Plot is the chief element that comprises a novel. According to Henry Hudson, there are six chief elements of a novel. “Plot, characters, dialogue, time and place of action, style, and a stated or implied philosophy of life”. Plot is one of the four chief elements of the novel. The earliest opinion about the plot was from the Greek philosopher, Aristotle. In his famous work, Poetics in the 4th Century BCE, he used the term plot as one of the important constituents of a great tragedy. Even though he explains the plot in the context of tragedy, his definition is equally applicable to the novel as a genre as well. He defines a plot as a “combination of the incidents, events, situations and actions in a story”.
In Forster’s The Aspects of the Novel, he defines a “plot as a narrative of events, the emphasis falling on causality.” Here, the ‘causality’ is important. According to Foster, causality is the peculiar feature of a plot. Further, he says that causality differentiates a plot from the story. He cites the often-quoted example … “The King died, and then the Queen died” – as an instance of a story, and cites another example – “The King died, and then the Queen died of grief too” as plot.
Further, Foster says that a plot is something organized, logically arranged, and sequenced. He goes as far as to say that the plot “is novel in its logical, intellectual aspect; it requires mystery, but the mysteries are solved later on.” (p. 95).
Types of Plots
There may be more than one way of ordering/ sequencing and arranging events in a plot. Based on the sequencing and arrangement of events, plots can be divided into different types.
Hudson divided the plot into (a) a Loose plot and the (b) an Organic plot.
Loose Plot.
Hudson says that In the case of a loosely constructed plot, the story is composed of a number of detached incidents there will not be any logical connection among the different events or incidences. And the unity of the narrative or unity of different actions depends on the person or hero, who is the only binding factor.
The examples he gives of such loosely constructed plots are Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe, Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray and Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens.
Organic Plot.
In the case of an organic plot, separate incidents are neatly dovetailed and not treated episodically. According to Hudson, in an organic plot, a writer has to combine the story, the characters, the events and to bring about the catastrophe.
Simple plot and Complex plot
Grate Greek philosopher, Aristotle also divided plots into simple plots and complex plots. He said that a simple plot is largely episodic in nature while a complex plot involves both a reversal of fortune or peripetia and recognition. Moreover, the reversal of fortune and recognition may also not exist in every novel and that is also problematic. We must bear in mind that Aristotle was talking about the Greek tragedy and not really about the novel as a genre.
Hudson also made a distinction between a simple plot and a complex plot.
A simple plot is one which tells only a single story. And a complex plot, one which tells multiple stories and brings about a single unified whole. In a novel, there will be parallel stories connected with major characters and minor characters. All these stories have interconnected or related to each other. Such plot is known as a complex plot.