How many plots?

I've heard somewhere that there are only so many plots for stories. On the Hidden Fortress DVD George Lucas talks about how there is a theory among some writers that there are only about 32 plots, and when you write a story you pretty much just do a variarion on one of those plots.

Does anyone know what I'm talking about? Or have a link to an essay or article that discusses this idea? I was wondering who came up with the idea or if it was a collaboration type thing.

Get comfy, grab something to eat and drink and start reading through Uncle Jim's thread on the novel writing board.

Discussions of plot pop up there now and again.

Welcome to the cooler.

There's only one plot: man buys beer, man drinks beer, man happy.


Welcome!

there are really only three basic plot themes and they were written on their originators' cave walls [in pictographs, of course]...

1. man* against man

2. man against nature

2. man against himself

all dreamed up since, is just creative plagiarism...

love and hugs, maia


[*'man' in the generic, not gender sense]

4 plots

Don't forget man vs. supernatural. that's a biggie.

not really...

because whatever you're calling the 'supernatural' is one [or more] of those 3!

either it's dreamed up by or caused by man himself [individually, or as a species], or it's part of 'nature' [which can be considered to include all of mankind's tailor-made god concepts]... so, there are still just 3...

4 plots

Bah. Well, that's how I learned it.

Re: 4 plots

Man vs the Supernatural is considered a subplot of Man vs Nature.

Re: 4 plots

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