idea
All stories follow one of seven basic plotlines:
- Overcoming the monster: something is after the protagonist or the protagonist's tribe, and they need to beat it.
- Rags to riches: protagonist comes from nothing and achieves wealth or fame ; loses it all and gains it back, growing in the process.
- The quest: the protagnoist sets out to collect a important object or achieve an important task. They face obstacles along the way.
- Voyage and return: protagonist goes somewhere, where they face unfamiliar situations and challenges, and come back with the experience
- Comedy: a humorous protagonist faces some adversity and challenges and triumph over adverse and confusing circumstances, coming from a single plain event, resulting in a happy ending.
- Tragedy: protagonist is a fundamentaly good character with a flaw, their flaw is ultimately their undoing, and they fall evokes pity.
- Rebirth: an event forces the protagonist to adapt and eventually become someone different and more mature.
Being out of a simple story shape is prone to make readers feel lost.
Plotlines can combine into more elaborate structures. For example, "man in a hole" has the character's fortune rapidly decline, character loses all their fortune as the climax, then reclaims their fortune as the story's conclusion. This combines "voyage and return" as the overall structure, with "rags to riches" as the supporting plot for the way back from climax.
links
The rule of three is applicable to the story structure as well - the third event of a series is the final trigger for something important.
references
Christopher Booker / The Seven Basic Plots
Rebecca Lee / How words get good