Topic 3 Narrative flow: Plot

Storytelling has been around for thousands of years and many writers have produced work with diverse stories; short stories, one-character monologues, long and multi-layered plays and many more. To assist us with coming up with a story and developing a script for a play, we will work from a relatively common theory, that of the 7 basic plots. In his book, The Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories, Christopher Booker (2004) identified 7 basic plots that he has identified as being present in a large majority of stories after researching the topic for 34 years. These 7 plots are as follows:

1. Comedy
2. Tragedy
3. Quest
4. Voyage and Return
5. Rags to riches
6. Overcomingthe monster:
7. Rebirth