#220 | Aristotle for Novelists (Part 3 of 4)—Principles #9, #10, #11, and #12
episode SUMMARY:
In part three, Douglas Vigliotti continues the four-part series by overviewing Principles #9, #10, #11, and #12 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 #9: Novels should be logical.
Principle #10: Novels should be believable.
Principle #11: Novels should be cohesive.
Principle #12: Novels should be clear but not ordinary.
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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 we are continuing this part series on my upcoming book “Aristotle for Novelists: 14 Timeless Principles on the Art of Story”. And in the first two parts, I went through principles one through eight. So if you are just jumping in now, you might want to go back and listen to those firsts perhaps especially part one because I tell a lot more about the book and why I wrote the book and I think it just sets the stage well for not just this four-part series, but the book as a whole. So in this episode, I am going to be going through principles 9, 10, 11, and 12. But before I do that, I did want to take just a brief moment here to remind you that the book is now available for pre-order and the link for that will be in the show notes.
(01:13)
And typically this wouldn't be such a big deal, but since the ebook is discounted so heavily, I don't want you to miss out on that if you are interested in the book. So the normal price for the ebook is 5.99 and it will be sold at 5.99, but during the pre-order, it is available for 99 cents. So it is a hefty discount. The paperback will be 11.99 and as of right now, the audio book will be 8.99. So yeah, I would definitely consider going to pick it up. Well, you can get it on the cheap so to speak. And I know I just mentioned that the link will be in the show notes and it will, but you can also visit Aristotle for novelists.com and you can get to the pre-order there. You'll find out more about the book. There's also a 10-question story assessment there to help someone determine if they have a working story based on Aristotelian principles.
(02:14)
It's a pretty nifty resource. I designed it to go along with the book and it's free. So all of that is available at AristotleforNovelists.com. Now let me pivot into the principles that I am sharing with you today. And all of these principles can really be summed up as what you shouldn't do. They tell you what you should do, but if you violate any of these principles, there's a better than average chance that you do not have a working story. And I'm going to show my cynicism here because I carefully did not say a publishable story because I read published stories, novels, watch movies and TV shows that violate these principles all the time. So to me, there's a difference between something that works and is good or something that can be sold from a commercial aspect. Not to say that it can't be both, but I think you get the point in where I'm going with this and you have engaged by now.
(03:16)
I'm pretty analytical and nuanced when it comes to evaluating stories, my own included for that matter. And funnily enough, that's something you will hear me talk a little bit more about in a later principle in the final part of this series. And just one more thing of note before I share principle number nine, all of the books that I share on books for men I think are good examples typically of all of the principles that I am about to share with you. And actually one of the things that I plan to do in future “Books for Men” episodes is point out these principles when I think they are reflected well in the book that I am sharing with you. One, because I think it will help reaffirm them, but I also think that it will point out just how real these principles are. And on that note, let's pivot into Principle #9: novels should be logical.
(04:10)
This may be the most important part of a working story. Most would call it the chain of causality. It's at least 50% of what Aristotle would consider to be a working plot. So if you remember in the last part two of this series, I shared what an Aristotelian plot is or what makes up an Aristotelian plot. And that's three conditions. One is a change in fortune for your protagonist. Two is a self-contained connected sequence of events. The third condition is that one has to come from two, but two, that self-contained connected sequence of events is why I bring this up. Now on a macro level, that was three-act structure, but on a micro level, that is your chain of causality. Most fiction writers are familiar with this idea and it's the reason why many fiction writers aren't plotters, they're pants-ers.
(05:14)
That's a term that you might hear thrown around in the fiction world. Are you a plotter or a pants? This is the one thing that panzers have figured out how to do extremely well, have a well-oiled chain of causality. So you might be asking, what is the chain of causality? And that is summed up with this Aristotle quote. “There is an important difference between an event happening because of another event or simply after it.” So this means that the things that happen in your novel must be consequential, they must be via cause in effect. So one thing happens, then the next thing happens because of that thing happening you're trying to avoid. And this happens and this happens and this happens something that I brought up in the previous part as well when I was talking about reversals and recognitions. The reason why we try to avoid and is because that makes it much more probable that your story is coincidental and not consequential.
(06:20)
And it's not that coincidental can't work, it just typically doesn't provide the same emotional impact. If we take this out of the novel format and just think about when somebody is telling you a story face-to-face, you're expecting that things are happening via cause and effect. Meaning if someone says, I walked into the store, the next thing you're expecting is them to tell you what happened in the store. Now, of course, there's wiggle room with this in a novel because when the person goes to walk into the store, you could flash back to something else or someone could interject, but again, it's happening via cause in effect. So even if you're walking into the store when you flashback, we're expecting that that flashback has been triggered or is purposely there because of you walking into the store. Now, I know I'm getting very nuanced with this, so I'm going to shy away from moving any further, but there is one Aristotle quote that I wanted to tie a bow on this with because it leads really well into Principle #10.
(07:28)
And that quote is, “A plot should be structured so that if any of its episodes were rearranged or removed, the whole story would be disturbed and dislocated. If this isn't the case, then that episode is not an essential part of the whole.” And this of course raises the question of essentialness among many other things, but I will save reading the book for you to learn more about that. I also share the best piece of writing advice that I ever heard in this chapter. I should say though that the book I shared last month a classic piece of literature, “The Great Gatsby” is a wonderful example of that idea and this principle of logic. Okay, so now Principle #10 is one that is near and dear to me. I would say I'm constantly reflecting on this principle and it is that novels should be believable.
(08:31)
Aristotle says pretty directly as far as possible, stories shouldn't contain any unbelievable parts. In an episode that I shared last month, David Mamet echoed this when he said, “The audience will accept anything that you do not give them a reason to disbelief.” There are so many masters of craft practitioners who really, really hit on believability, and it's one thing that has been sort of ingrained in me so much so that when I watch a movie, or read a book, there are two questions that I ask myself. The first one is, do they leave me wanting more? And that is an aesthetic question or a taste question really, but that's not why I'm sharing this with you right now. It's the second question. And that is, do I believe them? Do I believe them when they're singing the song? Do I believe them when they're writing the book? Do I believe the movie?
(09:34)
It's not about fact versus fiction, it's about pulling it off. There are so many ways that this can be disrupted in a work of fiction, but I love this Aristotle quote where he says, “Probable impossibilities are preferable to implausible possibilities.” So it's not about what could happen, it's about what would happen. Now, of course, could work, but is almost always more entertaining. But I'm not going to hammer on this now, I want you to go and read the book if you are interested. Obviously, this is something that comes up a lot, but the one thing that I did want to hit on is that in poetics Aristotle uses the terminology necessary, probable, needed, likely. All of these words are root words for doing what is believable, what a character would do, and what would happen in this plot. He says directly, “In characterization, as in plot, we should always aim at what is necessary or at least probable, so the character says and does what is needed or likely.”
(10:54)
This brings me to Principle #11, novels should be cohesive, and quite simply, Aristotle believes that the solution to a plot problem should come from the story itself. So avoid what he would call deus ex macchina, and I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly, and that is when something comes from outside of your story to unexpectedly or unlikely solve a problem. I see this all the time in modern storytelling, and it's one of the most frustrating things to watch. It's much harder to pull off cohesiveness in a novel, and that's because so many rely on the chain of causality to get them from the first page to the last page. And there's nothing wrong with that, of course. It's just when you read something that has this entrenched cohesion, it really does feel a lot different.
(11:58)
I think movies are much more cohesive as a rule. Doesn't mean they're better, it just means that I think as a rule, they tend to be more cohesive than novels, at least in my experience. There are a lot of literary techniques that rest on cohesion, things like Chekhov's gun or utilizing a MacGuffin or a red herring. I talk a lot about this in the book and why these are not forms of trickery, but they are indeed forms of cohesion and trickery to me, although it has a purpose, it's not as effective. And I'll talk a little bit more about that in the book. Nothing is more important with cohesion than in an ending. Of course, we want to feel like the answer to the big question that was proposed in the work was there the whole time. We just didn't see it. And that's hard to pull off.
(12:51)
Sometimes it's too masked and it needs to be a little bit more emblematic throughout the work. Sometimes it just comes in from left field and sometimes it's perfectly done. And those are the best stories, at least in my opinion, in the last principle that I'm going to share with you in this. Part three is Principle #12. Novels should be clear but not ordinary. This is perhaps the only principle that relies heavily on style. So if you listen to part one, I talked about the difference between story and writing. Writing is heavily reliant on the style of the author, the voice of the author, and story, having a lot more objectivity. Of course, style is entirely subjective, at least in my opinion. I read great writers all the time who I just don't like the way that they write, and so it's hard for me to read them or vice versa.
(13:53)
Sometimes I'll come across a writer who doesn't get very much publicity or a claim, and I just love the way that they write. It's not easy to pinpoint what makes someone's writing work, so to speak. In this principle, I talk a lot about style. Aristotle is very specific in saying in all elements of style, moderation is key. I think that's a pretty good idea. It kind of jives with his whole golden mean theory, which is not something he talks about in poetics, but conveniently it does come up again in this book. When I talk about courage in a later principle, he reminds authors that overly brilliant language and metaphors, although he likes the latter saying that metaphors are the only thing that someone can't learn from another writer. Overusage of these things will overshadow the plot, the story, and the characters. So a writer should be careful in their application of either of those two things.
(14:53)
I'm not going to share too much here, but I will say that in this principle I cover the importance of rhythm, something you've heard me talk about in an earlier principle, Principle #7, I believe, about music and the musicality of a novel. I also talk about the importance of the clarity ambiguity spectrum that is perhaps most directly related to novels should be clear, but not ordinary. I also did talk about the one plus one equals a half theory. Why grammar isn't as important as people think. It is a deeper dive into dialogue in general as well as many quick shorthand style questions one can ask themselves when writing and editing, but most importantly, the story should be uniquely you, uniquely yours, not ordinary. It should be as if you are the only person who can write that story, or even better if we look at it in the story itself, a story that can only happen to that protagonist.
(15:58)
Sidney Lumet has a great quote, and I'm paraphrasing because I don't have it written down in front of me, but it's basically when he was critiquing someone's manuscript film script. That is, he said, it's a great story, but this particular story can happen to any protagonist. So yes, this has to do with a story potentially being too ordinary, but it also ties in with many of the principles that you will read about in Aristotle for novelists. Alright, so I think that this is a good place to leave off. I did want to remind you that this is just an overview of these principles. I dive deeper into all of them in the book, of course. So if you're left shaking your head or wondering what I meant about something, perhaps picking up the book is a good idea. And to that, remember, the book is now available for pre-order, and the ebook is heavily discounted at 99 cents in that pre-order.
(16:59)
So if it interests you at all, I would consider grabbing it now because it will go up substantially when the book is released. The link for that will be in the show notes, or you could just visit AristotleforNovelists.com. This is a “Books for Men” episode. So I did want to remind you that if you enjoyed it, please remember to click subscribe on whatever podcast platform you're listening to this on because it's the best way to get this podcast in front of more eyeballs and ears and inspire more men to read. If you'd like to connect with me, you can either via my website, DouglasVigliotti.com, or on Instagram @douglasvigliotti. It's the only social media that I have, and of course, thank you so much for listening. If you want more information on this podcast, about the monthly newsletter, or perhaps signing up for that newsletter, all you have to do is visit BooksforMen.org.
