Editing Plot (narrative) (section)

==== Aristotle ====
{{Main|Dramatic structure}}

Many scholars have analyzed dramatic structure, beginning with [[Aristotle]] in his ''[[Poetics (Aristotle)|Poetics]]'' (c. 335 BC).

In his ''Poetics'', a theory about tragedies, the [[Ancient Greece|Greek]] philosopher Aristotle put forth the idea the play should imitate a single whole action. "A whole is what has a beginning and middle and end" (1450b27).<ref name="fall2">{{Cite book
| orig-date= c. 335 BCE | author-link= Aristotle 
| author=Aristotle | title= Aristotle in 23 Volumes | volume= 23| translator= W.H. Fyfe | place=Cambridge, MA|publisher= Harvard University Press| date= 1932 
|chapter=Aristotle, Poetics, section 1450b|chapter-url=http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Aristot.+Poet.+1450b&redirect=true|access-date=2023-01-25|via=www.perseus.tufts.edu|archive-date=22 April 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080422020725/http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=Aristot.+Poet.+1450b|url-status=live}}</ref> He split the play into two acts: complication and denouement.<ref name="auto">{{Cite book
| title=The Poetics | title-link= Poetics (Aristotle)|author= Aristotle | translator= Ingram Bywater
|chapter= 18 (Aristotle on the Art of Poetry)|chapter-url=http://www.authorama.com/the-poetics-19.html|access-date=2023-01-25|via=www.authorama.com|archive-date=24 July 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210724033835/http://www.authorama.com/the-poetics-19.html|url-status=live}}</ref> He mainly used Sophocles to make his argument about the proper dramatic structure of a play.

Two types of [[Scene (drama)|scenes]] are of special interest:  the reversal, which throws the action in a new direction, and the recognition, meaning the protagonist has an important revelation.<ref name="auto1">{{cite book
| author1= Aristotle 
|title=Aristotle's Poetics 
| translator= S. H. Butcher
| orig-date= c. 335 BCE | date= 2008 | chapter= {{sc|xi}}
|url=https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1974/1974-h/1974-h.htm#link2H_4_0013 |via =Project Gutenberg |access-date=30 October 2021 |archive-date=30 October 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211030202115/https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1974/1974-h/1974-h.htm#link2H_4_0013 |url-status=live }}</ref>  Reversals should happen as a necessary and probable cause of what happened before, which implies that turning points need to be properly set up.<ref name="auto1"/> He ranked the order of importance of the play to be: Chorus, Events, Diction, Character, Spectacle.<ref name="auto"/> And that all plays should be able to be performed from memory, long and easy to understand.<ref>{{Cite book| title=The Poetics | title-link= Poetics (Aristotle)|author= Aristotle | translator= Ingram Bywater
|chapter= 7 (Aristotle on the Art of Poetry)|chapter-url=http://www.authorama.com/the-poetics-8.html|access-date=2023-01-25|via=www.authorama.com|archive-date=16 April 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210416111433/http://www.authorama.com/the-poetics-8.html|url-status=live}}</ref> He was against character-centric plots stating “The Unity of a Plot does not consist, as some suppose, in its having one man as its subject.”<ref>{{Cite book| title=The Poetics | title-link= Poetics (Aristotle)|author= Aristotle | translator= Ingram Bywater
|chapter= 8 (Aristotle on the Art of Poetry)|chapter-url=http://www.authorama.com/the-poetics-9.html|access-date=2023-01-25|via=www.authorama.com|archive-date=27 January 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210127045045/http://www.authorama.com/the-poetics-9.html|url-status=live}}</ref> He was against episodic plots.<ref>{{Cite book| title=The Poetics | title-link= Poetics (Aristotle)|author= Aristotle | translator= Ingram Bywater
|chapter= 10 (Aristotle on the Art of Poetry)|chapter-url=http://www.authorama.com/the-poetics-11.html|access-date=2023-01-25|via=www.authorama.com|archive-date=24 July 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210724033825/http://www.authorama.com/the-poetics-11.html|url-status=live}}</ref> He held that discovery should be the high point of the play and that the action should teach a moral that is reenforced by pity, fear and suffering.<ref>{{Cite book| title=The Poetics | title-link= Poetics (Aristotle)|author= Aristotle | translator= Ingram Bywater
|chapter= 11 (Aristotle on the Art of Poetry)|chapter-url=http://www.authorama.com/the-poetics-12.html|access-date=2023-01-25|via=www.authorama.com|archive-date=24 July 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210724033828/http://www.authorama.com/the-poetics-12.html|url-status=live}}</ref> The spectacle, not the characters themselves would give rise to the emotions.<ref>{{Cite book| title=The Poetics | title-link= Poetics (Aristotle)|author= Aristotle | translator= Ingram Bywater
|chapter= 14 | chapter-url= http://www.authorama.com/the-poetics-15.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210518102318/http://www.authorama.com/the-poetics-15.html |archive-date=18 May 2021 }}</ref> The stage should also be split into “Prologue, Episode, Exode, and a choral portion, distinguished into Parode and Stasimon...“<ref>{{Cite book| title=The Poetics | title-link= Poetics (Aristotle)|author= Aristotle | translator= Ingram Bywater
|chapter-url=http://www.authorama.com/the-poetics-13.html|chapter=12 (Aristotle on the Art of Poetry)|access-date=24 July 2021|archive-date=24 July 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210724033831/http://www.authorama.com/the-poetics-13.html|url-status=live}}</ref>

Unlike later, he held that the morality was the center of the play and what made it great. Unlike popular belief, he did not come up with the three act structure popularly known.