One of my writing teachers told me about an idea that there were only seven basic plots in story telling. So I did a little research on it and it turns out to be based on the book: The Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories, by Christopher Booker.
Actually there are more than seven... They are summarised as follows:
1. Overcoming the monster,
2. Rags to Riches,
3. The Quest (overcoming evil in search of some form of elixir or treasure),
4. Voyage and Return,
5. Comedy (confusion reigns until things are mended),
6. Tragedy (see a later note),
7. Rebirth (a radical transformation of character or situation).
and then there are two more...
8. Rebellion (think animal farm), and
9. Mystery ("who dunnit" or what actually happened?)
I love Denis Dutton's summary of the essence of fiction: "The basic situations of fiction are a product of fundamental, hard-wired interests human beings have in love, death, adventure, family, justice, and adversity." He goes on to remind us that Aristotle explained what makes for good drama: "A conflict between strangers or natural enemies is of little concern to us. What arouses interest is a hate-filled struggle between people who ought to love each other."
Denis reminds us about Aristotle's logical permutations of tragedy: "In tragedy, for instance, either bad things will happen to a good person (unjust and repugnant) or bad things happen to a bad person (just, but boring). Or good things happen to a bad person (unjust again). Tragedy needs bad things to happen to a basically good but flawed person: Though he may not have deserved his awful fate, Oedipus was asking for it."
Taking this to heart I can now see that my first novel is a Sci-Fi Mystery with elements of Voyage and Return. What happened to the moon? Why did it vanish? Where did it go? Who was responsible?
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