Basic story patterns

Cafe Society
21

It was a dark and stormy morning…

22

Gradually, a shot rang out.

23

That wikipedia link doesn’t give any exaples of stories, so can you point us to a few examples of actual stories (not 4-panel comics) that adopt this structure? Thanks.

24

Perhaps the movie Tokyo Story might be an example?

25

(Wrong thread—damnit)

26

Fantasy/Sci-Fi Plot Mad Libs, from my Goodreads review of Mistborn: :smiley:

"The basic plot is about as stock as it gets. If you’re familiar with the Star Wars films, the Harry Potter or Percy Jackson books, Eragon, the Dragonriders of Pern trilogy, Dune, Ender’s Game, or any one of about a million other works, please play along:

Dear [kid with weird name], I know you are only a [farmer / orphan / urchin / child of a minor noble], and this will be hard for you to accept, but you [have Great Powers / are the Chosen One / insert name of funky power here]. You are the only one who can [save the world / save the universe / defeat the Empire / restore order to the Force / kill the Big Boss]. Luckily, even though you just learned your destiny fifteen minutes ago, you will make up for lost time by quickly becoming better than anyone in the history of ever at [Quidditch / dragon riding / sandworm riding / Allomancy]. Any questions?"

27

Cecil has dealt with this: What are the seven basic literary plots? - The Straight Dope

28

Um, Chronos, look at post #17.

29

  1. Someone else is on the island (big game hunter, beautiful woman, jungle boy).

  2. The castaways are threatened by a natural disaster (sinking island, tsunami, volcano).

  3. Something odd is washed ashore (radioactive seeds, containers of ice cream, a robot).

  4. The castaways are finally about to be rescued, but Gilligan fucks everything up.

30

The further down you pare the list of plots, the more general those plots are. The real question is, how few can you get while still having them detailed enough to be useful for analysis. I’d think that would have to be in the double digits.

31

I saw something that apparently came from Pixar:

  1. Once upon a time there was …
  2. Every day …
  3. One day …
  4. Because of that …
  5. Because of that …
  6. Until finally …

This covers a lot but it’s more about structure than plot, if that makes sense.