![]() These plot types transcend literary genre. Fate Worse than Death: Thriller, Horror, Mystery Stories If you take them a step further you can take these value scales and map them to different types of stories-or plot types. These are the same values that drive good storytelling. In fact, it is the conflict between these values that generate the movement and change that makes the story work. Once you distill these values, you can turn these values into scales, because these values are usually in conflict with their opposite. The value of going beyond yourself to discover a larger purpose. The value of your status and hierarchy within a community. Surviving crime, other people, even monsters, you could say. Because if you don’t have your life, you don’t have much. Building off of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, these values are as follows (credit to Robert McKee and Shawn Coyne for introducing me to these concepts): This could easily become a never-ending list.īut if you think about it, every value can be distilled to six essential human values. ![]() Here are some examples of things you might value: If you value something, it means you think it’s good. In other words, a value is something you admire, something you want. Value, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is the regard that something is held to deserve the importance, worth, or usefulness of something. Great, bestselling stories are about values. In other words, basic story types arise from values, from the things humans want, and the great thing is, there has been a lot of research into the values humans find to be universal. Or maybe we want to tell stories about what it's like to transcend, to go beyond yourself and your circumstances and serve the good of the whole community, the whole world, and so we tell stories about sacrifice and great heroism. We tell stories about how people have overcome adversity, even pushed back against their narrow-minded communities, to fully self-actualize. Maybe we want to become the best version of ourselves. Maybe we want love or belonging, so we tell great love stories about couples destined (or doomed) to be together. This was one reason our long-ago ancestors told stories about surviving attacks from ferocious beasts. ![]() Maybe we want something as simple as to stay alive. Why do we tell stories? The reason humans have always told stories (and always will) is because we want something. The other way you can figure out the types of stories is by going deeper, to the underlying reasons humans tell stories in the first place, the reason we've been telling stories for thousands of years, all the way back to the campfire stories our ancestors told each other. This is what Christopher Booker did with his excellent guide The Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories, and you can get breakdowns of each of his types here.Īnd that can be helpful, certainly, but what about stories that are a little strange, genre-breaking, or out of the box? You can start with stories themselves: looking through hundreds or even thousands until you get to four, seven, twelve, or even thirty-six master plots. You see, there are two ways you can figure out the patterns that stories take-the different types of stories. If you think that stories are magical and mystical, and the idea of putting them in a box feels terrible to you, I just want to say, I get that. But Wait, Do Story Types Really Exist?įirst, I want to address some discomfort you might be feeling with this idea. They also share similar structures, characters, and what Robert McKee calls obligatory scenes. These types tend to operate on the same underlying values. Definition of Story TypesĪs stories have evolved for thousands of years, they began to fall into patterns called story types. ![]() Click here to get The Write Structure ($5.99). If you want to learn more about how to write a great story, by mastering storytelling musts like the exposition literary definition, you can get the book for a limited time low price. Want to learn more about plot types and story structure? My #1 Amazon best-selling book The Write Structure explores the hidden structures behind bestselling and award-winning stories. In this article, we're going to cover the ten types of stories, share which tend to become best-sellers, and share the hidden values that help you master each type.īut first, what do I mean by “types of stories”? What are the types of stories? And how do you use them to tell a great story? But so much of writing a great story is knowing and mastering the type of story you're trying to tell. ![]() How do you write a best-selling novel or an award-winning screenplay? You might say, great writing or unique characters or thrilling conflict. ![]()
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