Dante's Masterplot and Alternative Narratives in the 'Commedia' questions the familiar narrative arc at play in the writings of Dante Alighieri and opens his masterpiece to three alternative models that resist it. Dante's masterplot is the teleological trajectory by which the poet subordinates the past to the authority of a new experience. The book analyses the masterplot's workings in Dante's text and its role in the interpretation of the poem, and it documents its overwhelming success in influencing readings of the Commedia over the centuries. The volume then explores three competing narrative models that resist and counter its monopoly which are enacted by paradoxes, alternative endings and parallel lives, and the future. By focusing on these non-linear modes of storytelling and testing the limits of linear narration, the book questions critical paradigms in the scholarship of the Commedia that favour a single normative master truth, exposes their problematic authoritarian implications, and highlights the manifold poetic, theological, and ethical tensions that are often neglected due to the masterplot's influence. The new picture of a vulnerable author and open-ended text that emerges from this study thus doubles as a metacritical reflection on the state of the field. The book's impassioned argument is that, alongside established notions of his trademark plurality of linguistic registers and styles, Dante's narrative pluralism can, and should, come to play a key role in contemporary and future readings of the Commedia.

Helps readers understand what narrative is, how it is constructed, and how it changes when the medium changes.

How to Write A Novel Each Week The trick is in coming up with enough plots. A wildly prolific, early 20th century pulp writer, William Wallace Cook was a writing machine. While he set the bar for pulp fiction, he was also passionate about the process of writing itself. Keeping notes on index cards, he was able to distill the process of plotting down to a simple, but thorough manual. Alfred Hitchcock was an early student, so was Earl Stanley Gardner. Robert Silverberg also gave a great review of the book. When Cook published Plotto in finished from, he received feedback from readers who still could not work out how to use his massive book from the instructions in the front of it. In 1934, he came out with a seven-part lesson series that simplified the learning curve. This edition includes the Plotto Chart of Masterplots With Interchangeable Clauses for quick reference. If you have (or want to get) Plotto, this book is a key learning manual for any author. Get Your Copy Today.

This is a veritable thesaurus of exciting plot twists and story moves that work for any composition of any genre.

In Master Plots, Jared Gardner examines the tangled intersection of racial and national discourses in early American narrative. While it is well known that the writers of the early national period were preoccupied with differentiating their work from European models, Gardner argues that the national literature of the United States was equally motivated by the desire to differentiate white Americans from blacks and Indians. To achieve these ends, early American writers were drawn to fantasies of an "American race," and an American literature came to be defined not only by its desire for cultural uniqueness but also by its defense of racial purity.

Offers hundreds of character and conflict profiles and an overview of the author's detailed plot-building method in order to help build original stories.