Plots

Disciplines > Storytelling > 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

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'.