Editing Plot device (section)

{{Short description|Story writing technique}}
{{About|writing techniques for enhancing a plot|mechanisms that generate stories and plots|Story generator}}

A '''plot device''' or '''plot mechanism'''<ref>For example:
*"For instance, a frequently used plot mechanism is a love triangle, where two men try to get the same woman."  from {{cite book|author1=Paul Virgil McCracken Flesher|author2=Robert Torry|title=Film and Religion: An Introduction|url=https://archive.org/details/filmreligionintr0000fles|url-access=registration|year=2007|publisher=Abingdon Press|isbn=978-0-687-33489-6|page=[https://archive.org/details/filmreligionintr0000fles/page/n39 24]}}
*"Janine functions largely as a plot mechanism: as a foil for the two lovers, as a voyeur, and finally as an unwitting trigger of disaster when she leads in the Gestapo." from {{cite book|author=Thomas Waugh|title=The Fruit Machine: Twenty Years of Writings on Queer Cinema|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=F1X3Sx77OdoC&pg=PA107|date=4 April 2000|publisher=Duke University Press|isbn=0-8223-2468-7|page=107}}</ref>
is any [[narrative technique|technique]] in a [[narrative]] used to move the [[Plot (narrative)|plot]] forward.<ref>{{cite book|author=Fred Pfeil|title=Another Tale to Tell: Politics and Narrative in Postmodern Culture|url=https://archive.org/details/anothertaletotel0000pfei|url-access=registration|access-date=27 July 2013|year=1990|publisher=Verso|isbn=978-0-86091-992-6|page=[https://archive.org/details/anothertaletotel0000pfei/page/267 267]}}</ref>

A clichéd plot device may annoy the reader and a contrived or arbitrary device may confuse the reader, causing a loss of the [[suspension of disbelief]]. However, a well-crafted plot device, or one that emerges naturally from the setting or characters of the story, may be entirely accepted, or may even be unnoticed by the audience.{{citation needed|date=September 2024}}