This document provides outlines for common plot structures and story genres. It discusses seven common plot outlines: Overcoming the Monster, Rags to Riches, The Quest, Voyage and Return, Comedy, Tragedy, and Rebirth. For each plot, it outlines the typical stages or steps. It also discusses common elements of the beginning, middle, and end of stories. The document provides writing prompts for incorporating these plot structures into stories and eliminating "to be" verbs. It concludes with homework assignments related to the topics discussed.

1. WEEK 7: THE ONLINE HOUR

2. • Guided Writing:
7 Plots
Agenda

3. OVERCOMING THE MONSTER: PLOT OUTLINE
• The Call: The monster is introduced as a threat to a community, country,
kingdom, or mankind in general. The hero is called to confront it.
• Dream Stage: The hero makes preparations for battle; he and the monster are
brought closer together. Things are going reasonably well, and there is a
comfortable remoteness from danger.
• Frustration Stage: Hero comes face to face with the monster in all its awesome
power. The hero seems inferior by comparison and may even fall into the
monster’s clutches.
• Nightmare Stage: final ordeal begins, a nightmare battle in which the odds seem
stacked against the hero. But, just when all seems lost…
• Thrilling Escape from Death/ Death of the Monster: in a miraculous reversal, the
hero gains the upper hand and delivers a final fatal blow to the monster. Its dark
power is overthrown. The community under its shadow is liberated. The hero
wins his prize, his princess, and/or his kingdom.

4. RAGS TO RICHES: PLOT OUTLINE
• Initial wretchedness at home & “the call”: we are introduced to the hero in his lowly and
unhappy state. The dark figures are the source of his misery. This phase ends when
something happens to call them out into a wider world.
• Out into the world, initial success: early efforts are rewarded, and the hero may have
some glimpse of the greater glory he will someday achieve.
• The central crisis: reduced to a new powerlessness, this is the worst part of the story for
the hero or heroine.
• Independence and the final ordeal: the hero is discovering in himself a new independent
strength. The hero is put to a final test, in which a dark rival may stand between the
hero and ultimate fulfillment.
• Final union, completion and fulfillment: the reward is usually a state of complete, loving
union with the “Prince” or “Princess.” They may also succeed to some kind of kingdom.
The implied ending is that “they lived happily ever after.”

5. THE QUEST: PLOT OUTLINE
• The Call: life in some “City of Destruction” has become oppressive and intolerable, and the
hero recognizes that the only way to rectify the situation is to take a long and perilous
journey to achieve some related goal.
• The Journey: a series of ordeals.
• Arrival and frustration: the hero arrives within sight of his goal, but a singular or series of
terrifying obstacles looms before him.
• The final ordeal: time to face and defeat obstacles.
• The goal: after a last “thrilling escape from death.” the life-renewing goal is achieved.

6. VOYAGE AND RETURN
• The hero or heroine travels out of their familiar, everyday “normal” surroundings into
another world completely cut off from the first, where everything seems abnormal.
The early experience might feel exhilarating, but eventually a shadow intrudes. By a
“thrilling escape” the hero is returned to his normal world.
• While this plot is as old as storytelling itself, it became much more fashionable in
Western literature after the Renaissance, when voyagers were traveling to every corner
of the globe.
• These stories generally fall into two types: a) the hero is marooned on a deserted
island, or b) the hero visits a land of some strange people or civilization.
• As fewer areas of the world were left to be explored, more authors sent their heroes
into different parts of time or space
• A “social” voyage and return features a hero who finds himself in a different group of
people with whom he would not normally associate. Think of The Devil Wears Prada.

7. COMEDY: STEPS OF RECOGNITION
1. The dark figures imprisoned in an unloving state must be softened and
liberated by some act of self-recognition and change of heart.
2. The identity of one or more characters must be revealed in a more literal
sense.
3. Characters must discover who they are meant to pair off with.
4. Wherever there is division, separation or loss, it must be repaired.
5. Almost uniformly, the aspect of comedy that elicits laughter from the
audience is a character’s egocentricity, his tunnel-vision, his inability to
see the world as it is.

8. TRAGEDY: FIVE STAGES
1. Anticipation Stage: hero is in some way incomplete or unfulfilled. Some object of desire
or course of action presents itself to the hero. When the hero succumbs to this desire or
thought, he has found his “focus”: Macbeth decides to assassinate King Duncan, Icarus
yields to his desire to fly close to the sun; Dr. Jekyll drinks his potion.
2. Dream Stage: hero commits to his focus, and for awhile everything is peachy. He feels
gratified and seems to be getting away with his crime or error.
3. Frustration Stage: Things begin to go wrong. Hero feels restless and insecure, commits
further dark acts to secure or retain his position and feelings from the Dream Stage.
4. Nightmare Stage: Things are now slipping completely out of the hero’s control. Forces
of opposition and fate are closing in on him; hero falls into rage or despair.
5. Destruction or Death Wish: either by the forces he has aroused against him, or by some
final act of violence which precipitates his own death, the hero is destroyed.

9. THE UNIVERSAL PLOT
• The overlap and interrelationships between the plots are
immediately recognizable.
• What is really to be gained from this exploration of seven plots is
NOT the compartmentalizing of stories, but rather the joining
together of all stories into basic universal elements.

10. THE UNIVERSAL PLOT
• The Beginning: a hero is undeveloped, frustrated, or incomplete. This state sets up
the tension that drives the plot.
• The Middle: The hero falls under the shadow of a dark power. This power may exist
outside the hero or within the characters themselves.
• The End: Through a reversal or unknotting, the dark power is overthrown.
• Fundamental movements:
• Dark to light
• Isolated to integrated, or vice versa
• Incomplete to whole
• Juvenile to mature
• Constriction/release
• Ignorance to self-realization

11. WHAT KIND OF PLOT DO YOU HAVE IN YOUR
STORY? COMBINE IT WITH YOUR GENRE!
1. Overcoming the Monster
2. Rags to Riches
3. The Quest
4. Voyage and Return
5. Comedy
6. Tragedy
7. Rebirth

12. GUIDED
WRITING
1. Have you included the basic plot points in your genre story?
2. Outline your story to see which you have included: Note what you are
missing—these are places where you might be able to improve your
story.
3. Write a scene to include in your story.

13. MORE STORY STARTERS
1.The harder she scratched away at her forearm the quicker the flesh fell away. From
outside the containment unit, Dr. Elena Miles and Dr. Mark Rustenburg watched in
dismay as the...
2.Marcus could hear the horn sound in the distance, a sign he was getting closer to the
island. Soon he would be face to face with the father he left behind ten years ago. Every
day since he left …
3.45 minutes ago my cover was blown. I'd been under for...
4.I sat in the taxi fidgeting the tulle under my gown and thinking I'd rather be at home in my
flannel pajamas instead of going to...
5.I really wanted to see you again," said Rebecca. She repeatedly twirled a strand of her
long auburn hair tightly around her right forefinger until the tip blushed then released it. "I
was afraid you didn't want to see me because of…
6.He was lying face down on the raft. At first we thought he was sleeping with his head on
the inflated side as a pillow and one hand hanging over, grazing the water's edge but then
the...
7.It’s hard to describe the sound of ripping fleshing. Even more difficult is the sound the

14. FIND THE VARIATIONS OF THE “TO BE”
VERB IN YOUR OWN WRITING.
• Use these strategies to eliminate them:
1. Substitute a new word.
2. Rearrange the sentence.
3. Change another word in the
sentence into a verb.
4. Combine sentences.

15. HOMEWORK
• Post #14: Post a scene from your
story that demonstrates a convention
or step in your tale. Make sure you
name your plotline and your
convention step.
• Work on your fiction project.
• Finish reading the section from
Stranger in a Strange Land.