Post
by polymath » May 25th, 2010, 3:56 pm
Looking at each of the one-liners posted under the topic, I've noted potrayals of pending and ongoing events, in other words, plot, but limited implied action or plot movement. Mr. Bransford's Jacob Wonderbar example again, Kids trade corndogs for a spaceship, blast off into space, and break the universe. Trading corndogs causes the universe to break through a series of related events, and causes an insuperable obstacle between outer space and home. There's causation flow. Causation is one of the main driving forces of plot. Causation moves a plot over time.
Quill's suggested revision depicts situations but only implies causation, as do the originals built upon by the suggestion. Causal events, and therefore plot, aren't as fully realized as might be ideal for a pitch. "A woman mutated with panther DNA struggles to tame the animal inside and outsmart the scientist tasked with killing her." There are hints of motive and stakes, conflict, and complications, but not so much causation. What caused the mutation? How does that cause the woman to struggle "to tame the animal inside"? What causes the scientist to want to kill her?
Note that infinitive verb constructs (as well as gerund verbs), "struggles to tame," "searching," imply pending and ongoing actions, where the intent seems to be portraying motivations. Further, "struggles" is the sentence's root action verb of the infinitives to tame and to outsmart the scientist, nonconcurrent actions.
Causal event one, a woman is mutated by panther DNA for some causal reason. Coincidentally or for who's ends? Causal event two, an insuperable self-control struggle is caused by the mutation's fallout. Causal event three, a scientist is "tasked" to destroy her for some causal reason, presumably because she's a menance, but implied is because she's a genetics experiment gone awry. To me, they seem to be not quite as clearly correlated causes as might be ideal for a pitch.
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