# Friday Clippings - Jun.12 - [What a plot is | Set the right tone]



## Commissar Ploss (Feb 29, 2008)

Friday Clippings 1 [What a plot is | Set the right tone]

Friday Clippings is another weekly endeavor that I have set upon to help rookie and veteran writers alike. Friday Clippings will be a weekly post done every Friday morning my time (CST), and will bring to the table a pair of short articles meant to help guide your thoughts over the weekend. These articles are to help give you direction in your writing and help give you ideas on things you should focus on. Not necessarily meant to help give you ideas for stories, but to help improve the way you write your stories. Think of it as a companion post to the Writer's Circle. Use them how you like. Take them to heart, or brush them aside. I'm just seeking to improve the learning here at Heresy-Online's Original Works section. Cheers :drinks: Oh, and i've included a 'Quote of the week' as well.

Write on,
Commissar Ploss

Article #1:


Mona Farnsworth in “The Writer” Magazine said:


> What a plot is, and what it is not
> 
> Let's discuss for a minute just what a plot is – And more important, what it is not. It is not, for example, an enlarged, blown-up incident, padded by description and detail, no matter how fascinating that detail may seem to you. Such a piece may be a sketch, but it is not a plot. Nor is it a plot that Susy Grey gave you when she told you about the oddest coincidence that had actually happened to her last Fourth of July. It might, if you worked it around enough, make an incident for a story, something like the 20th part of a plot, but it would never be a plot itself. A plot is far more than this. A plot is a situation, as intricately involved as life itself, peopled with characters who have a problem and who, through the unfolding of your plot, solve it. It requires a series of incidents – between 20 and 25 probably – to advance your action and bring the whole thing to a crisis. And this, the inventing and shaping of these incidents, the manipulating of your characters, I the business of the plot maker.
> 
> --Mona Farnsworth – 1949


Article #2:


Scott Norton in “The Writer” Magazine said:


> Set the right tone
> 
> Respect the subject. Lapses in tone are, simply put, lapses in respect. A biographer, for instance, may treat her subjects with such disdain that the reader wonders, why did you bother devoting years of your life studying this general if he was so horrible?
> 
> ...


Quote of the week:



> One of the bad things you can do to your writing is to dress up the vocabulary, looking for long words because you're...ashamed of your short ones.
> 
> --Stephen King


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## Shogun_Nate (Aug 2, 2008)

While enlightening, I think that it doesn't fully cover the subtle nuances of properly plotting a story. I actually believe opening this up like you did with the *Writer's Circle* would be a far better use of it. That is, unless you plan on covering story plots in a future installment of *Writer's Circle*. Still, it is quite useful as it gives a basic idea for writers to go from. It just seems lacking though.

Good luck and good gaming,

Nate


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## Commissar Ploss (Feb 29, 2008)

yeah, i'll be covering it in the future. these are just short articles on the topic, something to muse over the weekend. This is just a sort of in between post. with quotes thrown in. also, you must realize that post is from 1949 so...

CP


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## Shogun_Nate (Aug 2, 2008)

How about putting them together in a collection after a few months? That way there would be a compendium of tidbits and bobs for everyone to look over. 

Good luck and good gaming,

Nate


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## Commissar Ploss (Feb 29, 2008)

sounds doable, that would help me concentrate on the Writer's Circle more i guess...Sometimes, i just find articles that i feel need posting, you know. If anyone would like to comment, please feel free. It can be just Like the *Writer's Circle*, only for shorter blurbs of articles. Let me know what you guys/gals think.

Commissar Ploss


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