What is and how to differentiate a forda plot from a forza plot?

All the genres and plots out there have something in common: the conflict. The conflict is what makes us to keep turning pages, move our fingers down up over the touch screen to pass as fast the webtoon scenes, bite our nails when the hero is about to die (but doesn’t) or the f…ver zombie gets caught in the speared fence about to tear off a piece of us.

It is in the nature of conflict that we can find the big difference about how to carry on with a plot; creating the two only possible plots parenting all the rest of them. As Ronald B. Tobías mentions in 20 master plots (chapter 3, after the conflict) the importance of going to the very origin of everything…

He places the origin of everything in “The divine comedy” by Dante…reason why I must trust in his word since no matter how many times I’ve attempted to read it. The number is the number of my failures. In spite of this habit of mine of reading whatever that came upon my hands, unlike my favourite police deputy (Salvo Montalbano) who will continue doing so; there are things my reading system[1] can’t admit. I can try again and again to get stuck exactly in the same page or some pages ahead to just convince myself the book no me piace and of the need to give it away. That I don’t like something doesn’t mean others won’t. I mean, a lot of Spanish speaking writers love The Quixote and I…don’t.

—Merriam, go back to topic—this is my consciousness’ voice reminding me I was writing aboyt plots… and conflict.

—OK

Thus, according Tobías, Dante splits sins in 2. The strength sins or forza and the fraud sins or forda. Translation: there are the sins of the mind and the sins of the body…Which are the sins of the mind? Which the sins of the body? How does that affect to the plot? PATIENCE.

A forda requires change. Personal change, internal revolutions, spiritual revelations. It requires…a brain able to solve puzzles or hyper tongue twisting moral/intellectual challenges. Of irony and jokes that take a bit more than gas being expelled by the guts. Human nature against or interacting with other human natures to create conflicts that happen INSIDE the head of the main characters.

On the other side, forza plots try to run after the event. Murder followed by terrorist attack plus the profiling, the hero catching the guy. Diamond robbery, treason within the thieves’ band, collateral dead…Fordas are easy to see miles away. And kinda hard to create since there are more of these since they’re more popular. It is a MISSION IMPOSSIBLE to get Ethan out from jail with the same resources our grandparents have seen due to the fact of both plot types not being mutually exclusive. Plots in which the mind is important can’t help the once in a lifetime Line Agent being pursued in a Mercedes…just so they remain virgin. Neither the need to catch the beautiful assassin girl stop the detective to reflect with something different to the book’s weapon of choice….Nonetheless such is the border line. Is the main character a different person to the one at the beginning of the story[2]? This is a mind plot. A forda. Are they the same running after happenings on the rooves? This is a forza.

Which do you like better? Do you prefer to mix? Don’t like it or subscribe if it wasn’t good enough. Do whatever you need to do.

[1] The digestive system in charge of fiction in my brain.

[2] Mentally speaking…transgender or aesthetic surgical procedures alone don’t count.