“Science has shown religion to be history’s cruellest and wickedest hoax.” An unnamed American Professor of Physiology.

quoted by C A Coulson

AskWhy! Polti Plot Generator

© 1998 The Adelphiasophists and AskWhy! Publications. Freely distribute as long as it is unaltered and properly attributed
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.

A Dear friend… is to be slain through a rival hating the victim’s lover. The protagonist is the victim of ambitious intrigue.
The protagonist’s love is in some sense illegal or improper, like incest between generations or a man being enamoured of his sister-in-law. The improper passion might not be returned, and any case can be mixed with other crimes of love, rivalries, adulteries, murders, and so on. The distorted love leads on to prostitution. Any plot could be used in a same sex situation, and illicit homosexuality can be recreated by setting it when it was still illegal so that a man can illegally love another man who yields to his advances breaking a social taboo. Pederasty and abuse of children generates public distaste but needs to be treated because it happens often. The The Chrysippus of Euripides is one of the finest tragedies of antiquity. Asylum seekers appeal to some authority for salvation from a group of persecutors who greedily oppresses them using the formidable might of contemporary powers. They implore for deliverance from their fate. The normally hedonistic protagonist steps forward to appeal on their behalf in response to a request by his mother. The power in authority, inferior in strength to the persecutor, and emotionally susceptible, judges them and his anger or pity will determine his course. Which it is explores the vicissitudes of power eventually overthrown and hope hanging on to the last. An intercessor may intercede on behalf of the protagonist’s friends. In the end, the power yields to the menaces of the persecutor.
The protagonist is driven insane by finding that unwittingly he had had incest with a sister, or any such case in which the error was revealed at the last minute. It broadens into any crime involuntarily committed on someone loved and then revealed, when the committer’ state of mind is that of madness. Today the sex of the lover might not be what it seemed! Modern analysts have teased the elements of a story out of fairy tales. Not all elements are always present, but some always are. Elements not essential to the plot serve to particularize and colour the story. A novel can be largely psychology so the plot need not be complicated.
Any situation can be combined with any or any combination of others, in sub-plots, in a group, each one associated with a particular character, or characters or role.

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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…

Some religious skeptics tried to stage a play called “CruciFiction” in which the Easter story was shown as a rational event. Christians will be delighted that it seemed to be cursed from the start. Jesus was knocked off his bike and injured by a lorry. His replacement slipped on some ice and was also injured. Judas had to drop out because of his father’s depression. Peter, James and John fell out with the director. Deciding the play was cursed, the cast all quit. The play was recast, but the new Jesus and Mary Magdalene turned out to be not so skeptical that they could accept Jesus as a wino. The director then had a nervous break down and the show had to be cancelled.

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