Studying Aristotle’s “Poetics” — Part 15(B): The Unraveling of the Plot

As I’ve been interviewing screenwriters, I typically ask what some of their influences are. One book title comes up over and over again: Aristotle’s “Poetics.” I confess I’ve never read the entire thing, only bits and pieces. So I thought, why not do a daily series to provide a structure to compel me to go through it. That way we’d all benefit from the process.

For background on Aristotle, you can go here to see an article on him in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

To download “Poetics,” you can go here.

Part 15(B): The Unraveling of the Plot

As in the structure of the plot, so too in the portraiture of character,
the poet should always aim either at the necessary or the probable.
Thus a person of a given character should speak or act in a given
way, by the rule either of necessity or of probability; just as this
event should follow that by necessary or probable sequence. It is
therefore evident that the unraveling of the plot, no less than the
complication, must arise out of the plot itself, it must not be brought
about by the Deus ex Machina- as in the Medea, or in the return of
the Greeks in the Iliad. The Deus ex Machina should be employed only
for events external to the drama- for antecedent or subsequent events,
which lie beyond the range of human knowledge, and which require to
be reported or foretold; for to the gods we ascribe the power of seeing
all things. Within the action there must be nothing irrational. If
the irrational cannot be excluded, it should be outside the scope
of the tragedy. Such is the irrational element the Oedipus of Sophocles.

Aristotle returns to a subject he covered in Part 9: Probability and necessity. And to me, this speaks primarily about where the narrative drive originates. Does it derive from the characters within the story universe? Or does it derive from the writer from outside the story universe? The former is what I take Aristotle to mean. The latter can be an example of deus ex machina or as I refer to it in my teaching: writer’s convenience. That is we force something to happen in the story universe to fit our needs as writers. That is inauthentic. An authentic plot is one driven by the characters and their needs.

Once again, this is — in my view — where plot goes directly back to character. Each character, and in particular the Protagonist, has a destiny. What they do derives from the probability of the choices they make. What happens then is tied to the necessity of those choices. It’s what I call the narrative imperative and I believe that aligns nicely with Aristotle’s articulation here.

From a screenwriting perspective, here is something interesting. Just recently, I posted this: All the Things That Are Wrong With Your Screenplay in One Handy Infographic, this from a professional reader who calculated certain problems common to 300 scripts s/he covered for some major Hollywood studios. Notice how many of the issues relate to probability and necessity:

• The character logic is muddy
• The ending is completely anti-climatic
• The script suffers from arbitrary complexity
• The script goes off the rails in the third act
• The script’s questions are left unanswered
• The story is a string of unrelated vignettes
• The plot unravels through convenience/contrivance
• The script is totally confused
• The ending is a case of deus ex machina

Every single one of these problems could be resolved if a writer dug deeply into their characters (especially the Protagonist), determining what their Disunity is, what their Core Essence is, what their Unity is, all of which informs the very nature of the physical journey and psychological journey comprising the substance of the narrative. It is a writer’s understanding of those dynamics which feeds both probability and necessity in terms of character action and, therefore, the plot.

Interesting, too, the script reader’s use of the word “unravels” which has a negative connotation in contrast to Aristotle which I take to mean “unspools” or “plays out,” the natural chronology of events and in a well-constructed story.

Bottom line, when we craft a story, that’s what we want: a narrative that flows organically and by necessity.

As usual, I look forward to and welcome the thoughts of our wonderful group of Aristotelians, and thank you in advance for your insights into “Poetics.”

A reminder: I am looking at “Poetics” through the lens of screenwriting, what is its relevance to the craft in contemporary times. And I welcome the observations of any Aristotle experts to set me straight as I’m just trying to work my way through this content the best I can.

See you tomorrow for another installment of this series.

Comment Archive

For the entire series, go here.