#219 | Aristotle for Novelists (Part 2 of 4)—Principles #5, #6, #7, and #8
episode SUMMARY:
In part two, Douglas Vigliotti provides an overview of Principles #5, #6, #7, and #8 from his new book, "Aristotle for Novelists: 14 Timeless Principles on the Art of Story,” an adaptation of the timeless principles from Aristotle’s esteemed “Poetics” to be used by novelists. Discover the tried-and-true principles used since antiquity to craft stories for the screen and stage—the same stories you stream and watch today!
Principle #5: Novels have a complication and resolution.
Principle #6: Novels are told through imitation of action.
Principle #7: Novels consist of plot, character, reasoning, speech, music, and spectacle.
Principle #8: Novels should contain reversals and recognitions.
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Welcome back to “Books for Men”, a podcast to inspire more men to read and bring together men who do. So this week we are continuing the four-part series on my upcoming book, “Aristotle for Novelists: 14 Timeless Principles on the Art of Story”. If you missed part one, you might want to think about going back and checking that out because I do share a lot more about the book and why I wrote the book. And also, I share the first four principles. In this episode, I am going to be sharing Principles 5, 6, 7, and 8. I won't be recapping any of the information from part one, so as I mentioned, if you are interested in it, I would definitely go back and check that out. The one thing that I will reiterate now, although this book is designed more for practitioners—so other writers—the reason why I am sharing it on this podcast is because these 14 timeless principles I believe will make you a better reader.
(01:15)
At the very least, I think that they will help you look at stories in a slightly different way and hopefully my hope anyway is that you will appreciate stories a bit more. Not that you don't already. Of course. Also, as part of my marketing campaign for this particular book, I've been doing a lot of podcast interviews on other podcasts. Most of them haven't aired yet and I haven't even recorded a lot that have been booked. But one of the things that I will do is share the links for those episodes in the show notes and one that has aired is one that I did with Kevin Tumlinson on “Wordslinger”. So if you want to hear more about the book or just hear me a little bit more off the cuff with someone in conversation, then you could definitely go check that out. Thank you to anyone who has hosted me so far and will host me in the future.
(02:15)
There is much appreciation for the support of, not just this project, but I do believe it has the potential to help many writers out there of all stripes. So I'm excited to spread that message. Last but not least, before I jump into the principles, I want to announce that the book is officially on pre-order. We did something a little unique and that is released it at only 99 cents for the ebook during the pre-order. It's just a way for me to provide additional value to people who are in my ecosystem. So if you are connected with me in any of the various forms, whether it's my newsletter on social or this podcast, I want it to reward you for taking the journey with me and being on this ride together. And so the best way that I could do that is to provide real value by offering the ebook at just 99 cents.
(03:19)
The paperback will be 11.99, the ebook will be 5.99, and the audiobook as of right now will be 8.99. So it is actually a pretty big discount for the pre-order. If you're interested in that. The link will be in the show notes or just go to AristotleforNovelists.com and there will be a link, or just search your Amazon. You should be able to find it. Okay, so I think I've given you enough preamble for this episode. Let's jump right into the principles. So Principle #5, novels have a complication and resolution. So I have to admit that this is probably my favorite Aristotelian idea or principle and a top of my one pager of notes that I keep for myself. I have this one Aristotle quote. It also appears on the back cover of the paperback, and it is, “Many poets tie the knot well, but unravel it ill.” And it's really an ode to this principle because a complication is tying the knot and a resolution is unraveling the knot.
(04:36)
So if three-act structure is the basis for internal layout, something that I discussed in part one, then this theory is probably the basis for the external layout, meaning however you plan on structuring the customer-facing or the reader-facing portion of your novel chapters, how you release information, characters that come in and out of your story, whatever, there still needs to be a complication and there needs to be a resolution. And when you decide to do that as an author is totally up to you. Aristotle is pretty specific in what he thinks he thinks The resolution should begin as soon as the change in fortune occurs for your protagonist. That usually, if you are following a traditional three-act structure would put it right at plot point 2—the ultimate high in a tragedy or the ultimate low in a comedy. If this sounds foreign to you, don't worry.
(05:42)
I go into great detail in the book. I talk about when you should stop and start the resolution mechanisms for creating a complication and resolving a resolution and also why there are so many shitty. Yes, I get myself in trouble by voicing my opinions pretty clearly in that department since this is meant to just be an overview. For our purposes, I'll just define the words. A complication is probably the first 50 to 80% of your novel depending on how and when you define the unwinding or the unraveling. And I don't want you to think of the resolution as the ending because it is more than the ending. It is the process by which you get to the ending. It's the solving of problems. It's the answering of questions going into any story, whether you're watching it, reading it, or perhaps writing it if it's your own.
(06:40)
Having the not question in mind of when that knot starts to unravel will help you see when certain authors or filmmakers or storytellers of all kinds begin to unravel the not. Okay, so this leads me to Principle #6. Novels are told through imitation of action. So this really is a combination of two Aristotelian ideas, one being imitation or mimesis as he calls it in poetics and the other regarding the word action. Both are very important. So imitation is one of the two reasons that Aristotle says we were drawn to storytelling in the first place because we are imitators and that's how we grow up as children. We imitate our surroundings and that's how we learn to live. And stories do the same thing. They are an imitation of life and your story should be reflective of all of those qualities that life has to offer.
(07:51)
But now let's combine that with that second piece of action. And most writers will recognize this as show don't tell. And so I won't beat you over the head with this. I go into a lot more detail in the book about showing versus telling why it may or may not be important to you. I even talk about the zoom concept, which is how some writers tend to zoom in on action while others tend to zoom out on action. Meaning, some are scene, cut, scene, cut, or let me tell you everything that the protagonist did that day or week in one chapter so it stretches out the lens. Either way could be showing you what is happening. Perhaps my favorite Aristotelian quote is actually there are two of them. One of them is, “A storyteller should say as little as possible as the narrator, since this isn't imitation.”
(08:52)
And for me, this highlights so many things, but one most importantly, stay the heck out of your story. The author is not the story. Unless you're Hunter S Thompson and you're placing yourself in the center of the story, then you are not the story. So stay the heck out of it. Let your story reflect what it actually is and don't interject yourself into it because that is an imitation. It's more projection. It leads to the second quote that I really like that pertains to this idea and it’s, “Character instead is a byproduct of action. Actions and plot are what a tragedy is about. This is what matters.” It leads perfectly into Principle #7, which is novels consist of plot, character, reasoning, speech, music, and spectacle. So that is six parts. Aristotle is very insistent on one thing, and that is plot is the most important aspect of your story, and spectacle is the least important aspect of your story.
(10:05)
And it's all based around the quote that I just left you off with your story and your characters is about what happens. It's about action. It's about what people do, not what they say they do or what they say in general. And I know there are a lot of listeners perhaps right now and definitely fiction writers who will squabble with this idea of plot above everything, especially over character because characters are everything, right? Yes and no. Even in a character study, that character has to be doing something for us to find it interesting. Now, of course, I go into more detail about this in the book, but I want to make it clear that I'm not devaluing the importance of characters. In fact, I'm not even the one that is making this claim. It is Aristotle who is making this claim. I am just providing a reason to support it.
(11:07)
So there is an entire principle that will be devoted to characters because of their importance. But I do want to remind you that when somebody tells you, oh, I loved this book, the question that you probably will ask them next is, well, what was it about? And that's usually when someone will attempt to tell you the plot. They won't attempt to tell you the intricacies of the protagonist and what hinders them and all of the things that may make the story super interesting, but they don't actually make it a story because that is made through the characters in motion, in action, in deciding, in making choices about their life and their goals and the things that they want, which is the plot. So I'll quickly go over the six aspects of a novel plot being the first one. As I've already alluded to, Aristotle has a very specific definition of a plot.
(12:10)
And that has three main things. One, your protagonist must have a change in fortune. So whether that is good to bad or bad to good, most will recognize that as principle number one that I shared in part one. The second part to a working plot is all stories must have a self-contained connected sequence of events. That is something I will get into in future principles, but most people can recognize that as a working three-act structure that has a beginning, middle, and end. And the third aspect of a working plot is one has to come from two. So your change in fortune must come from the sequence of events. This is what makes a plot work or not work according to Aristotle. A complex plot is the exact same thing, except it infuses a reversal or recognition. Something I will get into in the next principle character is the basis for characters.
(13:12)
So I want you to think of character as the moral disposition of all of your characters, which of course is the foundation for any character. Reasoning is why your characters are doing what they're doing. So it's how they come to make the decisions that they are actually making. Speech is dialogue. And for me, there are three important aspects to good dialogue. I share those in the book. Music can be defined by the novelist as your prose. So I had mentioned that imitation was one of the reasons why Aristotle believed storytelling started for humans. Rhythm is the second, and prose has rhythm. In the filmmaking sense, music is a really important aspect of creating the overall aesthetic, vibe, and experience the viewer has, and I share a little bit about that in the book. Unfortunately, novelists don't have that, but they definitely have the tone, the pacing, the rhythm of the prose that they have to contend with.
(14:24)
And then spectacle is just how you tell your story. Aristotle is specific, as I mentioned earlier, that this is the least important aspect of good drama, mostly because it doesn't pertain at all to the plot. So what the characters do or don't do, how you depict that doesn't pertain at all to that change or what actually happens to the protagonist. It's more of a style choice. And I definitely share my opinions about this in “Aristotle for Novelists”. Okay, so I think that gives you a decent overview or maybe sparks a little provocation. Hopefully not too much of the latter, but just enough to get you to go check out the book. Of course, Principle #8 is novels should contain reversals and recognitions. So you heard me mention this in the last principle in turning a simple plot into a complex plot, but I also talk about this concept of reversals and recognitions as it pertains to the micro aspect of your story.
(15:28)
So line by line, scene by scene, chapter by chapter, what it means to insert a reversal or insert a recognition. Whereas what Aristotle is referencing is more of something that extrapolates out to the story as a whole. But for our purposes here, let me just give you some simple definitions. A reversal is a change in fortune to its opposite. So something goes from good to bad or bad to good, and a recognition is a change from ignorance to knowledge and signs, memory, inventions, all things that could spark recognitions. But according to Aristotle, the best recognitions come from, and this probably won't surprise you, the plot itself. So the protagonist learns something that he or she didn't know before based on the sequence of events that unfolds. One of the most important things for a story is when a protagonist is acting either knowingly or unknowingly, and when they're acting unknowingly, we look at that protagonist a lot differently than when they act knowingly.
(16:32)
In some respects, it can turn them from likable to unlikable, sympathetic to unsympathetic, and so on and so forth. There are a lot of ways that this can apply itself, but it's something that I like to key on, at least when I'm talking about this. Reversals and recognitions are so prominent in modern storytelling that once you know what they are, you'll see them over and over and over again. And I will talk a lot more about that in the book, the techniques, why they're critical and important. Alright, so that wraps up part two. I hope you found it interesting or got something out of it. If you did, then I'm sure you will like the book, and remember that it is now available for pre-order. The link for that will be in the show notes. I apologize for going on a little longer than normal.
(17:22)
I think in the last part I said that I would be shorter, and of course, I wasn't. This tends to happen when I talk about this subject matter, and try to condense what I need to say. But there's so much to say about this topic. I guess that's why I wrote a book about it. This is a “Books for Men” episode, so I did want to remind you that if you did enjoy it, please click the subscribe button on whatever podcast platform you're listening to this on because it is the best way to get it in of more eyeballs and inspire more men to read. If you'd like to connect with me, you can on my website, DouglasVigliotti.com, or on Instagram @DouglasVigliotti. It is the only social media that I have. And lastly, thanks so much for listening. If you want more information on this podcast or learn more about the monthly newsletter or perhaps sign up for it, you could do so on the website BooksforMen.org.
