how many storys actually are there?

Question

i remember being told at school there was only 8 or so different stories.. love story, fall from grace n redemption stories. what are the others?

Answer 1

Here are 8:

1. Man v (Wo)man

2. Man v Nature

3. Man v Environment

4. Man v Machine

5. Man v The Supernatural

6. Man v Self

7. Man v God

8. Man v Fate


OR



Overcoming the monster, e.g. Beowulf
Rags to riches, e.g. Cinderella
The quest, e.g. Raiders of the Lost Ark
Voyage and return, e.g. The Odyssey
Comedy, e.g. The Marriage of Figaro
Tragedy, e.g. Macbeth
Rebirth, e.g. Sleeping Beauty

But here's a good comment:
"See, this is the problem I have with all these schemata--first, no taxonomy can encompass everything in literature, and second, they don't tell you anything beyond the obvious. A more useful approach would be to abandon the chimera of universality and focus on what works today. By this light it seems to me that the most useful divide is: Everybody Gets Killed (or at least the hero[ine] does, e.g., Hamlet, Thelma & Louise, Romeo and Juliet, The Wild Bunch, American Beauty, etc.) versus Only the Bad Guys Get Killed (the collected works of Spielberg, Lucas, et al.). The former leaves you thinking life sucks, whereas the latter has everybody walking out of the theater with a smile. Naturally one can come up with numerous subdivisions, such as the one exemplified by Disney animated features, i.e., The Bad Guy Gets Killed but by Accident. In the odd case no one gets killed, but this is mostly in works by sensitive lady writers that seldom earn back the advance and even so usually have someone dying of cancer or in some other tragic manner (e.g., Terms of Endearment, Fried Green Tomatoes--come to think of it, someone did get killed in the latter. See what I'm saying?).

Now throw in the sizable genre of stories that may be characterized as The Protagonists Angle to Get One Another in the Sack and we begin to get a handle on the situation. My point is, never mind the 36, 20, 7, or whatever basic plots--take out sex, violence, and death and you lose 90 percent of literature right there."

Answer 2

I think there are about 4 plots which is not the same as stories (after all Cinderella and any other rags to riches tale are different stories.)

1. The quest to find something (the murderer, the solution etc.) where you continue to move towards a solution.

2. Wondering around not doing much (sort of like an anti-story)

3. Being lost until you hit upon a solution as if by accident (Deux et Machina)

4. Becoming more and more depressed, or mischevious, or evil or so on until it reaches a conclusion.

Of course in this mix are different issues, genres, etc.

Answer 3

Can't remember them, but was told at uni that there are seven basic stories, any others are just "variations on a theme"

Answer 4

Thre's an infinite number of stories.

"When I look back on all the crap I learned in high school
it's a wonder I can think at all"
--Paul Simon

Answer 5

I read somewhere that there are only 32 plots. All stories are either one or a combination of two or more such plots.

Answer 6

Chase
Quest
Romance
Competition
Chase
Quest
Romance
Competition

-or-


Man vs. Man
Man vs. Nature
Man vs. Himself
Man vs. God
Man vs. Society
Man caught in the Middle
Man & Woman

of course there are only 7 of those.........

Answer 7

one story for each star in the night

Answer 8

the journey is one.

I can't remember them all.

Answer 9

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thirty-Six_Dramatic_Situations