How Many Plots Are There Anyway?

At its simplest level there is only one plot: your protagonist wants something that s/he doesn’t have, and has to try to get it.

The wanting on the one hand, and the not having on the other creates the conflict which is so essential to every story. It also gives us the main dramatic question (also known as the story question).

 
All plots follow essentially the same route: the protagonist is in his/her ordinary life when something happens to change that. Either there has been something lacking in his/her life, and the pain gets bad enough that he/she seeks to solve the problem, or the opportunity to solve the problem presents itself.

Or, the protagonist has a good life, but something happens to challenge that, and he/she seeks to get back to where they were (e.g. getting well after an illness, finding a missing child/spouse, escaping the hurricane).

That’s it. Every plot is a variation on that basic premise.

But how many variations are there?

Joseph Campbell in his book “The Hero With A Thousand Faces”, argues that there’s only one, the monomyth. This is often referred to as the Hero's Journey.

1. Overcoming the monster
2. Rags to riches
3. The quest
4. Voyage and return
5. Comedy
6. Tragedy
7. Rebirth

Ronald B Tobias, in his book, “20 Master Plots And How To Build Them” lists (obviously!) twenty - although he freely admits that this number is arbitrary. They are:

1. The Quest
2. Adventure
3. Pursuit
4. Rescue
5. Escape
6. Revenge
7. The riddle
8. Rivalry
9. Underdog (the ‘One Against’ in the list below)
10. Temptation
11. Metamorphosis
12. Transformation
13. Maturation
14. Love
15. Forbidden love
16. Sacrifice
17. Discovery
18. Wretched excess
19. and 20. (The author puts them together.) Ascension and Descension

James Scott Bell in his book “Plot & Structure” has nine:

1. The Quest
2. Revenge
3. Love
4. Adventure
5. The Chase
6. One Against - the ‘Underdog’ in the list above.
7. One Apart
8. Power
9. Allegory

However, Holly Lisle, my favourite writing mentor, says that these examples are not plots, they're conflicts. She gives lots of good information on developing complex plots in her book Create A Plot Clinic, details below:

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