[Search for users] [Overall Top Noters] [List of all Conferences] [Download this site]

Conference noted::sf

Title:Arcana Caelestia
Notice:Directory listings are in topic 2
Moderator:NETRIX::thomas
Created:Thu Dec 08 1983
Last Modified:Fri Jun 06 1997
Last Successful Update:Fri Jun 06 1997
Number of topics:1300
Total number of notes:18728

215.0. "Possibilities II: # of plots" by PENNSY::MORSE () Mon Jun 10 1985 23:36

        I recall once glancing over a writing which stated that there were
only seven basic plots for science fiction stories.  A short reply stated
that there were different theories on the total number of basic plots, 
ranging from four to twenty-eight. Unfortunately, there was no list of 
the basic plots. That is the purpose of this note, to draw up such a list.

       1. Alien contact plots: invasions,first contact etc.
       2. Socciety in space plots: communities where everyone has an assigned 
task, etc.
       3. Exploration of unusual scientific phenomena: "Neutron Star"
    
    That's a very basic starting point. Where can we (no, I am not a Pope
with tapeworm) go from here?

           -- Andy
T.RTitleUserPersonal
Name
DateLines
215.1PEN::KALLISTue Jun 11 1985 12:1224
	4. Survival after disaster/catastrophe plots
	5. Revolution plots: "revolt in 2100" [successful] or "1984" [failure]
	6. Paraosychology plots: "Demolished Man"
	7. Death & Transfiguration plots: "the Paradox Men", "Childhood's End."
	8. Mutant Plots: "Slan", "Telek", "The New Adam"

	However, are these plots really *basic?*  I'd say they were more them-
atic ideas than plots.  F'rinstance: there's this wreck, see, with only one
or a few survivors.  The basic plot is trying to survive off the environ-
ment through a serieds of realizations: a) appreciating predicament, b) find-
ing resources, c) adapting resources to needs, and d) finding or developing
some way out once survival is assured.  This could be: _Robinson Crusoe_,
_Islands In The Sky_, or _The Moon Is Hell_.  One our of three is SF, all
use basically the same *plot*. (Side issues like quarreling among the sur-
vivors doesn't alter the basic plotline.)
	I'd opt we reclassify this as "themes" rather than "plots."  As the
old joke goes, a standard plot os, "Boy meets girl.  Boy loses girl.  Boy
wins girl."; whereas in SF this can be altered to, "Boy meets girl.  Boy
loses girl.  Boy *builds* girl."
	That's a plot; background/conditions is a theme.

regards,

Steve Kallis, Jr.
215.2ALIEN::POSTPISCHILTue Jun 11 1985 12:5610
Re .1:

A theme is a subject of discourse (the topic being talked about) or a written
exercise (a composition).  Background/conditions is called "setting".  The
generalized story plans being discussed are plots (although not very detailed).
To distinguish them from specific plots of individual stories, why don't we
call them "plans"? 


				-- edp
215.3PENNSY::MORSETue Jun 11 1985 22:1311
          Concepts is the term that should be used.  Plans implies more of 
a plot diagram instead of the concept of the whole story.

          I think that we could combine society in space, and revolution
plots in one category of "Future societies"

      
          By the way, it is possible for a story to incorporate more than one
basic concept into a story.

           -- Andy
215.4PEN::KALLISWed Jun 12 1985 18:324
	I like "concepts" as the proper tag.  Shall we agree that concepts is
what this notefile's about?

Steve Kallis, Jr.
215.5BEING::POSTPISCHILWed Jun 12 1985 19:138
Re .4:

That's the third time I've seen you use "notefile" to refer to a note.  A
notefile is something like OLORIN""::SYS$NOTES:SF.NOT, not an entry or a set
of entries in such a file.


				-- edp
215.6PEN::KALLISFri Jun 14 1985 12:443
I should say "file'snote."  How typographically sloppy of me!

Steve Kallis, Jr.
215.7NY1MM::SWEENEYSat Jun 15 1985 02:4114
There are only four plots.  All were elements of Ancient Greek drama and
persist to this day: 

Man against God 

Man against Man 

Man against His Creations

Man against Himself 

(substitute "One" for "Man", if you find the above sexist) 

Pat Sweeney 
215.8PEN::KALLISMon Jun 17 1985 18:5227
re .7

The four plots:
>Man against God
>Man against Man
>Man against His Creations
>Man against Himself
>(substitute "One" for "Man", if you find the above sexist)

  ... hold only on an antagonistic level.  "Boy meets Girl," surely a
basic plot, *could conceivably* br squeezed into "One against One" (to
remove sexist confusion) only under the most convoluted means.  I'm not
quite sure how best (in a non-SF basis) to classify London's _Call of the
Wild_ using those four (items 2 and 4 could apply, in part, with a dol-
lop of item 1 thrown in for good measure).  How does one simplify the
plot of _More Than Human_ among those four.

	Many comedies and a lot of Medieval adventures are based on mis-
understandings (which *could* be twisted into "One against Its Creations"
-- but with difficuty).

	Here we go again into whether this is a "plot" or a "concept" (I'd
say more the latter).  Again, "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" has
*elements* of 2 and 4 in it, but is something else.  Indeed, _Le Morte
D'Arthur_ has *all* the above in it!

Steve Kallis, Jr.
215.9SUPER::KENAHThu Jun 20 1985 21:328
Steve's mention of "Boy meets Girl" reminds me of a generic plot
synopsis for ALL Japanese monster movies...

1. Boy monster meets Girl monster
2. Boy monster loses Girl monster
3. Boy monster destroys Tokyo.

					(-: andrew :-)
215.10new and improvedCACHE::MARSHALLbeware the fractal dragonThu Jul 17 1986 21:3126
    re .8: (I'm sorry this reply is over a year late, I'm new here)
                           ------======------    
    The four plots:
>Man against God
>Man against Man
>Man against His Creations
>Man against Himself
>(substitute "One" for "Man", if you find the above sexist)

  ... hold only on an antagonistic level.  "Boy meets Girl," surely a
basic plot,....
                           ------======------
    I believe without some sort of conflict (antagonism) there is no
    plot. Even love stories contain some conflict and this can always
    be filed under one or more of the basic four.
    
    For science fiction I guess you would have to modify it somewhat.
    how about:
    
    Sentient Being against God, or Universe
    Sentient Being against Sentient Being
    Sentient Being against Its Creations
    Sentient Being against Itself
                                
    
    sm
215.11Plot = Conflict?GAYNES::WALLI see the middle kingdom...Fri Jul 18 1986 12:355
    I always heard those referred to as the four basic types of conflict,
    and not the four basic plots.
    
    Oh, well, it's only semantics, I suppose.
    Dave W.
215.12SF and General Plot StructurePROSE::WAJENBERGFri Jul 18 1986 14:0490
    Joseph Campbell, in "The Hero with a Thousand Faces" (a study of
    mythology), puts forth an outline of what he calls the "Monomyth,"
    the least-common-denominator plot of fairy tales, legends, and 
    heroic myths.  However, it is not that different from the general
    outline of plot used by novelists, critics, publishers, agents,
    and literature teachers.  It goes:
    
    -----
        
    Hero starts out in the mundane world.
    
    Hero encounters the Guardian on the Threshold, a figure who breaks
    into the mundane world and brings the hero into the world of adventure.
    
    Hero encounters a series of helps and hindrances while struggling
    toward the Goal.
    
    Hero achieves Goal.
    
    Hero is escorted or chased out of the world of adventure, back into
    the mundane world, where the hero distributes the benefits of the
    goal.
    
    -----
         
    This, as you can see, is not very different from the outline you
    probably recall from high school English class, "Rising action,
    crisis, resolution, denoument."  The main differences are that the
    Monomyth doesn't require the action to rise as you approach the
    crisis, and the modern-novel outline doesn't make much of the barrier
    between the mundane world and the world of adventure.
    
    I think Campbell's outline is the more general-purpose one.  Most
    good stories and forms of plotted literature can be extracted from
    it if you allow sub-cycles within the main cycle, or repeated cycles,
    and occasional truncations and duplications of pieces.
    
    In science fiction and fantasy, we have a couple of variations typical
    of the genres.  For instance, both often use a "mundane world" that
    is not at all mundane by the reader's own standards.  Thus the author
    plays the role of Guardian at the Threshold as the reader plays
    Hero, the whole work being a safely imaginative adventure for the
    reader.
    
    More reliably, each has characteristic features of the genre's "world
    of adventure."  In fact, most genres are characterized by the "world
    of adventure" they use.  In a romance, the world may be almost entirely
    emotional and crossing the threshold is falling in love.  In a mystery,
    the world is "the case" or "the assignment" that the detective or
    agent has to cope with.
    
    In modern fantasy, the W of A is sometimes a truly distinct world,
    as in Alice's Wonderland and Lookingglass Country, or Narnia, or
    Oz.  In other modern fantasies, and in most traditional myths and
    fairy tales, the W of A has no name, but is that period occupying
    most of the story, in which the hero is liable to meet giants, swan
    maidens, dwarves with their beards caught in stumps, disguised gods,
    and dragons of various species.
    
    Science fiction is not that different, except that the author gives
    the bizarre setting or events some quantity (often small) of scientific
    plausibility.
    
    I think SF has a rather short list of pet strangenesses that
    characterize its various worlds of adventure:
    
    Strange Characters:
    			Aliens (almost always extraterrestrial)
    			Mutants (human and non-human, but usuallu human)
    			Robots, androids, computers
    			Cyborgs (half-robots, so to speak)
    			Adepts (Witches of Karres, Jedi Knights,
    				Bene Gesserit, users of Null-A, etc.)
    			Strange animals & plants (largely obsolete)
    
    Strange Settings:
    			Outer space
    			Other planets
    			Other times
    			Other histories (paratime)
    			Other dimensions (little used now, except to
    				relate fantasy worlds to our own)
    			Strange but earthly lands and seas (obsolete)
    
    All of these are things that science has taken more or less trouble
    to investigate.  Paratime is perhaps the least exploited.  Strange
    but earthly places, people and organisms are so well-exploited,
    there is little room left for fiction in them.
    
    Earl Wajenberg
215.13monomyth commentsJEREMY::REDFORDJust this guy, you know?Sat Jul 19 1986 07:3819
re: .12

Nice point!  It's easy to see how a lot of works fall into this pattern.
Eg., the Guardian at the Threshold in the Lord of the Rings is Gandalf,
that in Foundation is Hari Seldon, and in "The City and the Stars" is 
the Jester.  

To the list of strange settings for sf stories, I would add 
Earth-plus - extrapolations of present society with the addition of 
some element.  This could be new abilities (eg telepathy  in "The 
Demolition Man") or machinery (eg bobbles in "The Peace War" or invisibility
serums in "The Invisible Man") or social changes (eg the dominance of 
advertisers in "The Space Merchants").  The if-this-goes-on technique 
is a favorite in SF, so it probably deserves its own category.

/jlr

PS The novel "Frontera" by Lewis Shiner is explicitly based on "The 
Hero with a Thousand Faces".  I'll have to find this book.