Are There Only Seven Basic Plots?

Recently, I had the pleasure of delivering the keynote address at the Gathering of Writers, an annual event sponsored by the Indiana Writers Center and held at the Indiana State Library. My topic was built around a wonderfully provocative idea: there may be only seven basic plots.

Seven.

Considering the number of stories human beings have cooked up over the past several thousand years, seven seems suspiciously stingy.

The idea comes from Christopher Booker’s The Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories. After examining stories from different periods and cultures, Booker concluded that many of them follow a surprisingly small number of fundamental patterns.

But Booker is interested in more than sorting stories into seven tidy piles. He argues that these patterns have endured because they address something fundamental about the challenge of being alive. How do we face what frightens us? What happens when desire consumes us? How do we venture into the unknown? Can we change? Can we find our way home?

The seven plots aren’t simply storytelling devices. They offer different ways of exploring some of the metaphysical questions that come with being human.

So what are they?

1. Overcoming the Monster

There is something out there, and it needs to be defeated.

The monster might literally be a monster—a dragon, shark, alien, vampire, or extremely unpleasant giant. But it can also be an oppressive system, powerful antagonist, or seemingly overwhelming force.

Think Jaws, Dracula, or David and Goliath.

2. Rags to Riches

Someone who begins with little rises into a very different life.

Cinderella is the obvious example, but “riches” don’t necessarily mean money. The protagonist may gain power, love, recognition, belonging, or a new understanding of their own worth.

3. The Quest

Somebody needs to get something—or get somewhere.

The protagonist sets out toward a goal and encounters obstacles, temptations, enemies, and allies along the way.

The Lord of the Rings is a monumental example. Romancing the Stone gives us a more contemporary—and considerably more flirtatious—version.

The destination matters, but the journey changes the traveler.

4. Voyage and Return

A character leaves the ordinary world, enters a strange new one, experiences its wonders and dangers, and eventually returns home transformed.

The Wizard of Oz is a classic example. Dorothy is swept out of Kansas and deposited in a world where the rules are different, the inhabitants are decidedly peculiar, and even the footwear has supernatural properties.

Eventually, she finds her way home.

5. Comedy

Booker means something more specific here than “a story with jokes.”

Comedy involves confusion, mistaken identities, crossed intentions, romantic complications, or social disorder. Things get tangled—and eventually the knots come undone.

Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest is a glorious example. Identities are invented, romantic intentions collide, and the characters become increasingly entangled in their own deceptions.

By the end, order is restored.

6. Tragedy

Here the central character travels in the opposite direction.

A flaw, obsession, desire, or destructive choice sets events in motion, and the protagonist moves increasingly toward the consequences.

Think Macbeth, Oedipus Rex, or Death of a Salesman.

What makes tragedy powerful isn’t simply that something terrible happens. We can see it coming—and understand how the character helped bring it about.

7. Rebirth

Someone who has become trapped, frozen, or disconnected from life somehow awakens.

Scrooge in A Christmas Carol is perhaps the clearest example. He doesn’t simply acquire new information. He becomes capable of living differently.

Why This Matters to Playwrights

Here’s where I think Booker becomes especially useful.

Plotting is hard.

A playwright can have a terrific premise and still not have a play.

“A woman discovers that her husband has been secretly corresponding with his first love for thirty years” is a premise. It gives us characters, conflict, and possibility.

But what happens?

That’s plot.

Many playwrights get stuck right there. We have an interesting situation. We may have fascinating characters and pages of terrific dialogue. But we’re not quite sure what happens next—or what all those events are building toward.

Identifying the basic plot underneath the premise can help.

This doesn’t mean every story fits neatly into one category. Plots can overlap. A Quest might contain elements of Overcoming the Monster. A Voyage and Return might also involve Rebirth.

The more useful question for the playwright is: Which plot is the main through line?

What is the fundamental journey carrying us from the beginning of the play to the end?

Suppose I realize: This is a Quest.

Now I can ask: What is my protagonist searching for? What sets the journey in motion? What obstacles stand in the way? Who helps? Who interferes? What does the protagonist discover?

But perhaps I realize: No. This is Rebirth.

Now I’m asking different questions. What has become deadened in this character? What forces them to confront it? What keeps pulling them backward? What would genuine transformation look like?

Same premise.

Potentially very different plays.

Once I begin to understand what kind of story I’m telling, I have clues about what the story needs to do next.

Seven Plots—or Seven Maps?

I’m not particularly interested in proving that Booker is right.

I don’t think the seven plots are boxes into which every play must be stuffed. Nor would I recommend sitting down to write and announcing, “Today I shall write Voyage and Return!”

That sounds like an excellent way to spend three hours staring at a blank screen.

Instead, I think of the seven plots as maps.

A map doesn’t dictate where you have to go. It helps you understand the territory.

And sometimes, when you’re stuck in the middle of a play, simply figuring out which map you’re holding can help you find the road forward.

Perhaps that’s why these ancient patterns keep turning up in new clothes. The circumstances change. The characters change. The worlds change.

But we keep wrestling with the same questions:

What do I want?

What am I afraid of?

What stands in my way?

Who am I becoming?

Can I change?

There may be only seven basic plots.

But there are an infinite number of human beings who can stumble into them.

And that’s where things get interesting.