All Possible Plots by Major Authors
The article humorously critiques the similarities in plots among major authors, providing satirical summaries that highlight common themes while inviting appreciation for their unique styles and playful tone.
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The article humorously critiques the plots of various major authors, suggesting that despite their celebrated creativity, many narratives share striking similarities. It presents a series of brief, satirical summaries of well-known works, highlighting common themes and tropes. For instance, Anthony Trollope's plot revolves around a fiancé's financial mishap, while Evelyn Waugh's narrative explores class anxieties. Other authors, like Henry James and Graham Greene, depict social dilemmas and personal struggles, often with a touch of irony. The piece also touches on the absurdities in the works of Shakespeare, Dan Brown, and Virginia Woolf, among others, showcasing how their stories often reflect broader societal issues or personal conflicts. The overall tone is playful, inviting readers to recognize the repetitive nature of literary plots while appreciating the unique styles of each author.
- The article humorously critiques the similarities in plots among major authors.
- It provides satirical summaries of various literary works, highlighting common themes.
- Authors like Trollope, Waugh, and Greene are noted for their explorations of social dilemmas.
- The piece invites readers to appreciate the unique styles of authors despite plot similarities.
- The tone is playful, encouraging recognition of literary tropes in classic literature.
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- Many comments parody the typical plot structures of well-known authors, highlighting their recurring themes.
- Several users reference specific genres, such as romance and horror, to illustrate predictable tropes.
- There is a playful critique of the literary world, with comparisons to programming and other creative fields.
- Users express a desire for more unique storytelling, contrasting it with the formulaic nature of some popular works.
- Links to related content and discussions about literary influences are shared, enhancing the conversation.
42 commentsLinus Torvalds: you take a week-long swing at a problem you find annoying, fascinating, or both. The result enjoys staggering worldwide success in the ensuing decades, despite being clearly outclassed by some alternative from the GNU project that, pinky promise, is coming out any day now.
Grace Hopper: BEGIN a framework that powers critical government functions, AND has secretly saved America from mass destruction time and again, only to be dunked on by Reddit for trivial matters of syntax END.
John Carmack: Doom, but better-looking.
Brendan Eich: you take a week-long swing at a problem your employer finds commercially compelling. The result enjoys staggering worldwide success in the ensuing decades, despite being clearly outclassed by the prior art it was supposed to build on.
> Boy meets girl; girl gets boy into pickle; boy gets pickle into girl
The point of a Dan Brown book is to chart the stupidest possible path through history and pop science, and he's uniquely capable of this.
They really didn’t do Wodehouse justice in the OP
Most of the entries are for specific books, but there are also some authors mentioned, e.g. "The Collected Works of Dean Koontz": http://www.rinkworks.com/bookaminute/b/koontz.shtml
Here's my list (++ indicates more than 1):
Fitzgerald
Hemingway ++
Shakespeare ++
Christie ++
Brown ++
Dickens
McCarthy ++
Wodehouse ++
Steinbeck ++
Stoppard
Kafka
Conan Doyle ++
Seuss (of course) ++
Lee
If you've read more than one Dickens novel, you have my deepest respect.
https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/what-your-favorite-sad-d...
1. Anthony Trollope – I didn’t get this one. 2. Evelyn Waugh – Correct! 3. Henry James – Correct! 4. Graham Greene – I missed this, was thinking of the wrong tone. 5. W. Shakespeare (i) – Correct! 6. Samuel Richardson – Correct! 7. David Foster Wallace – I guessed Gaddis, but this makes perfect sense. Partial credit. 8. Marcel Proust – Correct! 9. Mrs. Gaskell – Correct! 10. Ian McEwan – Partial credit; I guessed Atonement after Henry James. 11. E. M. Forster – Correct! 12. Cormac McCarthy – Correct! 13. P. G. Wodehouse – Correct! 14. Alan Bennett – I guessed Chekhov/Osborne, so I missed this. 15. Jane Austen – Correct! 16. Dan Brown – Correct! 17. Agatha Christie – Correct! 18. Zadie Smith – Missed this one. 19. W. Shakespeare (ii) – Correct! 20. Iris Murdoch – Correct! 21. Ernest Hemingway – Correct! 22. John Banville – Correct! 23. Harold Pinter – Correct! 24. F. Scott Fitzgerald – Correct! 25. Tennessee Williams – Correct! 26. Oscar Wilde – Correct! 27. D. H. Lawrence – Correct! 28. Thomas Hardy – Correct! 29. Virginia Woolf – Missed this one, was thinking of Galsworthy. 30. Tom Stoppard – Correct!
Final score: 25/30 with a couple of partial credits. Not bad!
Nick Cole:
Log Keeper's Note: Aftermath. In those dark years of the long crossing between the world we'd cut loose of the bad contract on, and the repair facility on Hardrock, the Strange Company slept and the galaxy caught fire as we dreamed for twenty-five years of sublight. The old order of the Monarchs, mighty yet petty gods determined to burn worlds and take humanity with them down into the deep dark graves of empire, began its final collapse. Worlds fell into shadowy chaos, overrun by the cackle of automatic weapons carried by the Simia Legions, while ring stations at Oberon and Circe burned like fiery jewels. Into this madness and maelstrom rode the Strange Company.
(That’s a slightly abridged excerpt from the second audiobook of the duology, Voodoo Warfare. I call them audiobooks rather than novels because in print form they are merely quite good but very derivative examples of their genre, but as narrated by Christopher Ryan Grant, they are among the most epic and inspiring stories I have ever heard come alive.)
Every rom-com: Boy meets girl and they have good times. Somebody messes up. They have a fight. The get back together again.
Every Hallmark movie: Big city girl ends up in small town by coincidence. While decorating for Christmas she falls for the small town guy and decides to stay. (The productions get cheaper by the year, so where they had scenery you now see people talking in front of a blurry background for 90% of the plot. )
Kafka seems low-effort though. I humbly substitute:
You have inside you an extraordinary writer but are instead employed at the postal service, where you spend the rest of your days watching your first manuscript submission mistakenly misrouted back across your desk.
Lies, lies, misery, lies, suicide, rape, and corn prices."
So true
Neal Stephenson: You are a small cog in a historical epic leading to a far-flung speculative future, where you grapple with the complexities of technology, cryptography, and philosophy, as well as incidentally discovering the best way to eat Captain Crunch cereal.
1) https://garykac.github.io/plotto/plotto-mf.html
2) https://www.npr.org/2012/02/19/146941343/plotto-an-algebra-b...
Apparently, dude could write.
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