Story Structures

In his book "The Seven Basic Plots, Why We Tell Stories", Christopher Booker explored the seven archetypal plots of all stories. He wrote that all stories fall into one of seven basic plots:

• Overcoming the monster e.g. "Legend of Zelda" games, "Hansel and Gretel" and "Star Wars"
• Rags to riches e.g. "Cinderella", "Google" and "Puss in Boots"
• Quest e.g. "Indiana Jones", "Jack and the Beanstalk" and "Lord of the Rings"
• Voyage and Return e.g. "Alice in Wonderland", "The Wizard of Oz" and "Narnia"
• Comedy e.g. "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and most Romantic Comedies
• Tragedy e.g. "Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde", "Romeo and Juliet" and "A Picture of Dorian Gray"
• Rebirth e.g. "Sleeping Beauty", "ET" and "A Christmas Carol"

In John Yorke's book "Into the Woods, How Stories Work and Why We Tell Them" states that characters must change and learn something from the story. If they do not change, the audience will be dissatisfied and the characters will be inert. This allows us to recognise what people expect from a story. They expect the story to follow the basic plots and they expect the characters to learn something from the story. 

However, some stories don't fit into these archetypes and some fit into more than one. Booker goes on to state in "The Seven Basic Plots, Why We Tell Stories" that these are merely different perspectives of the big picture, the same drama.

In my own work, I will recognise that there are these basic plots, however stories generally do not fit into only one. I will try to cover multiple plots in my stories to make them more appealing to the reader. Furthermore, I will ensure that all of my characters learn something in the stories as they will be more interesting to the reader and not inert.