Chalk Scribblers workshop: the seven basic plots

A story is driven by the stuff that happens and the plot outlines what happens, who it happens to, who makes it happen and when it all happens. It’s the plot that leads the characters through the settings to explore the themes and ideas of the story. If the plot doesn’t do its job of showing those other elements, then all the craft that went into them will be forever hidden from the reader.

In his Seven Basic Plots, Christopher Booker identified his eponymous seven archetypes drawn from stories ranging from the present day back to The Epic of Gilgamesh. We’ll be discussing his breakdown of those plot archetypes and discussing how we can use them as templates for our own stories. We’ll also consider ways to subvert them; after all, the basic plots are so widely used that they describe reader expectations as much as story structures.

There’s no obligation to read The Seven Basic Plots, much of which is taken up with outlandish ranting about how storytelling was ruined by the French Revolution, but you’ll get more out of the workshop by giving the topic some thought before the discussion and ideally, work through the process below:

Booker’s seven plots, with examples, are:

• Overcoming the Monster

- Beowulf
- Androcles & the Lion
- War of the Worlds
- Dr No
- Alien

• Rags to Riches

- Jane Eyre
- Puss in Boots
- Le Rouge et Le Noir

• The Quest

- Watership Down
- King Solomon’s Mines
- Moby Dick

• Voyage and Return

- The Time Machine
- The Third Man
- Orpheus & Eurydice

• Comedy

- A Midsummer Night’s Dream
- Pride and Prejudice

• Tragedy

- Macbeth
- Lolita
- The Picture of Dorian Grey

• Rebirth

- A Christmas Carol
- Crime and Punishment

Now have a look at the five-point breakdown of each of the seven plots published by the Blue Pencil Agency.

Some points to note:

• The basic plots are not always distinct from one another but rather exist on the continuum. For example, it’s only the last chapter of Crime and Punishment that makes it a rebirth rather than a tragedy plot.

• One type of plot may function as a subplot within a story that follows another. For example, The Odyssey is a quest plot and 20,000 Leagues under the Sea is a voyage and return but both involve the protagonists in overcoming the monster subplots.

• Different characters may follow their own basic plots. For example, Wuthering Heights follows several characters through interwoven tragedy plots while in Les Misérables, Cosette follows a rags to riches plot while Javert plays out a tragedy.

• While some of the plots may seem inherently more cheerful than others, there is always a dark version. For example, Booker repeatedly refers to Le Rouge et Le Noir as a dark version of the rags to riches plot.

With all that in mind, pick an example that you would be willing to discuss the application of the seven plots to. It could be your work in progress if that’s a discussion you would find helpful. Alternatively, pick a novel or short story that you’ve read and admired and see if applying the basic plots help you to understand what you liked about it.

Some questions that we’ll be discussing are:

• Which of the basic plots is it closest to?

• Does it blend more than one of the basic plots by:

- Combining elements from more than one plot in its over-arching structure?
- Using one basic plot for the over-arching structure and one or more of the others in subplots?
- Having different characters playing out different plots?

• Does it use a plot structure that’s fundamentally different to any of the basic plots and if so, how would you describe that plot structure?

Any and all other points that anyone would like to raise will be up for discussion.