otnote 11: The student is advised to read _The Plot of the Short
Story_, Henry Albert Phillips; and the chapters on plot in the
following treatises: _The Short Story_, Evelyn May Albright; _The
Contemporary Short Story_, Harry T. Baker; _A Handbook on Story
Writing_, Blanche Colton Williams; _Short Stories in the Making_,
Robert Wilson Neal; _The Art of Story Writing_, Esenwein and Chambers;
and _Writing the Short-Story_, J. Berg Esenwein.]

There can be no real plot without a complication whose explanation is
worked out as the story draws to its close. A mere chain of happenings
which do not involve some change or threatened change in the
character, the welfare, the destinies of the leading "people," would
not form a plot. Jack goes to college, studies hard, makes the
football team, enjoys the companionship of his classmates, indulges in
a few pranks, and returns home--there is no plot here, though there
is plenty of plot _material_. But send Jack to college, and have him
there find an old enemy, and at once a struggle begins. This gives us
a complication, a "mix-up," a crisis; and the working out of that
struggle constitutes the plot.

So all dramatic and all fictional plots give the idea of a struggle,
more or less definitely set forth. The struggle need not be bodily; it
may take place mentally between two people--even between the forces of
good and evil in the soul of an individual. The _importance_ of the
struggle, the _clearness_ with which it is shown to the spectator, and
the sympathetic or even the horrified _fascination_ which it arouses
in him, have all to do with its effectiveness as a plot--note the
three italicized words.

_2. Elements of Plot_

Dividing the subject roughly, in this brief discussion, three
important elements of plot deserve consideration:

_(a) The preliminaries_ must be natural, interesting, fresh, and
vivid. That is, they must not seem manufactured. It is all well enough
to say that Jack has made an enemy at College, but _how_ did the
enmity arise? The young men will not become opponents merely to suit
the photoplaywright. You must think out some natural, interesting,
fresh, and vivid cause for the antagonism. Such a logical basis for
action is called _motivation_. And so with all the preliminaries on
which your plot is based--they must motivate what follows. Remember
that forces or persons outside the two characters may lead them to
quarrel. Swiftly but carefully lay your found