Basic Plots: Vonnegut’s Boy Meets Girl

Ciao, SEers. Last time I was here, I talked about the first of Vonnegut’s five basic plots, Man in Hole, which you can find by clicking the link. Today, I’m going to talk about the second, Boy Meets Girl. As I mentioned last time, Vonnegut plotted all stories on a grid. The vertical axis was …

Basic Plots: Vonnegut’s Man in Hole

Ciao, SEers. I’m back again to talk about story structure (admittedly an obsession of mine). Love him or hate him, one of the twentieth centuries most influential and prolific authors was Kurt Vonnegut. Though he studied at some of our nation’s finest institutions (including my alma mater), he never studied writing. And when he wrote …

Three Literary Elements: Symbolism

Ciao, SEers.  Today is a two-fer. I’m writing the last of my posts on literary elements, and I’m also writing my last post of the year. And what a year it’s been, huh? Say what you want about 2020, it's definitely one we'll never forget. (And one I'm happy to put behind me.) Okay, literary …

Three Literary Elements: Subject

Ciao, SEers.  Last time, we talked about the first of the literary elements—theme. If you missed that post or would like to review it, you can find it here. Today, we’re going to discuss the second element, subject, and how it relates to theme. In literary terms, subject is the vehicle through which the theme …

Three Literary Elements: Theme

Ciao, SEers. I’m going to round out my posts for the year with a discussion of literary elements and how they interact. There are probably as many opinions of the number of literary elements as there are authors who use them, but I’m going to focus on three in particular that work in tandem to …