In a literary work , film , or other narrative , the plot is the sequence of events in which each event affects the next one through the principle of cause-and-effect . The causal events of a plot can be thought of as a series of events linked by the connector "and so". Plots can vary from the simple—such as in a traditional ballad —to forming complex interwoven structures, with each part sometimes referred to as a subplot or imbroglio .
40-830: That Face is a two- act play written by Polly Stenham . It was premiered at the Royal Court Theatre in London on 26 April 2007, directed by Jeremy Herrin . The play was revived at the Duke of York's Theatre in the West End in 2008, opening on 1 May. It received its American premiere in May 2010, at the Manhattan Theatre Club , running through until 27 June. Mia is at boarding school and has access to her mother's drugs. She gets into trouble for drugging
80-533: A conscious division placed within a work by a playwright (usually itself made up of multiple scenes) or a unit of analysis for dividing a dramatic work into sequences. The word act can also be used for major sections of other entertainment , such as variety shows , television programs , music hall performances, cabaret , and literature . An act is a part of a play defined by elements such as rising action, climax , and resolution . A scene normally represents actions happening in one place at one time and
120-481: A choral portion, distinguished into Parode and Stasimon...“ Unlike later, he held that the morality was the center of the play and what made it great. Unlike popular belief, he did not come up with the three act structure popularly known. The German playwright and novelist Gustav Freytag wrote Die Technik des Dramas , a definitive study of the five-act dramatic structure, in which he laid out what has come to be known as Freytag's pyramid. Under Freytag's pyramid,
160-490: A fellow student and this causes her father to be brought back to England from Hong Kong. Henry, her brother, has dropped out of school and has to stay at home and look after his alcoholic mother. Martha, their fading glamorous mother, controls their lives whilst her own sick mind and world crumble around her. When That Face was premiered in the West End , the cast was as follows: Lindsay Duncan , Hannah Murray , Matt Smith , Catherine Steadman and Julian Wadham . Prior to
200-404: A narrative into two elements: the fabula (фа́була) and the syuzhet (сюже́т). A fabula is the chronology of the fictional world, whereas a syuzhet is a perspective or plot thread of those events. Formalist followers eventually translated the fabula/syuzhet to the concept of story/plot. This definition is usually used in narratology , in parallel with Forster's definition. The fabula (story)
240-414: A profound impact on the story being told. Contemporary theatre, in line with screenwriting and novel forms, tends towards a three-act structure . Many operettas and most musicals are divided into just two acts, so, in practice, the intermission is seen as dividing them, and the word act comes to be used for the two-halves of a show whether or not the script divides it into acts. A one-act play
280-400: A script, the plot structure is made into what is called a treatment . This can vary based on locality, but for Europe and European Diaspora, the three-act structure is often used. The components of this structure are the set-up , the confrontation and the resolution . Acts are connected by two plot points or turning points, with the first turning point connecting Act I to Act II, and
320-431: A suggested page layout. The main goals of roughs are to: In fiction writing, a plot outline gives a list of scenes. Scenes include events, character(s) and setting. Plot, therefore, shows the cause and effect of these things put together. The plot outline is a rough sketch of this cause and effect made by the scenes to lay out a "solid backbone and structure" to show why and how things happened as they did. A plot summary
360-474: A theory about tragedies, the Greek philosopher Aristotle put forth the idea the play should imitate a single whole action. "A whole is what has a beginning and middle and end" (1450b27). He split the play into two acts: complication and denouement. He mainly used Sophocles to make his argument about the proper dramatic structure of a play. Two types of scenes are of special interest: the reversal, which throws
400-414: Is a brief description of a piece of literature that explains what happens. In a plot summary, the author and title of the book should be referred to and it is usually no more than a paragraph long while summarizing the main points of the story. An A-Plot is a cinema and television term referring to the plotline that drives the story. This does not necessarily mean it is the most important, but rather
440-471: Is a short drama that consists of only one act; the phrase is not used to describe a full-length play that does not utilize act-divisions. Unlike other plays which usually are published one play per book, one-act plays are often published in anthologies or collections. In a three-act play, each act usually has a different mood . In the most commonly used structure, the first act has a lot of introductory elements (that is, who, what, when, where, why, and how);
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#1732783526668480-472: Is called a "one page" because of its length. In comics, the roughs refer to a stage in the development where the story has been broken down very loosely in a style similar to storyboarding in film development. This stage is also referred to as storyboarding or layouts. In Japanese manga, this stage is called the nēmu ( ネーム , pronounced like the English word "name"). The roughs are quick sketches arranged within
520-419: Is formed, which holds the rest of the play. The majority of the play is made up of complications, which change the action. These complications lead to the crisis , which is the final plot point . At this point, the major dramatic question is usually answered. Finally, the play culminates with a resolution, or the dénouement , where everything comes together and the situation has been resolved. These elements of
560-418: Is marked off from the next scene by a curtain, a blackout, or a brief emptying of the stage. The elements that create the plot of a play and divide it into acts include the exposition , which sets up the rest of the story by giving basic information. Another element is the inciting incident , which starts all the action that will follow. Going along with the inciting incident, the major dramatic question
600-401: Is similar in meaning to the term storyline . In the narrative sense, the term highlights important points which have consequences within the story, according to American science fiction writer Ansen Dibell . The term plot can also serve as a verb, referring to either the writer's crafting of a plot (devising and ordering story events), or else to a character's planning of future actions in
640-450: Is what happened in chronological order. In contrast, the syuzhet (plot) means a unique sequence of discourse that was sorted out by the (implied) author. That is, the syuzhet can consist of picking up the fabula events in non-chronological order; for example, fabula is ⟨a 1 , a 2 , a 3 , a 4 , a 5 , ..., a n ⟩ , syuzhet is ⟨a 5 , a 1 , a 3 ⟩ . The Russian formalist , Viktor Shklovsky , viewed
680-669: The West End transfer, Felicity Jones played the Hannah Murray role. The Manhattan Theatre Club mounted the play on its Stage I in May 2010, with Cristin Milioti and Christopher Abbott portraying the siblings, and Laila Robins as the mother. That Face received its first London revival at The Landor Theatre from 12 November to 1 December 2013, starring Caroline Wildi as Martha, Rory Fleck-Byrne as Henry, Stephanie Hyam as Mia and Georgina Leonidas as Izzy. That Face
720-449: The action in a new direction, and the recognition, meaning the protagonist has an important revelation. Reversals should happen as a necessary and probable cause of what happened before, which implies that turning points need to be properly set up. He ranked the order of importance of the play to be: Chorus, Events, Diction, Character, Spectacle. And that all plays should be able to be performed from memory, long and easy to understand. He
760-458: The day in a battle. In contrast, an adversarial character who has been struggling with himself and saves the day due to a change of heart would be considered dramatic technique. Familiar types of plot devices include the deus ex machina , the MacGuffin , the red herring , and Chekhov's gun . A plot outline is a prose telling of a story which can be turned into a screenplay. Sometimes it
800-479: The effects before their causes) to slow down the reader's ability to reassemble the (familiar) story. As a result, the syuzhet "makes strange" the fabula. A story orders events from beginning to end in a time sequence. Consider the following events in the European folk tale " Cinderella ": The first event is causally related to the third event, while the second event, though descriptive, does not directly impact
840-639: The falling action, and the force of the final suspense leads to the catastrophe. Freytag considers the exciting force to be necessary but the tragic force and the force of the final suspense are optional. Together, they make the eight component parts of the drama. In making his argument, he attempts to retcon much of the Greeks and Shakespeare by making opinions of what they meant, but did not actually say. He argued for tension created through contrasting emotions, but did not actively argue for conflict . He argued that character comes first in plays. He also set up
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#1732783526668880-443: The groundwork for what would later be called the inciting incident. Overall, Freytag argued the center of a play is emotionality and the best way to get that emotionality is to put contrasting emotions back to back. He laid some of the foundations for centering the hero, unlike Aristotle. He is popularly attributed to have stated conflict at the center of his plays, but he argues actively against continuing conflict. Freytag defines
920-404: The outcome. As a result, according to Ansen Dibell , the plot can be described as the first event "and so" the last event, while the story can be described by all three events in order. Fiction-writing coach Steve Alcorn says that the main plot elements of the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz are easy to find, and include: Dramatic structure is the philosophy by which the story is split and how
960-410: The overall structure of the play similar to that of Freytag's pyramid . A similar five-part structure is also used in traditional Japanese Noh drama, particularly by Zeami Motokiyo . Zeami, in his work Sandō (The Three Paths), originally described a five-part (five dan ) Noh play as the ideal form. It begins slowly and auspiciously in the first part ( jo ), building up the drama and tension in
1000-418: The parts as: A plot device is a means of advancing the plot in a story. It is often used to motivate characters, create urgency, or resolve a difficulty. This can be contrasted with moving a story forward with dramatic technique; that is, by making things happen because characters take action for well-developed reasons. An example of a plot device would be when the cavalry shows up at the last moment and saves
1040-566: The play was named at no. 9 in The Times Top Twenty Plays of the Decade. It also received three Olivier Award nominations (one in 2008, before the transfer, then nods for Best New Play and Best Actress in a Play in 2009). Act (theatre) An act is a major division of a theatre work, including a play , film , opera , ballet , or musical theatre , consisting of one or more scenes . The term can either refer to
1080-426: The plot are the main things used to divide a play into acts and sometimes scenes. In some scenarios, the play may not end with a resolved situation; it may leave the audience on a peak and have a sequel to it, otherwise known as a cliffhanger . Though there is no limit to the number of acts in a dramatic work, some may have been derived from different interpretations of Aristotle 's Poetics , in which he stresses
1120-421: The plot of a story consists of five parts: A drama is then divided into five parts, or acts, which some refer to as a dramatic arc : exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and catastrophe . Freytag extends the five parts with three moments or crises: the exciting force, the tragic force, and the force of the final suspense. The exciting force leads to the rising action, the tragic force leads to
1160-524: The primacy of plot over character and "an orderly arrangement of parts", and others may have been derived from Freytag's Pyramid . Roman theatre was the first to divide plays into a number of acts separated by intervals. Acts may be further divided into scenes . In classical theater, each regrouping between the entrances and exits of actors is a scene, while later use describes a change of setting. Modern plays often have only one level of structure, which can be referred to as either scenes or acts at
1200-411: The queen died, is a story, while The king died, and then the queen died of grief, is a plot." Teri Shaffer Yamada, Ph.D., of CSULB , agrees that a plot does not include memorable scenes within a story that do not relate directly to other events but only "major events that move the action in a narrative." For example, in the 1997 film Titanic , when Rose climbs on the railing at the front of
1240-580: The second act is usually the darkest, with the antagonists having a greater compass; and the third act has a resolution ( dénouement ), often with the protagonists prevailing. Until the 18th century, most plays were divided into five acts. The work of William Shakespeare , for example, generally adheres to a five-act structure. This format is known as the five-act play , and was famously analyzed by Gustav Freytag in Die Technik des Dramas (Dramatic techniques). The five acts played specific functions in
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1280-638: The second connecting Act II to Act III. The conception of the three-act structure has been attributed to American screenwriter Syd Field who described plot structure in this tripartite way for film analysis. Furthermore, in order to sell a book within the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia, often the plot structure is split into a synopsis. Again the plot structure may vary by genre or drama structure used. Many scholars have analyzed dramatic structure, beginning with Aristotle in his Poetics (c. 335 BC). In his Poetics ,
1320-463: The second, third, and fourth parts ( ha ), with the greatest climax in the third dan , and rapidly concluding with a return to peace and auspiciousness in the fifth dan ( kyū ). As part of a television program , each individual act can be separated by commercials . In film , a number of scenes grouped together create a story. The three-act structure is commonly referred to in film adaptations of theatrical plays. Plot (narrative) Plot
1360-406: The ship and spreads her hands as if she's flying, this scene is memorable but does not directly influence other events, so it may not be considered as part of the plot. Another example of a memorable scene that is not part of the plot occurs in the 1980 film The Empire Strikes Back , when Han Solo is frozen in carbonite. The literary theory of Russian Formalism in the early 20th century divided
1400-409: The story is thought of. This can vary by ethnicity, region and time period. This can be applied to books, plays, and films. Philosophers/critics who have discussed story structure include Aristotle, Horace, Aelius Donatus, Gustav Freytag, Kenneth Thorpe Rowe, Lajos Egri, Syd Field, and others. Some story structures are so old that the originator cannot be found, such as Ta'zieh . Often in order to sell
1440-414: The story. The term plot , however, in common usage (for example, a "film plot") can mean a narrative summary or story synopsis , rather than a specific cause-and-effect sequence. It can even refer to the whole narrative broadly. Early 20th-century English novelist E. M. Forster described plot as the cause-and-effect relationship between events in a story. According to Forster, " The king died, and then
1480-446: The syuzhet as the fabula defamiliarized. Defamiliarization or "making strange," a term Shklovsky coined and popularized, upends familiar ways of presenting a story, slows down the reader's perception, and makes the story appear unfamiliar. Shklovsky cites Lawrence Sterne's Tristram Shandy as an example of a fabula that has been defamiliarized. Sterne uses temporal displacements, digressions, and causal disruptions (for example, placing
1520-409: The whim of the writer, and some writers dispense with firm divisions entirely. Successive scenes are normally separated from each other in either time or place, but the division between acts has more to do with the overall dramatic structure of the piece. The end of an act often coincides with one or more characters making an important decision or having an important decision to make, a decision that has
1560-467: Was against character-centric plots stating “The Unity of a Plot does not consist, as some suppose, in its having one man as its subject.” He was against episodic plots. He held that discovery should be the high point of the play and that the action should teach a moral that is reenforced by pity, fear and suffering. The spectacle, not the characters themselves would give rise to the emotions. The stage should also be split into “Prologue, Episode, Exode, and
1600-669: Was received positively by critics, who particularly praised the new writer and the performances from the actors. Charles Spencer of The Daily Telegraph said it was "a blazing, no-holds barred production… Fresh, passionate and blackly comic – exhilarating... Lindsay Duncan’s superb performance...Matt Smith is outstanding.". The Daily Express mentioned that " Polly Stenham is a modern successor to Tennessee Williams or Edward Albee ... Intensely moving, skillfully crafted piece." The Daily Express , The Evening Standard , The Guardian , The Times , Time Out , Metro , Radio 4 and The Sunday Times also reviewed it very positively. In late 2009,
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