Basic Plots: Vonnegut’s Good News Bad News

Ciao, SEers. I’ve been talking about Vonnegut’s five basic plots. So far, I’ve discussed Man in Hole, Boy Meets Girl, Cinderella, and From Bad to Worse, which you can find by clicking the links. Today, I’m going to talk about the fifth and final plot type, Good News/Bad News. As I’ve described in all the …

I learned a new word

Hi Gang. Craig with you again, and I learned a new word. (Not that I’m likely to remember it at my age, but writing it down helps.) I’m sharing it here, because it’s also an obscure kind of story structure. I can see that it has merit under some circumstances. The word is picaresque. It …

Basic Plots: Vonnegut’s From Bad to Worse

Ciao, SEers. I’ve been talking about Vonnegut’s five basic plots. So far, I’ve discussed Man in Hole, Boy Meets Girl, and Cinderella, which you can find by clicking the links. Today, I’m going to talk about the fourth plot type, From Bad to Worse. As I’ve described before, Vonnegut plotted all stories on a grid. …

Basic Plots: Vonnegut’s Cinderella

Ciao, SEers. I’ve been talking about Vonnegut’s five basic plots. So far, I’ve discussed Man in Hole and Boy Meets Girl, which you can find by clicking the links. Today, I’m going to talk about the third plot type, Cinderella. As I’ve described before, Vonnegut plotted all stories on a grid. The vertical axis was …

Expansion Pack: The Return of Comedy

Hi gang. Craig here again with more comedy items you can plot out ahead of time. The last post was pretty popular, so why not a sequel. The previous post contained a list of traditional gags along with some examples you might be familiar with. You can read it here if you’re coming in during …