Basic plot #8: Would you drink that? Image: johnteehan.com
We always think we’re discovering new things, just because we give them new names. And yet, we’re simply rediscovering the wheel.
At least that’s how I felt, when I read The 37 Basic Plots, According to a Screenwriter of the Silent-Film Era on The Slate.
In his 1919 manual for screenwriters, Ten Million Photoplay Plots, Wycliff Aber Hill provided this taxonomy of possible types of dramatic “situations,” first running them down in outline form, then describing each more completely and offering possible variations.
Hill, who published more than one aid to struggling “scenarists,” positioned himself as an authority on the types of stories that would work well onscreen.
Historians Ben Brewster and Lea Jacobs point out that Hill’s book was part of a tradition, citing 19th-century playwriting manuals that likewise listed catalogs of “situations” that could provoke action and frame a plot. Nor was Hill the only screenwriter to publish a list of this type around this time; Frederick Palmers, whose Photoplay Plot Encyclopedia (1922) can be read on the Internet Archive, gathered 36 situations instead of 37.
Image: Slate
Image: Slate
You can read the manual in its entirety (PDF), courtesy of Sribd.com.
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Nicholas, great post. Will be of interest to the screenwriter I’m working with. And for writers too. Read somewhere that there are no new plots. You just need to find a new twist on an old one! Merry (baby’s first) Christmas! ? Chryssa
Thanks! Incidentally, I just checked on baby, and she’s sleeping like a log. Phew! 😀
Ahhh more knowledge NOOOOOOOOO!!!! Your kid is going to be way to smart for her own good…
Nah, I doubt she’ll listen to me. It was part of the contract when we brought her over. You know, all part of the standard “I, the undersigned, agree that the kid will grow up to blame her parents for everything that’s wrong with her life, the life of her friends, her dolls and her pets, and for the extinction of the dinosaurs.”
Wait wait wait. It was MY mom who caused the extinction of the dinosaurs- so you’re totally safe there!
Oh! That can’t be right. I have to check the small print. Where did I leave my glasses…
I’ve seen other versions of this (particularly a 36 plot version). I like the sections in this one. It’s interesting how many different stories can be written from a limited supply of human scenarios.
I know. I feel the same about music. How can we create such beauty from such a limited palette?
I’m intrigued by the “pathetic” situations header. I have to assume “pathetic” meant something different back then. That, or he really just didn’t like mysteries.
Ha ha – hadn’t noticed that 😀
Perhaps it meant ‘pathos’ as in appealing to emotion or eliciting an emotional response. 🙂
I’d certainly hope so! 😀
Ahh yes, that would make sense! I thought it might be something like that.
What an excellent resource! Kudos to the screenwriters–I’ve heard so many skilled and successful authors say how much they learn from screenwriting craft books. I think it’s especially helpful to study story breakdowns like this in order to create more original stories, perhaps by combining two or more of these plot types in a single story, OR of course by turning a common plot arc on its head. You can’t fudge or break rules until you know them, after all.
–Sam Taylor, AYAP Team
Well, well…that really breaks it all down, doesn’t it ??? ☺ Fascinating.
Lol – this sort of guides are more helpful to some, than to others. To me, the fascinating bit was how we keep thinking we’ve reinvented the wheel.
Brilliant. It does feel a little like reinventing the wheel, doesn’t it? Still, great post!
I know. Nothing new under the sun, right? 🙂
A photo of the divine Louise Brooks would have satisfied me, without the addition of the plot information. Thanks for cheering a dull December day with her wonderful bobbed hair, and gorgeous smile.
Best wishes, Pete.
So lovely to meet a fellow fan 🙂
She has been my number one since I was in my teens, Nicholas. A stormy personal life perhaps, but a vision of loveliness on screen.
I salute your taste 🙂
Just ‘wiki’-ed Louise based on your comment. What a woman! 🙂
Glad to interest you in my life-long heart-throb!
I get it. Isn’t there something about things either being comedy or tragedy? I want to say that’s Shakespeare, but I heard it so long ago.
Erm… no idea 😀
This is interesting.
Good to know about it.
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It’s always fun to see how nothing’s truly new in the world 🙂
Yes, the old knowledge being re-new in creative ideas of today. 🙂
All too often, the literary set tend to look down their collective noses at screen writers. My creative writing courses in college was for screenplays, so I’ve never overlooked their abilities, especially when writing dialog.
A great little piece of research Nick.
Glad you enjoyed it! Yes, attitudes can be rather silly…
Once again – a fab post with a morning coffee 🙂
Lol – glad to hear it 🙂