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odd_buttonsI'm going to vote today. I hope all of you will vote, too.
The following is an excerpt from Part III of the book Making Shapely Fiction, by Jerome Stern. The first two parts are very much worth reading as well. The book is available in paperback.
Formula
Formula is a negative term suggesting that the plot or idea is too old, too familiar, and too contrived. James N. Young's 101 Plots Used and Abused is a horribly delightful collection of formula stories that editors have seen far too often -- dozens of variations on the guy who commits the perfect crime but forgets one little thing, or the crooked manufacturer who makes a shoddy product and then his life depends on it working (and it doesn't), or the outraged character who carries out some terrible revenge on the wrong person. A formula story calls attention to itself as a remarkable an ingenious plot, when really it is old straw.
In themselves, natural formulas are basic elements in the chemistry of fiction. A worm turns plot, in which a character discovers hi strength and does what he could not do before, occurs in literature from The Iliad to The Little Engine That Could. It's found so often because the struggle to overcome obstacles is part of universal experience. In fiction certain plots echo similarly ubiquitous events, such as girl meets boy, girl loses boy, girl gets boy. The detective novel's unorthodox detective is suspected of crime, but ultimately finds real killer expresses the widespread fantasy of vindication from false accusation and triumph over unjust authority.
In the negative sense, formula writing ultimately means that the writer has not created a rich, individual world, had not put in enough energy, has not made something new and alive, so the bare bones of the formula show.
See Cliché, "Don't Do This," Genre, Irony, Plot, Stereotype.
The following is an excerpt from Part III of the book Making Shapely Fiction, by Jerome Stern. The first two parts are very much worth reading as well. The book is available in paperback.
Formula
Formula is a negative term suggesting that the plot or idea is too old, too familiar, and too contrived. James N. Young's 101 Plots Used and Abused is a horribly delightful collection of formula stories that editors have seen far too often -- dozens of variations on the guy who commits the perfect crime but forgets one little thing, or the crooked manufacturer who makes a shoddy product and then his life depends on it working (and it doesn't), or the outraged character who carries out some terrible revenge on the wrong person. A formula story calls attention to itself as a remarkable an ingenious plot, when really it is old straw.
In themselves, natural formulas are basic elements in the chemistry of fiction. A worm turns plot, in which a character discovers hi strength and does what he could not do before, occurs in literature from The Iliad to The Little Engine That Could. It's found so often because the struggle to overcome obstacles is part of universal experience. In fiction certain plots echo similarly ubiquitous events, such as girl meets boy, girl loses boy, girl gets boy. The detective novel's unorthodox detective is suspected of crime, but ultimately finds real killer expresses the widespread fantasy of vindication from false accusation and triumph over unjust authority.
In the negative sense, formula writing ultimately means that the writer has not created a rich, individual world, had not put in enough energy, has not made something new and alive, so the bare bones of the formula show.
See Cliché, "Don't Do This," Genre, Irony, Plot, Stereotype.