes and so on. Cinderella ventures to ask if she can go and is met with derision: "You go, Cinderella! Covered in dust and dirt as you are, and would go to the festival! You have no clothes and shoes, and yet would dance!"

  The sadistic stepmother gives Cinderella a "chance" to go to the festival. She throws a dish of lentils into the ashes and tells her if she can pick them out within two hours she can go.

  But Cinderella is now empowered, and she enlists the help of all the birds beneath the sky, who come "whirring and crowding in, and alighted amongst the ashes." They pick out all the lentils with time to spare.

  Cinderella accomplishes the feat (her first act to counter her suppressed state), but her victory is quickly squelched. The stepmother refuses to honor her promise. "No, Cinderella, you have no clothes and you can not dance; you would only be laughed at." She repeats the lentils trick, this time throwing twice as many lentils in the ashes and gives her half the time to pick them out.

  Cinderella again gets the birds to pick the lentils out of the ashes. The stepmother still refuses to honor her promise, again reiterating the basic problems with her going along: She has no clothes and she can't dance. The stepmother sets off for the castle with her daughters, leaving Cinderella behind.

  The protagonist attempts to reverse her power position only to fail. As is usual in literature, however, the third time is the charm. After the initial failures, Cinderella must adjust her thinking and her action accordingly if she wants to fulfill her intention: to go to the festival. This represents the real turning point in the second dramatic phase—movement from a position of weakness toward a position of greater strength. The protagonist must get to the point where she can effectively challenge her rivals.

  Cinderella goes to her mother's grave beneath the tree and invokes the mother's spirit through the tree and the white bird:

  Shiver and quiver, little tree,

  Silver and gold throw down over me.

  Presto, she's dressed to the tees, overcoming the deficiency of not having clothes. She goes to the festival and dances with the prince, who falls under her spell. While there is no imperative that she return home by a certain time (and have her carriage turn into a pumpkin), she must escape the prince by running away. Her intention is not yet completely fulfilled.

  The second night is a repeat of the first. Cinderella is ravishing and the courtship continues, but Cinderella must make her escape by climbing into a pear tree.

  The third night (again, three times), the prince devises a scheme of smearing the staircase with pitch so when Cinderella steps in it, it catches her slipper. (The slipper is variously described as gold or fur, never glass.) This part of the dramatic action represents a shift; the prince's interest in her is passive at first, but he must take action now to ensure he doesn't lose her. Cinderella is clearly rising on the power curve. She has done what her stepsisters could not.

  End the second dramatic phase. The contest is yet unresolved; Cinderella has yet to fulfill her greater intention: to find freedom from her repressive stepsisters and stepmother, and to find the love of a man. She is leading a dual life: dirty housemaid by day, golden princess by night. She must reconcile these two states.

  The third dramatic phase must bring the rivals into equal competition with each other. With Cinderella ascending on the power curve, she now can openly challenge her stepsisters.

  The prince has a shoe but no princess to go with it, so he begins his search. The two stepsisters "were glad for they had pretty feet." The first stepsister tries on the tiny shoe but she can't jam in her big toe, so her mother advises her to cut it off, since "when you are Queen you will have no more need to go on foot." This her daughter does, and when the prince sees that the shoe fits, he puts her on his horse and heads back to the castle. On the way they pass Cinderella's mother's grave and the birds in the tree sound the alarm. The prince looks at the stepsister's foot, which is soaked with blood, and realizes she's a fake.

  The second stepsister tries on the shoe, but her heel is too wide, and again the mother advises cutting off part of her heel since, well, you know ...

  Again the prince is deceived, and again the birds tip him off. When he sees her stocking is soaked red, he returns her. Finally, it's Cinderella's turn. The stepmother refuses to produce her, saying it's impossible for Cinderella to b
e the mystery princess, but the prince insists, and the slipper fits. The rest, as they say, is history.

  Except for one small detail. Cinderella is now fully empowered and has realized her freedom. But her defeat of her rivals isn't complete. (Since they're both disfigured it would seem to be enough, but apparently not.)

  The stepsisters show up at the wedding looking to get into Cinderella's good favor. In a scene reminiscent of Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds, the pigeons attack the two sisters and peck out their eyes. "And thus, for their wickedness and falsehood," the story ends, "they were punished with blindness all their days."

  The focus at the end of the story is not on the prince and princess' living happily every afterward, but on the comeuppance of the two false sisters. The rivalry is over; Cinderella has triumphed over wickedness and falsehood.

  AGAINST ALL ODDS

  The underdog is a fascinating character. The underdog really wants to succeed. As you develop your character, ask yourself what motivates him to want to achieve his goal. Again, the intent of the character—to win—is clear. But at what cost to himself or others? Don't just concentrate on the competition that pits the underdog against the superior. Give your reader an understanding of what forces propel him.

  In some ways this plot is predictable. We identify strongly with the underdog, just as we identify with the protagonist in the rivalry plot. Readers love it when the odds are stacked against the good guy and the good guy wins anyway. But don't make a cartoon out of your characters by creating odds so lopsided and unrealistic that the underdog has no reasonable chance of winning. The final competition should be a real competition, head to head, and as much as the antagonist cheats, the underdog always maintains the true course: courage, honor, strength. (It is permissible, however, to use the antagonist's dirty tricks against him.)

  Keep your audience in mind every step of the way. Your underdog has a rooting section. Stay in touch with what your reader is feeling (frustration, anger, exhilaration) and play toward those feelings. At the end, when your hero finally overcomes all obstacles, your audience should feel the same triumph. Don't disappoint your audience by not including it at the finish line.

  CHECKLIST

  The summary for the rivalry plot also applies for the underdog plot, with the following exceptions:

  1. The underdog plot is similar to the rivalry plot except that the protagonist is not matched equally against the antagonist. The antagonist, which may be a person, place or thing (such as a bureaucracy), clearly has much greater power than the protagonist,

  2. The dramatic phases are similar to the rivalry plot as it follows the power curves of the characters.

  3. The underdog usually (but not always) overcomes his opposition.

  To be tempted is to be induced or persuaded to do something that is either unwise, wrong or immoral. Happily or unhappily, depending on your point of view, life presents daily opportunities for us to be stupid, wrong and

  immoral.

  No one's ever managed to get through life without being tempted by someone or something. Our examples start in the Garden of Eden (we know what price Adam and Eve paid for not resisting temptation) and continue forward to today, without exception, from the rich and powerful to the lowly and powerless. Not even Christ was immune.

  We consider it a sign of strength and self-discipline to be able to resist temptation. But temptation isn't something that comes along once or twice in a lifetime and is dealt with; we must fight against it daily. Who hasn't fought off the temptation to do something you knew you shouldn't? Maybe it was something minor, like trying to resist a decadent dessert the day you started your diet. Or maybe it was something more substantially immoral, such as trying to resist having an affair with a married person. Or maybe it was illegal, such as the desire to embezzle money from your company.

  The story of temptation is the story of the frailty of human nature. If to sin is human, it is human to give in to temptation. But our codes of behavior have established a price for yielding to

  temptation. The penalties range from one's own personal guilt to a lifetime without parole in the state penitentiary.

  Forces rage within us when tempted. Part of us wants to take the risk for whatever we see as the gain. We convince ourselves we won't be caught. Another part of us is horrified. That part knows what we intend to do is wrong, and it resists the powerful impulse to act incautiously by dragging out every paragraph, sentence, comma and period of the moral code that we have learned through our society. The battle rages: yes and no, pro and con, why and why not. This is conflict, and the tension between oppo-sites creates the tension. Knowing what to do and actually doing it are sometimes oceans apart.

  It's not hard to see how fundamental this plot is to human nature. It may be harder to see that temptation is perhaps the most religiously oriented of all the plots.

  Literature has plenty of examples. Temptation is a common theme in fairy tales. Bruno Bettelheim points out that most fairy tales were created at a time when religion was the most important element in life; therefore, many of the tales have religious themes. A particularly beautiful but almost unknown tale by the Brothers Grimm is "Our Lady's Child," a cautionary tale about temptation. "Hard by a great forest dwelt a woodcutter with his wife, who had an only child, a little girl three years old ..." the story begins. Times are so hard the woodcutter can't feed his wife and daughter. Taking pity on them, the Virgin Mary appears before the father wearing a crown of shining stars and offers to take care of his daughter. The father sees no alternative if his daughter is to survive and agrees.

  STRUCTURE

  In the first dramatic phase, the nature of temptation is established and the protagonist succumbs to it. As with this tale, the protagonist fights to resist but eventually gives in. She may also rationalize her behavior as if trying to find an easy way to reconcile the forces tearing at her. Oftentimes a period of denial follows the act.

  In "Our Lady's Child," Mary then takes the little girl to Heaven, where she grows up in the Virgin's great house eating sugar cakes and drinking sweet milk. One day, when the girl is fourteen, the Virgin takes a long trip and gives the girl a set of keys to the thirteen doors of Heaven. She tells her she may open any door she chooses except for the thirteenth: That one she may not open.

  The girl promises to obey.

  We don't have to project far to know what will happen. At first, the girl is good. She takes a tour of each of the twelve dwellings of the kingdom of Heaven. "In each one of them sat one of the Apostles in the midst of a great light, and she rejoiced in all the magnificence and splendor...."

  But there was that thirteenth door, the forbidden one.

  A great hunger to know consumes her. "I will not open it entirely," she rationalizes her behavior to the angels, "and I will not go inside, but I will unlock it so that we can see just a little through the opening."

  Oh, no, counsel the angels, that would be a sin. That would cause such unhappiness.

  The desire grows into an obsession, and when the girl is alone she figures no one will ever know if she just peeks inside.

  And peek she does. Behind the door she sees the Trinity sitting in fire and splendor. She stares at it in amazement and reaches out to touch the light. As her finger touches it, the finger turns golden.

  She is overwhelmed by a great and sudden fear. She tries to wash her golden finger but to no avail.

  The Virgin returns home and immediately suspects the girl has violated her promise. She asks the girl, but she compounds her crime by lying. The Virgin asks again, and again she lies. Finally she asks a third time and still the girl denies it. The Virgin ejects the girl from Heaven and sends her back to earth a mute.

  In the second dramatic phase, the protagonist must undergo the effects of her decision. She may continue her denial, trying to find a way out of the punishments that are certain to follow. The girl of "Our Lady's Child" has compounded her sin. She not only disobeyed the Virgin, but then she steadfastly l
ied about it even though the Virgin gave her several chances to recant.

  The girl is back on earth, naked and speechless in the desert.

  She lives like an animal, eating roots and berries and sleeping in a hollow tree.

  After several years a king finds the wild girl and falls in love with her, even though she can't speak. He takes her back to his castle and marries her. She bears him a son. Suddenly the Virgin appears before her and offers to take her back to Heaven if she will confess. If she continues to deny her sin, however, she will take away her child.

  The Queen refuses to confess.

  The Virgin takes away her child. A rumor travels around the kingdom that the Queen is a cannibal and has eaten her child. But the King loves her so much he won't believe it.

  She bears him another child, and the Virgin shows up again and makes the same proposition. Still the Queen refuses to confess. She takes the second child. The people of the kingdom accuse the Queen of cannibalism; the King's councillors demand she be brought to justice, but still he refuses to believe his wife could do such a thing.

  Finally she bears the King a third child. The Virgin shows up but this time takes the Queen to Heaven, where she sees her two other children. "Is your heart not yet softened?" she asks. "If you will own that you opened the forbidden door, I will give you back your two little sons."

  The Queen refuses, and the Virgin confiscates her third child.

  This is more than even the King can take.

  The effects of the temptation in the first dramatic phase reverberate through the second dramatic phase. The protagonist tries to deal with the effects of her behavior, but as is typical of moral stories, the more she tries to wriggle free from the burden of her sin, the more it oppresses her. Finally it reaches the point at which it is no longer bearable.