
The Thirty-Seven Basic Plots, According to a Screenwriter of the Silent Film Era - samclemens
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_vault/2015/10/27/history_of_screenwriting_a_master_book_of_plots.html
======
te_platt
One movie I've always had a hard time categorizing is Groundhog Day. I went
through the 37 plots listed and still don't see a good match. Does achieving
enlightenment count as a plot?

~~~
Jtsummers
A second reply, because this is about the movie _Groundhog Day_ and not the
topic at hand.

Something that really bugs me about most people's references to the movie is
that they grossly miss the point. When most people reference it they refer to
something about their dull repetitive life, or being stuck in a rut. But
that's not what happens in the movie.

He literally experiences the same thing for hundreds of days to hundreds of
years (depending on interpretation). But something happens, he realizes the
numerous opportunities present in this same, repeated, "uneventful" day. Sure,
the daily grind of wake, commute, work, commute, dinner, TV, sleep, repeat is
dull and repetitive. But unlike Phil, we don't have an infinite number of
times to do this before we learn our lesson and change our approach. We get
100 years on the outside, 60 productive years for most of us. Even if you're
doing the same thing each day, how do you spend the rest of your time? If it's
living for the weekend, that's 5 evenings a week you've wasted. Fill it with
time with family, friends, learning, hobbies, something. Become the best
person you can be, because one day the repetition will end.

What will you have to show for it? Will you have just worked yourself to death
and memorized every line of Star Wars, or will you be making ice sculptures
with a chainsaw?

~~~
david-given
Why do I need to show anything for it?

That's a serious question; if I like working and enjoy memorising Star Wars,
why shouldn't I do that? Why can't I focus my life around the things _I_ enjoy
doing, rather than concentrating on all the things which I _could_ be doing
(but can't do, because of any number of reasons) and end up miserable and
feeling like I'm wasting my life?

~~~
Jtsummers
If that's what you enjoy, that's fine. But many people don't really enjoy
their work, it's just work. What they enjoy is done on the weekends or
holidays. How many people waste 2 or 3 hours commuting each day, time away
from the family they ostensibly want to be with, for work, and then lament,
when their children are grown, missing out on those years?

If Star Wars and your job are the things you _want_ to be doing, do them.
That's fantastic. If dancing or drawing or rebuilding a jeep are what you want
to do, but can't because of work, find some other job or some better way to do
your current job.

And don't feel beholden to others to do things or enjoy things because that's
what they expect of you. I fucking hate the Star * franchises (or, more
accurately, what they've become and their fanbases). But I work with people
who love them (in their current incarnations). But in this field (computer
programming), everyone thinks I'm weird. Same with video games, I enjoy them
to an extent, but I've played them enough to know that I want to do other
things. OTOH, don't listen to me if that's what you enjoy and I tell you to
stop. If it's what you want to do, do it. But if it's what you want to do, and
something in your life is holding you back that you want to change (as opposed
to certain obligations, like an SO, that you shouldn't or don't want to
change), then find a way to get that time back.

EDIT: Hell. If your work and Star Wars memorization are what you really want.
Make that commute work for you. Ride a train and get more work done. Or listen
to the movies on your drive. I'm doing that with my current attempt at
learning Italian. That's one of the ways people miss the point. The time is
there for you to do many (though not all) of the things you want to do now,
you just have to realize it and take it back.

EDIT Further: And I guess, with regard to having something to "show" for it.
At the end of your life, do you think that you will be happy with how you led
it? Did you achieve all, most or even some of your goals? It's not just a
result to show to others, but also an internal understanding of where you are
and what you have achieved (or not) and why. If I get married and have kids, I
probably won't achieve most of the travel I want to in this lifetime. But I'll
probably be happy to have made that trade. But if I can't achieve that goal
because I decided to work until I was 70, then, for me, that will have been a
failure. So I've set myself on a course to avoid that.

~~~
kefka
> But many people don't really enjoy their work, it's just work.

That's because the threat in our economy is "If you don't work, you don't eat
and you will go homeless." And that's a strong motivator to put up with shit
at the workplace. Most people aren't wealthy.

~~~
ghaff
Well, that's been more or less the situation for everyone since the beginning
of history excepting a very small slice of the population born into or married
into a privileged elite class--and not even all of them.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Just because this has been the norm since beginning of civilization, doesn't
mean it has to be like that forever. We really do have the technology now to
relieve everyone of that burden; we only need more social will (and less
referring to Idiocracy, Wall-E and "oh all those people who will be drinking
their UBI in front of the TV") and a path through the phase-space of economy.

------
jsnathan
If I understand this right then these 37 'situations' are to be composed into
specific 'plots' by mixing and matching.

This would be in contrast with the '7 basic plots'[1] and would yield much
more specific results.

I wonder if they can be combined at random.. almost seems like they can be for
pairs.

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seven_Basic_Plots](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seven_Basic_Plots)

~~~
proksoup
There's a whole body of work that I think could be categorized as "1 basic
plot". Joseph Campbell I think did a lot about this idea, but Dan Harmon[1]
always explained it best for me.

[1]:
[http://channel101.wikia.com/wiki/Story_Structure_101:_Super_...](http://channel101.wikia.com/wiki/Story_Structure_101:_Super_Basic_Shit)

~~~
mentos
thanks for this I think Dan Harmon is a creative genius really enjoying this
explanation of story structure

------
6stringmerc
And, according to Robert Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon's screenwriting book, a
successful movie should abide by a very simple 3 Act formula (paraphrased):

Act 1: Introduce Nice Guy

Act 2: Get Nice Guy stuck in a tree, throw rocks at him

Act 3: Get him down from the tree

Or, in other words, just watch _Die Hard_ enough to get the idea.

~~~
thaumasiotes
Channeling the other comment tree, Groundhog Day never introduces any Nice
Guy. The idea is that Phil develops into one over the course of the movie,
although it's only apparent in the last (!) scene.

~~~
vacri
"Nice guy" just means "person the audience can relate to". Phil isn't nice,
but he's definitely relatable (if that's a word).

This struck me in particular with Gilliam's _The Zero Theorem_ which I saw
recently. I generally really like Gilliam films, but I struggled with _Zero
Theorem_ precisely because the main character was so unrelatable.

~~~
thaumasiotes
People differ. I tried to watch the Sopranos on the strength of many glowing
reviews along the lines of "the apex of television".

That failed. I can't stand the show because it has no sympathetic characters.
Everyone is horrible to everyone else and in general.

I agree about Phil though.

~~~
ghaff
My general impression, based on the success of shows like The Sopranos (and
Breaking Bad--although that's more complicated) is that at least a significant
slice of the US audience is more willing to tolerate unsympathetic
protagonists than was historically the case. Films have always been more
varied but they don't require the ongoing commitment that a TV series does.

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
Aristotle said that the basis of interesting writing is conflict, and writers
have been copying him ever since.

A plausible character with believable internal conflict is more interesting
than a plausible character with external conflict - although ideally you want
plenty of both.

Audiences like a certain amount of ambiguity, especially if they sympathise
with the challenges a character faces.

But the old formulaic plot books are largely nonsense. I have a version from
the late 19th century which predates silent movies by a few decades, but still
claims to reduce drama to the same tropes.

It doesn't work - except maybe as light entertainment. The book is full of
references to plays that have been almost entirely forgotten now.

Really good writing - Shakespeare, ancient Greek comedy/tragedy, a few more
modern examples - works on a much deeper level than a trivial plot taxonomy.

------
asgard1024
I am thinking someone should do a similar list for technology news. For
instance:

\- A renowned researcher gives hope to solve a long-standing problem.

\- A famous hacker releases some cool software (or hardware blueprints) as an
open source project.

\- Please take a minute to pay homage to somebody who accomplished great
things.

\- A pressing social problem became even more pressing.

\- A noble individual gains a legal victory over a faceless institution.

\- A corporation announces structural changes.

..and so on. And then perhaps somebody could write categorization software
based on the list.

~~~
animal531
Renowned researcher [asgard1024] gives hope to solve a long-standing problem
in [technology news].

------
rayalez
These interpretations are so silly. You can classify plots into any number of
anything based on any merit. Will it be of any value though? Meh.

I understand the natural human desire to figure out how stories work, but this
is _not_ how it's done.

On that topic, the best explanation I have ever read is the book "Story" by
Robert McKee. I recommend it to everyone who is interested in the subject. It
may still be imperfect, but he is very good at explaining things that are
actually practically useful for writers and make a lot of sense.

------
yourcelf
See also "Plotto: The Master Book of All Plots."

[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11454870-plotto](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11454870-plotto)

[http://www.npr.org/2012/02/19/146941343/plotto-an-algebra-
bo...](http://www.npr.org/2012/02/19/146941343/plotto-an-algebra-book-for-
fiction-writing)

------
jamesdutc
I've heard people talk about there being two basic plots:

    
    
        - stranger comes to town
        - stranger leaves town
    

You could similarly say that there are two basic plots:

    
    
        - love
        - hate
    

Or even:

    
    
        - love/hate
        - indifference
    

This is all very silly. Why not say that there is only one basic plot: \-
something happens (or not)

There are no classifications that are both neutral and useful. A useful
classification corroborates a thesis, and, in this case, asserts an ordering
or structuring of some set of objects.

We could pick any arbitrary, discrete attribute and classify plots by each
gradation of this attribute, like the above. Putting items in this
classification is fun, but it doesn't generate knowledge if the classification
does not convey some additional meaning.

A phylogenetic tree or a periodic table impute some ordering on the natural
world that allows us to make meaningful predictions about undiscovered animals
and chemical elements. They also support scientific theses about evolutionary
biology and modern chemistry. They are not neutral (purely descriptive)
classifications.

What additional knowledge do any of these story plot classifications give us?

~~~
hugh4
>What additional knowledge do any of these story plot classifications give us?

Well, at the very least, it's a nice store of writing prompts.

What I would say is that it's less of a classification and more of a map. Out
of the vast space of _possible_ stories, here are the sections of story space
which tend to get told again and again. Why? Because these are the sorts of
stories are of interest to our silly human brains.

Here's a story. One day a man bought a newspaper. Then he saw a giraffe, and
he threw the newspaper into a river. The Queen of Denmark bought a trombone.
Was that a good story? No, it was dull, incoherent and meaningless, just a
sequence of actions. We can't identify with them at all.

Here is another story. One day a man met a woman. But the Queen of Denmark
kidnapped the woman. So the man went and rescued her. Now that's a _much_
better story! It needs a bit of fleshing out, but it's precisely the sort of
sequence of actions that humans like being told about, over and over again.

It's somewhat bizarre that humans should enjoy hearing lies about stuff that
never actually happened, but we do -- only very specific types of lies about
very specific types of stuff. This list is a vague attempt to map out the
specific types of stuff that people like hearing about, and from that we can
get insight into our own psychology.

~~~
jamesdutc
I agree. A list of common story structures can be effectively used as a
heuristic in synthesizing new stories from these structures, and this list
does an extremely terse list of common themes.

It's definitely fatiguing to generate these repetitive stories, and I would
argue that there are literary traditions (still alive today on television, in
film, in music!) where your surreal, absurd, existentially nihilistic story
about giraffes, the Queen of Denmark, and the law-man beating up the wrong guy
would fit in nicely!

------
gerbilly
The basic of all plots is the story.

A story is a series of events centred on the actions of one character.

A story is about the character facing a difficulty, and demonstrating which
action the character took to overcome that difficulty.

Sometimes some of the first attempts at action fail, causing further
difficulties.

Stories are an innate part of how humans think. There is a lot of solid
research suggesting that there is a part of our brain that automatically
transforms times series of events into stories, automatically, and without our
knowing it.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left_brain_interpreter](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left_brain_interpreter)

The story is the basic organizing principle of our memory, our justice system,
pretty much all of society.

See also: [http://bigthink.com/overthinking-everything-with-jason-
gots/...](http://bigthink.com/overthinking-everything-with-jason-gots/your-
storytelling-brain)

If I had to describe humans to aliens I'd say: "Creatures with a loss aversion
that create stories."

------
emmanueloga_
1919's condensed version of [http://tvtropes.org/](http://tvtropes.org/).

------
TeMPOraL
Good that this topic came up now - in two days, another NaNoWriMo starts[0].
Even better, there's a lot of useful things for amateur storywriters in the
comments here! Bookmarked!

[0] - [http://nanowrimo.org/](http://nanowrimo.org/)

------
cglace
David Mamet breaks storing telling down into.

Who wants what from whom? What happens if they don't get it? Why now?

------
vixen99
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seven_Basic_Plots](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seven_Basic_Plots)

~~~
clarkmoody
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thirty-
Six_Dramatic_Situat...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thirty-
Six_Dramatic_Situations)

~~~
thaumasiotes
Your link is better -- Wycliff Aber Hill was obviously reporting the same
list. Hill has added his #3, "miracle of god". He's also mangled the names of
some situations; "falling prey" is totally opaque, while "falling prey to
cruelty/misfortune" isn't.

------
karcass
Donnie Darko is, what six or seven of these?

------
Ch_livecodingtv
This is a fun read. Whatever plot, the end then comes only between (1) Fair
(2) Not Fair ending.

------
sparkzilla
There's 38: Memento.

