{"id":35,"date":"2008-08-14T00:26:21","date_gmt":"2008-08-14T06:26:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cosmicink.net\/blog\/?p=35"},"modified":"2008-08-14T00:29:53","modified_gmt":"2008-08-14T06:29:53","slug":"fiction-plots-original-think-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/cosmicink.net\/blog\/?p=35","title":{"rendered":"Fiction Plots… Original? Think Again"},"content":{"rendered":"

Recently, on the Catholic Writer’s Online<\/a> yahoo group I read, this list was posted by one of its members. I am reposting it from the email sent to the group and definitely not taking credit for it’s compilation or any of the plots. Maybe I’ll do a clever retelling, \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

I had always heard there were only seven basic plots in fiction, but according to this, there are 37 and are as follows:<\/p>\n

What’s your story about? A scholar in the early 1800’s (Georges Polti apparently)
\nidentified 36 basic plots, to which later scholars added one. The 37 are:<\/p>\n

1. Pleading\/prayer story<\/p>\n

2. Deliverance<\/p>\n

3. Crime pursued by vengeance<\/p>\n

4. Vengeance<\/p>\n

5. Pursuit story<\/p>\n

6. Revolt (as in a tyrant versus good guys)<\/p>\n

7. Disaster story<\/p>\n

8. Falling prey to cruelty\/misfortune<\/p>\n

9. Daring enterprise<\/p>\n

10. Abduction story<\/p>\n

11. A puzzle story<\/p>\n

12. A story about getting something<\/p>\n

13. A story about hating someone you should like<\/p>\n

14. Rivalry between friends or family<\/p>\n

15. Murderous lovers\/friends<\/p>\n

16. Betrayal of love or friendship<\/p>\n

17. Story about madness<\/p>\n

18. Dangerous carelessness<\/p>\n

19. Involuntary crimes of love or friendship<\/p>\n

20. Stories about hurting someone who turned out to be important to you<\/p>\n

21. Self sacrifice for an ideal<\/p>\n

22. Self sacrifice for a person<\/p>\n

23. Self sacrifice for a stranger<\/p>\n

24. Self sacrifice for a loved object<\/p>\n

25. Rivalry with a superior person<\/p>\n

26. Crimes of love or friendship<\/p>\n

27. Discovery of a crime done by a friend\/lover<\/p>\n

28. Obstacles of love or friendship<\/p>\n

29. Sharing love\/friendship with an enemy<\/p>\n

30. Stories about ambition<\/p>\n

31. Conflict with a God or mythical creature<\/p>\n

32. A story about jealousy<\/p>\n

33. A wrong decision<\/p>\n

34. Regret or guilt<\/p>\n

35. Recovery of a lost one<\/p>\n

36. Loss of a person<\/p>\n

37. Argument<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Interesting huh? Now… what are my plots? I’ll write more about that later.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Recently, on the Catholic Writer’s Online yahoo group I read, this list was posted by one of its members. I am reposting it from the email sent to the group and definitely not taking credit for it’s compilation or any … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[31,11],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/cosmicink.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/cosmicink.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/cosmicink.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cosmicink.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cosmicink.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=35"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/cosmicink.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/cosmicink.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=35"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cosmicink.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=35"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cosmicink.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=35"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}