Are you having problems to come up with a plot for yur novel? What if I told you that the plot for your novel already exists and you just have to refurbish it? Yes. There are 7 Basic Plots and it is said that in a way or another all stories fall into the pattern of one of them. So the question is, which of these 7 Basic Plots do you want for your novel? Of course, to be able to choose, you need to have an idea of what these 7 Basic Plots are. And that’s precisely the objective of our article today.
But, first things first.
What is a plot?
In creative writing we call “plot” to the sequence of events that make up a story. I’ll explain. The plot is the story itself, the things that happen to our characters throughout the book and the actions they take in response. Each event in the plot is linked to the other in a cause-effect matter.
Generally speaking, each plot is made up of five main elements, let’s see briefly what they are:
- Exhibition: the characters, the setting, and the main conflict are presented.
- Rising action: the story begins to get complicated, our main character will enter into crisis and the events that will lead us to the main conflict begin.
- Climax: at the top of the story an important event will occur in which our character must face an enemy, challenge, or fear. This is usually where the greatest emotion, drama or conflict happens.
- Falling action: the story begins to unfold towards its imminent end, tying up the loose ends.
- Outcome: Here, we have the resolution of all the problems and the story finally concludes.
This pattern was first established by Gustav Freytag in 1863, which in turn, based his model on Aristotle’s ideas about tragedy. Today, this is known as Freytag’s pyramid.
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Plot types
There are many types of plots, however, the truth is that most of these follow some pattern seen in more than one story. Here are the most basic, easiest, classic types of plots that have been used throughout the history of world literature.
1. The Quest
It’s the perfect plot for adventure, fantasy, or science fiction genres. As its name suggests, our protagonists must be motivated by a quest, whether for an object, place, or person, that requires our hero to leave home to find it.
This plot will give you more possibilities to show that there is more than one main character in the story. It almost always includes the arrival of a group of people with a common goal.
This plot will have five stages that will mark the beginning and the end of our story.
- The call: At the beginning of the story, our hero and group will get a mission that they must fulfill or achieve.
- The journey: It will be full of obstacles that our hero will have to overcome. It will not be easy to get to the end of the road. Mostly, they will walk through enemy territory or hostile lands.
- Arrival and Frustration: Our hero will get very close to reaching the goal, and boom! Something will happen, the long-awaited happy ending will be frustrated.
- The final tests: In general, it is our protagonist who must face it. They’ll be presented with final tests (generally three) that will determine the outcome of the story.
- The goal: Victory! Our characters will have reached their goal, completed their mission, and obtained their treasure.
If you take a look at the Wizard of Oz, Harry Ptter and the Deathly Hallows or Caraval you can see how clear these five stages of The Quest are.
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2. Rags to riches
We all love success stories, those that end with wealth, great company, or a great career. But what makes this plot so attractive? Well, maybe it’s the struggle of our protagonist, the hard work, the many ups and downs throughout the story that ressemble the American dream.
This kind of plot usually begins in childhood, with abundant poverty, or perhaps a low-paying job, inefficient parents, or an authoritarian boss. Any of these will mean our protagonist is set up for a race to the top.
This type of plot has five stages, let’s see what they are:
- The initial misery and the call: An introduction to the early life of the protagonist, his physical, mental, economic, and emotional misery. It will define our protagonist since this plot depends on his personal growth throughout the story. Something will happen that will make them leave home or their comfort zone, to face the world.
- Initial success: Apparently everything is going well for our hero, but because they have not yet matured enough, these victories will be short-lived.
- Central Crisis: Our negative character strikes, some arch enemy who wants to undermine our MC’s success. The victories disappear and our MC returns to the starting point of the story.
- Final test: It is time for our protagonist to demonstrate with their strength and intellect that they are worthy of your recognition. A final confrontation will take place with whatever stands in their way.
- Completion and fulfillment: Our protagonist really wins, obtaining everything that he initially wanted, with a successful and happy ending.
Disney really enjoys producing movies with this kind of plot, who doesn’t like fairy tales? Stories like Cinderella or Aladdin take us back to our childhood when they taught us that with effort and a good heart everything was possible.
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3. Overcoming the monster
This plot is, as you may have suspected, about overcoming a monster. We have on the one hand this malevolent, terrifying, large, and almost omnipotent entity, and on the other, our tiny hero. It will take a lot of courage, intelligence, and effort to defeat this great evil that stalks the village.
In here, we could be talking about a literal monster, as in Beowulf, or it could be something else. For example, a big corporation that wants to demolish a tiny school so they can build more hotels. It could also be an abusive boss that is always undermining their employees, etc.
Here are its have five stages:
- Anticipation and call: you will introduce the reader to the story, the monster, and our protagonist. you’ll define how great or low the chances of winning are. The hero will accept the call to defeat the monster.
- Dreaming: usually, here the training and research of the hero takes place, the distance between them and the monster decreases.
- Frustration: The true power of the monster is revealed, and it is worse than imagined.
- Nightmare: *Battle music on*. Climax of the story, when it seems that our hero will be defeated, something will happen that will change things.
- Escape from death and death of the monster: Again a happy ending, if you choose one of course. A great victory and a great prize.
Stories like David and Goliath, and the famous Star Wars and Harry Potter sagas, have emerged creatively, varying in the identity of the monster and giving us that long-awaited ending.
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4. Voyage and return
This type of plot is perfect for children’s literature since it involves a land/world that emerged from nowhere. We must not confuse this type of plot with the quest since in this the hero travels outside his normal world, towards totally unknown territory, to return at the end to the comfort of his home.
It also has five stages:
- Anticipation and fall into the other world: We begin with a brief introduction of the boring and monotonous life of our protagonist and how after some specific event, they appear in another world.
- Daydream: Our hero will begin to explore the new world, and will be fascinated with everything there.
- Frustration: Everything in the new world will begin to feel more uncomfortable and overwhelming. The initial excitemet fades. Chaos approaches.
- Nightmare: Everything starts to fall apart and it’s time for our hero to start running for their life.
- Escape and return: What a relief! our hero managed to escape the impending disaster or is helped by the inhabitants. Our hero wakes up at home with a lesson learned.
I’m sure that you were thinking of Alice in Wonderland as you were reading the elements of this plot. It is an example of how the trip and return left our protagonist with a great experience and a great lesson.
5. Rebirth
Here the “villain” will be the protagonist of the story, the rebirth type of plot is basically a redemption story, reminding the villain of how compassion and love feel, in addition to directing him to the path of good.
This type of plot, unlike the others, will not have basic stages to tell the story, but a structure that has five steps:
- The presentation of the villain and how he fell under that dark power.
- Everything seems to go apparently well, apparently, the evil has receded.
- The evil returns in full force and our protagonist falls into a state of living death.
- It will continue like this for some time until it almost seems that evil has won.
- Finally, the hero will come to miraculous redemption.
So, when we have the kind of protagonist who is an anti-hero with a kind of negative morality, that changes his attitude as the story progresses, we are talking about rebirth plots. A Christmas Carol is the perfect example.
6. Comedy
The fact that it’s called comedy does not mean that this type of plot is funny, it rather symbolizes that the story will have a happy ending despite adversity. Mostly, the characters will be light and funny.
Romance stories mostly fall into this category, the hero and the heroine will always end up together.
This type of plot only has 3 stages, so it is less rigid than other types of plots. Let’s see.
- Confusion: The story introduces us to the protagonists, for example two people, who for some reason cannot connect at the beginning, or perhaps they have not met yet, but are clearly destined to end up together.
- Frustration: Things go from bad to worse, there are more and more obstacles in between, and the reasons why they cannot be together become more intense.
- Confusion disolves: All misunderstandings are resolved and the bad guy is executed.
In the comedy type of plot, confusion is a great source of humor.
7. Tragedy
I know what you are thinking. Romeo and Juliet. Well, at least that’s what I’m thinking, and yes that would be our perfect example for a tragedy.
When we were children we learned that a tragedy is a story in which everyone dies at the end, it is still true, but there’s more to it than simply a fateful ending.
Here are the five stages of a tragedy:
- Anticipation: Our protagonist becomes obsessed with reaching some goal, be it a love interest, fortune, or power.
- Dreaming: Something happens to alert the reader that something is not going well, although for our tragic hero things are apparently going well, there will be no going back.
- Frustration: Obstacles begin to appear, little things that will drive our protagonist to commit negative acts.
- Nightmare: Our hero’s plan falls apart, a bad ending is coming, and there will be no way around it.
- Destruction and Death: Our protagonist dies at the hands of their enemy, by his own negative acts.
Summing Up …
Plot is an essential part of every novel. We can say that it is the succession of events that happens in any given story. These events will concatenate in a cause-effect way and they will have the protagonist at center of the action.
Many consider the 7 basic plots we have described today as the base for every story ever written. So, odds are your story will also fall into one of those categories. And, you know what? That’s totally okay. Because that means that the structure works, the story lines work and that you are doing things the right way.
So, let’s sum up the 7 Basic Plots:
- The Quest
- Rags to Riches
- Overcoming the monster
- Voyage and return
- Rebirth
- Comedy
- Tragedy
So, have you already decided what type of plot you want to write? Let us know in the comments.
See you soon!