AskWhy! Polti Plot Generator

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Contents Updated: Saturday, 9 August 2008

Abstract
The Polti Plot Outline
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Abstract

Gozzi, the author of Turandot, according to Goethe, had found 36 tragic, by which he meant dramatic, situations, but he never published them. In 1921, George Polti, a French academic in his fifties, claimed to have rediscovered these 36 plots. He maintained they correspond to the no more than 36 emotions, which he believed humans can experience. To obtain the 36 varieties, the ties of friendship or kinship between the central characters was determined, then their degree of consciousness or free will, and knowledge of the end towards which they were moving. To alter the degree of discernment between the two adversaries, another character has to enter (introduced by Sophocles), having a subtle role, who makes one of the adversaries his instrument. As the perception of the used adversary diminishes so that of the extra character increases.

The Polti Plot Outline

If a computer could write you a story, then you as a storyteller are redundant. You know what you want to write. The outlines are to stimulate your thinking, and help you overcome writer’s block. The plot outliner simply juxtaposes, not in any logical way, some Polti categories to give you ideas for plots. Often a broad situation is given first, then a few plot outlines to use as a main and subplots—you decide which, or how you blend them with the story you already have. The logic of your own story is your’s.

The debt that must be paid. Nemesis! Faust. To challenge a god, any higher power, is the most audacious enterprise, or plain stupidity. Kinfolk are divided over the issue. Some hate the protagonist for fear of divine anger which will leave the protagonist rendered insane, massacring everyone he loves in a blind delerium. So they seek to stop him and sacrifice him to his fate while others sympathise with him, and support his absolute faith. Appeals to the god receive a favourable response.
The wife is slain for a paramour in self-interest. The betrayed person is more powerful than the murderer. One or other of the adulterers might act out of an unresolved grudge towards the betrayed party, or even to their partner, such as money. Or one partner is the instrument of the other and is rejected. The unawareness of the betrayed is total or fully revealed at some stage, by some folly of word. Between the betrayed and the intruder there was a tie of affection to the man through kinship. The blow might be struck by either adulterer or by a third party, by blackmail. Complicate the plot using other characters, the method employed. and such. The denouement could be in the courtroom. A criminal has gone and has to be found.
The protagonist has some human weakness, like hunger, gluttony, jealousy, and consequently causes a loss, sometimes despite the appeals of a counsellor who cautions against the imprudent act, which is sometimes instigated by a selfish prompter—who could be made central. The instigator is motivated by misanthropy. To be believable, the villain cannot be entirely bad. There has to be room for sympathy for him. Equally, the best heroes have to be flawed, because no one is perfect. Black and white is rarely as interesting as tone and colour, unless you are a redneck, and the same is true of characters.
A plot’s conflict can be explicit or implied.

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Other Websites or Blogs

God’s Own Summary of the Bible—Magi Mike’s Blog
I explain here in a criticism of a book by F S Collins: “We will see that Christ gave two answers when asked for the most important commandment, and the reason is that the two… ”
Magi Mike’s Blog—http://mikemagee.wordpress.com/.
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Before you go, think about this…

About 100,000 years ago Homo sapiens sapiens, anatomically modern man, arrived on the scene in Africa. It was to be another 60,000 years before he made a real impact. By 34,000 years ago Neanderthal man was extinct.

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