The 3 Basic Plots (Also, the 4, 7, & 8 Basic Plots)

[Teresa Edgerton]

In going through some boxes, I came across these notes taken in preparation for a panel discussion a while back.

According to Algis Budrys, in an article I read many, many years ago, all stories can be reduced to one of three basic plots:

The man who learned better.
The brave little tailor. (An individual triumphs over enormous odds.)
Boy meets girl. (The romance.)

Nancy Kress also wrote an article on plotting the novel or short story, and came up with these basic plot types:

Sacrifice
Rise and Fall
Transformation
Revenge

However, in a later article she added these to the list (making eight in all):

Chase
Quest
Romance
Competition

But long before Budrys or Kress, Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch wrote of these seven basic plots:

Man vs. Man
Man vs. Nature
Man vs. Himself
Man vs. God
Man vs. Society
Man caught in the Middle
Man & Woman


So, my fellow readers and writers, what do you think of this? Is it possible to reduce all the stories you've ever read or written to one of these plot types mentioned above (or to some combination of the above)? Is there anything you would add to any of the lists? Can you think of a story that doesn't fit into any of these categories?

 

[Winters_Sorrow]

strangely (maybe it's the time of night ) the Terminator story came to mind

Man vs his own creation (kind of a frankenstein creature? that doesn't seem to be on the list)

it might come under the man vs himself banner I suppose

its true that most stories tend to be very formulaic - I suppose the editorial process and the nature of publishing may lend itself to this perhaps?
Maybe the more wacky & surrealist stories may not get as much publicity or sign-off?
Just a thought

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

Well, I don't think any of these people were referring to popular fiction only, Winter's Sorrow. Or to what editors want (which tends to change over time). I think they're trying, in a roundabout way, to define what constitutes a plot vs. something that's just a random series of events.

 

[dwndrgn]

I think that if you boil down anything, you'll get to something basic like the above list. For example, when investigating a homicide there are a few basic reasons for murder: money, revenge, love, mischance. Now the actual reasons for the murder may be complicated, but once you take out all of the miscellaneous facts the motive will be some variation of the above. That leads me to believe that our stories mirror our lives. We may lead complex lives with many characters, jobs, hobbies, loves...but when we make a choice - there is usually one underlying reason for that choice, and stories tell us about the choices characters make. If you want to really simplify, you could say there is only one plot - choice.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

Good point, dwndrgn! I think one use for lists like these could be in helping a writer figure out which details are important in a story (because they relate directly to the central plot) when writing a query letter, or a synopsis, or just answering that unavoidable question, "What is your book about?" (For years, the only answer I could come up with was "... uh ... it's about a lot of things," because I didn't know how to condense it down to the essentials.)

But describing the biggest choices facing the main character (or characters) could work just as well, if not better.

Although maybe that would qualify as Quiller-Couch's "Man caught in the Middle." His list is, of course, a bit outdated, and would benefit by another entry along the lines of Winter's Sorrow: "Man against the Machine (or any other artificial creation." And for SF and Fantasy purposes, especially, "Man vs. God, " could be "Man against the gods," or "Man against his gods," or even "Man against the Fates, or his Destiny."

And naturally "Man" should be interpreted as "Any sentient self-aware entity/creature with at least a certain amount of free will."

However, something about making choices should probably be added to Budrys's list of three, and Kress's list of eight.

 

[littlemissattitude]

"2001: A Space Odyssey" - Man vs. Machine.

Perhaps this fits under man vs. man, as a man made (and programmed) the machine. But HAL seemed to possess some sort of artificial intelligence, so perhaps technology has given us another category of story.

 

[Winters_Sorrow]

Man vs. Man
Man vs. Nature
Man vs. Himself
Man vs. God
Man vs. Society
Man caught in the Middle
Man & Woman

I notice it's Man & Woman rather than vs. ....?

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

I fear that in Sir Arthur's day, any book in which the plot was Man vs. woman would have ended in the hussy being put soundly in her place as punishment for taking on the superior sex, or (if virtuous) either going to a sanctified death, or being rescued by a strong man -- thus turning the story into Man vs. Man.

But you make another good point, Winter's Sorrow. If -- as he undoubtedly did -- Sir Arthur meant to say Romance, the assumption that this must involve a Man and a Woman is also outdated. Could be Man & Man, or Woman & Woman, not to mention (in SF and Fantasy) Man or Woman & Something Else Entirely.

lma -- science fiction does bring up a lot of interesting questions, doesn't it? At what point does an artificial intelligence become something more than an extension of the one who created or programmed it, and when does it become a person, under the broadest definition, instead of a machine?

I suppose the best stories are the ones that explore and illuminate the human condition -- whether or not the characters are technically human or not.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

Thought I'd give this discussion a little nudge, simply because I found a link to an article on just this subject.

http://www.emmadavies.net/blog/seven-twenty-thirty-six-plots.aspx

 

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy]

As that entry shows, you can get lost trying to boil dowen 'basic plots'.


I'd say there are only two basic conditions that make a story, any story possible: conflict, and/or transformation. Any kind of story can be shown to have one or both of these elements. A story without one of these two is usually a morass of prose with no value or interest.

Does that make sense or am I over-simplifying?

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

Well, I think you've simply reduced Budrys's three into two (by leaving out the romance) and rephrasing them.

 

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy]

Yes, but I think it's a bit more than verbal legerdmain. Romance is intersting only in so far as it involves conflict or transformation, right? A romance where there is no obstacle nothing is changed is not an intersting romance. And I think all the other types of plot various people have listed hinge on these two elements.


A story is either about something to overcome, or something to become, to word it differently, or some combination of both.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

But a story can have more than one plot, and an unconflicted romance could work very well as a subplot.

 

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy]

True, and there's any number of adventure novels where a little dash of romance is added to the main plot in just that way. I do realise that the plot of a story can be layered and multiple- that's why I suggested that stories are usually one of the two elements or some combination. I think it's possible to analyse a variety of diverse stories using only these two parameters and come to a meaningful distillation of their plot - although I'm not sure if that would prove my point or not, as I could simply be looking for patterns that fit my premise.

 

[Stalker]

Hmm... Depending on the criteria used for groupping, it looks quite reasonable... However...

What kind of plots do edifying novels by Voltaire and Rousseau (Teacher and Deciple) fall into? What is your opinion?

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

I've never read any novels by Rousseau or Voltaire, but I would imagine that their plots, no matter how edifying, contained the same sort of conflicts and resolutions as other novels.

If you would summarize one of their plots, the rest of us might be able to figure out where it would fit in.