Plot Devices
A plot device is a means of advancing the plot in a story, often used to motivate characters, create urgency or resolve a difficulty. This can be contrasted with moving a story forward with narrative technique; that is, by making things happen because characters take action for well-motivated reasons. As an example, when the cavalry shows up at the last moment and saves the day, that can be argued to be a plot device; when an adversarial character who has been struggling with himself saves the day due to a change of heart, that is dramatic technique.
Familiar types of plot devices include the Deus ex Machina, the MacGuffin, and the red herring.
Read more about this topic: Plot (narrative)
Famous quotes containing the words plot and/or devices:
“Ends in themselves, my letters plot no change;
They carry nothing dutiable; they won’t
Aspire, astound, establish or estrange.”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)
“So that with much ado I was corrupted, and made to learn the dirty devices of this world.
Which now I unlearn, and become, as it were, a little child again that I may enter into the Kingdom of God.”
—Thomas Traherne (1636–1674)