{"id":149,"date":"2020-11-11T16:38:38","date_gmt":"2020-11-11T16:38:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jerichowriters.com\/?p=149"},"modified":"2025-05-09T09:35:49","modified_gmt":"2025-05-09T08:35:49","slug":"how-to-write-seven-basic-plots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jerichowriters.com\/how-to-write-seven-basic-plots\/","title":{"rendered":"How To Write Seven Basic Plots"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Knowing the key plot archetypes can help you get going, so we\u2019re looking at the prospective seven basic plots that underpin all fiction. Whilst your story mightn\u2019t conform consciously to a plot structure, such structures do exist, and knowing them could help keep you inspired and on track.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What Are The Seven Basic Plots?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

According to Christopher Booker, there are seven main plotlines, as written in The Seven Basic Plots. <\/em>If you\u2019re still planning things, why not choose one to place your ideas in so far?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(If you\u2019re at a very early stage in planning, read up on how to have\u00a0story ideas<\/a>. Remember, you can mess around a little, too. No story will ever fit only one plotline, there may just be one obvious one. Take subplots, plots within plots, to layer your story and give it complexity and meaning.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here are the seven basic plots<\/a> and how to make each one work for you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Overcoming The Monster<\/strong> <\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Your protagonist must battle a monster (or a monstrous force) that threatens, probably, more than just your protagonist\u2019s survival in scope and scale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Christopher Booker offers the classic examples of The Epic of Gilgamesh<\/em> or Bram Stoker\u2019s Dracula<\/em>. Stephen King\u2019s It<\/em> falls under this plotline, too, but of course monsters needn\u2019t always be literal. They can be human. They can be ideological.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe<\/em> by C.S. Lewis is (foremost) about the Pevensie children needing to overthrow the White Witch and bring peace to Narnia with Aslan\u2019s help. The Help<\/em> by Kathryn Stockett is about Skeeter, Aibileen and Minny battling racial prejudice (embodied in housewife Hilly Holbrook) in Mississippi during the 1960s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To make your \u2018monster\u2019 work, you\u2019ll need this threat to chill us. You need a genuinely existential battle of survival to make things work. You\u2019ll also want the monster to represent something beyond just claws and fangs. It needs to be vengeance, or racial intolerance, or something else that really matters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Voyage And Return<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Born with Odysseus and The Odyssey<\/em> (battling monstrosities like Circe, Scylla and Charybdis to journey safe home to wife Penelope) in Greek myth, your protagonist here must journey from home, returning with new strength and experience from challenges faced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Think of Bilbo Baggins\u2019 journey out of the Shire in The Hobbit<\/em>. First come trolls, and after (not before) comes the dragon. The key is in your rising action, the threats getting worse as Bilbo carries on, growing in courage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Your voyage should be getting more dangerous all the time, before your protagonist can safely make a \u2018turnabout\u2019 and return (not without transfiguration, since Bilbo comes home braver, stronger). The fact that Bilbo never turns back before the essential point and challenge of the quest is faced is also important. Giving your protagonist chances to turn back reflects growth and heroism when they soldier on, anyway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To make this plot work, your protagonist is going to be leaving one world, encountering another, ending up transfigured \u2013 so raise the stakes. Give plenty of options to turn back (which they won\u2019t take, because something other than themselves is at risk, too).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rags To Riches<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The word \u2018Cinderella\u2019 sums up this plotline, but the \u2018riches\u2019 in this phrasing is relative, and needn\u2019t be literal. The point is that your protagonist should grow in character<\/a>, strength and understanding, helping them achieve their desire, or better, and be empowered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Your protagonist should ascend, with newfound strength, from a low point to new heights, sometimes involving romance, and sometimes not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A good example of \u2018not\u2019 would be Chinese Cinderella <\/em>by Adeline Yen Mah, where a happy ending simply means being able to attend college.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other examples include Charlotte Bront\u00eb\u2019s Jane Eyre<\/em>, Arthur Golden\u2019s Memoirs of a Geisha<\/em>, or Aladdin and His Enchanted Lamp<\/em> from The Thousand and One Nights<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You\u2019ll make this plot work by empowering your protagonist in various ways. Cinderella, in her fairy tale, makes it out of rags to riches but we can assume she won\u2019t still be scrubbing floors at the palace. She\u2019s valued for herself in her new home and free to live on her own terms, so she\u2019s become empowered (inside and out).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is your key to unlocking plot material.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"how-to-publish\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Quest<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

In this narrative, your protagonist sets out to find someone, or to find an object, a proverbial \u2018buried treasure\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Famous examples include the His Dark Materials<\/em> series by Philip Pullman, J.R.R. Tolkien\u2019s The Lord of the Rings<\/em>, or (broadly) Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows<\/em> by J.K. Rowling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Philip Pullman\u2019s protagonist Lyra in Northern Lights<\/em> (or, in the US, The Golden Compass<\/em>) for instance, faces bears, witches and kidnappers to reach her father, before she carries on into another world. Lyra faces worse as the challenges mount up, so she matures and changes with learning and strength.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ultimately, Lyra makes her costliest sacrifice at the close of her (multiple) quests in His Dark Materials<\/em>, and so she becomes heroic. We are given final proof of her courage and selflessness as her adventuring concludes in The Amber Spyglass<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You\u2019ll also need to raise stakes, making things harder and harder, before a final \u2018good\u2019 deed from your protagonist grants them victory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Comedy<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

In comic narrative, the gist is to create a whirl of misunderstandings for your protagonist that becomes more fraught with time. All will \u2018miraculously transformed\u2019 near the end, as your action moves happily from dark to light.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Classic examples include any of Jane Austen\u2019s novels, The Inimitable Jeeves<\/em> by P.G. Wodehouse, Bridget Jones\u2019 Diary<\/em> by Helen Fielding, or Chocolat<\/em> by Joanne Harris.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Make your comic plot work by continuing to muddle events, feelings and perceptions as we go, right up to the finish line. Bridget Jones remains confused about Mark Darcy in most of the novel (firstly misjudging Mark, then Daniel, then misjudging how both feel about her) before all is happily resolved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tragedy<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

This is the inverse of \u2018Comedy\u2019, moving from light to dark. Your protagonist here has an irredeemable flaw or makes an irredeemable mistake, causing their undoing and \u2018fall\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Your protagonist could be reprehensible, like Humbert Humbert from Lolita<\/em> by Vladimir Nabokov, or like the example Christopher Booker gives us, Shakespeare\u2019s Macbeth. Shakespearean tragedies give a rich choice of protagonists whose flaws lead them to doom, such as Othello and his jealousy, or Lear and his arrogance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other tragic protagonists may be more questionable, as in Mary Shelley\u2019s Frankenstein<\/em>, or F. Scott Fitzgerald\u2019s The Great Gatsby<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An example of an innocent protagonist falling to tragedy would be Leo Tolstoy\u2019s Anna Karenina<\/em>, Anna\u2019s \u2018mistake\u2019 being to fall in love and leave her husband for a man who\u2019ll betray her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You\u2019ll make a tragic plot work by thinking deeply about all the \u2018if onlys\u2019 of your protagonist\u2019s situation. Think how we mull over our own mistakes, wishing we\u2019d seen things coming. If only Othello had trusted Desdemona, or if only Gatsby hadn\u2019t fallen for Daisy. How could all have been avoided? How differently could things have worked out?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Give your poor protagonist routes out (which they\u2019ll not take, e.g. Jay Gatsby fails to accept Nick\u2019s warning that the past can\u2019t be repeated, since Gatsby can\u2019t let Daisy go), then seal off exit options to amplify emotion in your tragic plot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rebirth<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Rebirth\u2019 is poised to be like \u2018Tragedy\u2019 but with a hopeful outcome. Your protagonist needs a redemptive arc to their journey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is sometimes combined with a hero romantically redeemed by a heroine, or vice versa. Classics examples of this trope are fairy tales like Jeanne-Marie Le Prince de Beaumont\u2019s Beauty and the Beast <\/em>or Hans Christian Andersen\u2019s The Snow Queen<\/em>, and retellings based on these tales, such as Beauty<\/em> by Robin McKinley or Uprooted<\/em> by Naomi Novik.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other examples are The Secret Garden<\/em> by Frances Hodgson Burnett, Emma<\/em> by Jane Austen (also a \u2018Comedy\u2019 tale), or The Kite Runner<\/em> by Khaled Hosseini.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Make a plot like this work by making a happy outcome dependent on nothing but the \u2018Rebirth\u2019 component alone. Identify what this is, because your protagonist\u2019s success and happy ending will hinge on it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a tale like Beauty and the Beast<\/em>, for instance, love can\u2019t be mutual until B\u00eate lets Belle go free. Emma Woodhouse needs to reflect and change before she can marry someone as good as Mr Knightley. Amir risks his life returning to Kabul, but can\u2019t be free of his past guilt in The Kite Runner<\/em> until he tries to help his best friend\u2019s son.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The question, after all this, is which general plotline feels authentic for where you\u2019d most like to take your story?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"one<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Choose More Than One Plot And Add Subplots<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

So, we’ve discussed the seven basic plot examples, but sometimes more than one plot outline will fit your story material.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In A Game of Thrones<\/em>, there is a tragic narrative for one protagonist, Eddard or Ned Stark, and the \u2018fault\u2019 that kills Ned is his integrity in a dark world. However, A Game of Thrones<\/em> uses various plot archetypes to tell multiple protagonists\u2019 stories over a sprawling scale. It isn\u2019t only a tragic plot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

J.K. Rowling\u2019s stories don\u2019t fit neatly into a single plot idea, either, since Harry Potter\u2019s overarching tale checks several of these boxes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Harry\u2019s story could be defined as a \u2018Rags to riches\u2019 tale, because he goes from an abusive boyhood living under his aunt\u2019s staircase to freedom, to a successful career and happiness with his wife and children at the series\u2019 close.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s also a \u2018Voyage and return\u2019 element to each book, as Harry attends Hogwarts every year, only to return to his aunt and uncle every summer (though in the seventh, Harry leaves Privet Drive for the last time).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s also an \u2018Overcoming the monster\u2019 story, because the spectre of Voldemort haunts Harry throughout the series, as do other monstrous beings like the Basilisk or Dementors, or monstrous characters like Voldemort\u2019s supporters (led by Bellatrix Lestrange), Professor Umbridge, and others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s also a \u2018Quest\u2019 because Harry\u2019s \u2018hunts\u2019 through the series culminate, in the seventh book, with his seeking Horcruxes and Hallows. The existential question of which is right to seek becomes a determinant of Harry\u2019s success, and overall character development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are strong comic elements, strong tragic elements, and there are strong elements of \u2018Rebirth\u2019, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In sum, stories often can\u2019t be boxed and they shouldn\u2019t be. These plotlines are threadbare for a reason, since they\u2019re foremost guides, and exist to help you build upon them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3 Next Steps To Penning Your Plot<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Too little plot can be as tedious as no structure at all, so plan with care and remember plotting can be your aide. Plot should serve as a creative constraint, existing to help you produce your best work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A few steps on what you can do from here with the seven basic plots:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  1. Gather your story material. Review characters, the things you want to happen, and pick a plot for your novel.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. Map your key plot events. Adapt them to whichever plot you chose. If it\u2019s a quest, map out testing moments where your protagonist can or should turn back \u2013 or, if it\u2019s tragic, map out moments your tragic protagonist could have avoided what they\u2019re heading for, and so on.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  3. Link these moments together and create your resolution to the action.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    All this will create a core meaning in your narrative (before you add subplots for complexity).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    After this, you\u2019ll be needing a\u00a0plot mountain<\/a>, too, for adding the fun bits. Story structures are always there to help, not hinder you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Happy writing!<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Knowing the key plot archetypes can help you get going, so we\u2019re looking at the prospective seven basic plots that underpin all fiction. Whilst your story mightn\u2019t conform consciously to a plot structure, such structures do exist, and knowing them could help keep you inspired and on track. What Are The Seven Basic Plots? According<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":448698,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[28665],"tags":[28894],"class_list":["post-149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-plotting-and-planning","tag-how-to-plot-masterclass1"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nJericho Writers<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Find out what are the seven basic plotlines of Christopher Booker and let these story archetypes inspire your writing.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/jerichowriters.com\/how-to-write-seven-basic-plots\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" 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