How we change what others think, feel, believe and do

Plots

Different plots | The story structure | See also

Stories have plots or storylines, by which the stories are told.

One of the ideas in storytelling is that there are a limited number of plots. Here are some of them (or maybe all -- who knows?), with commentaries on many elements:

Different plots

Booker's Seven Basic Plots: A modern perspective.
Friedman's Story Plots: 14 plots (and discussion of each).
Georges Polti's 36 Dramatic Situations: Common plot elements.
Reich's American Narratives: Four real themes.
Tobias' 20 Plots: From his popular book.
Parker's Story Types: Ten types of story.
Classic Story Conflicts: Tension conflicts that appear in many stories.
Classic Story Types: Many common types of story.

The story structure

Here are expositions of the classic heroic storyline, which many similarities, plus more general structures.

The Five-Stage Story Structure: Common to many stories.
Three Stage Story: Three stages that appear in more than stories.
A Classic Story Structure: A simplified epic structure.
Heroic structures:
- Campbell's 'Hero's Journey': A classic decomposition of the epic tale.
- Vogler's Story Structure: A simplification of Campbell's structure.
- Propp's 31 Narratemes: From his 'Morphology of the Folk Tale'.