1. Plot

2. Freytag’s Triangle §Exposition §Complication or Rising Action or Development §Climax §Denouement or Falling Action §Conclusion or Resolution §LinkLink

3. Plots Patterns We Know §When you go to the video store or the book store, what categories of movies or books do you find?

4. §Detective Fiction §Romance §Action §Science Fiction §Suspense §Describe the action of the plot for any one of these.

5. Romance Novel §Exposition = Girl meets boy. They fall in love. §Complication = But, other girl plants seed of doubt in boy’s mind. He sends girl away. §Climax =Boy discovers other girl’s treachery, but it’s too late. Girl has disappeared. §Denouement = Boy finds girl before she jumps off cliff. §Conclusion = They live happily ever after

6. Some other plot patterns §Picaresque §Stream of Consciousness/Psychological §Bildungsroman §Novel of Manners §Western §Gothic §Epistolary

7. So what? §What’s so important about plot structure to literary critics? Or, §Why do we need to pay attention to the way a story is told?

8. Plot and McPherson §How would you describe McPherson’s plot structure? §-- (swings back and forth between characters) §How does it relate to the theme or meaning of the story? §-- (Manicheanism--thinking in dualities) §-- he foregrounds this kind of dual thinking while at the same time challenging it.