The 10 types of stories and their “rules”
- monster in the house
examples:
Jaws, Jurrasic Park, Fatal Atraction, Gaslight
The
“house” must be a confined space. There
must be a sin committed prompting the creation of a super-natural monster that
comes to kill those who have committed that sin and spare those who realize
what that sin is. The rest is “run and
hide.” New twists to be found on the
monster, the monster’s powers and the way we say “boo!”
- quest myth The Frame
Story
examples:
Lord of the Rings, Thelma and Louise, Star Wars, Back to the Future, Wizard of
Oz, Odyssey, Gulliver’s Travels, Ocean’s Eleven
Hero goes
“on the road” in search of one thing and winds up discovering himself. The milestones are the people and incidents
that our hero or heroes encounter along the way. The theme is internal growth. It seems episodic but it is connected. The plot is how the incidents affect the
hero. It’s not the incidents, it’s what
the hero learns about himself from those incidents that makes the story work.
- out of the bottle Aladdin
examples: Bruce
Almighty, the Mask, the Love Bug, Flubber, Freaky Friday, Groundhog Day, Liar,
Liar
“What if”
and wish-fulfillment stories don’t have to include luck, magic or divine
intervention. Whatever the device is, a
wish is granted or a curse placed and lives begin to change. The Protagonist has to change his ways and
grow if he is to survive and by doing, he gets what he really wants in the
first place. If it’s wish-fulfillment,
the hero must be a put-upon, under the thumb of those around them person that
deserves the happiness. But he can’t
succeed for too long. The hero must
learn that magic isn’t everything, it’s better to be normal (like the audience)
because in the end, the audience knows this will never happen to them. A good moral must be included at the
end. If it’s a comeuppance tale the
protagonist needs a swift kick in the pants, but there must be something redeemable
about him. So in the course of the tale,
the hero gets the benefit of the magic, even though it’s a curse; and in the
end, triumphs.
- dude with a problem Ali
Baba
examples:
Titantic, Terminator, Schindler’s List, Die Hard
Ordinary
guy meets extraordinary circumstances.
Whether the hero is skilled or not, it’s the relative size of the
challenge that makes these stories work.
Make the bad guy as bad as possible, for the bigger the problem, the
greater the odds for our dude to overcome.
Dude triumphs from his willingness to use his individuality to outsmart
the far more powerful forces aligned against him.
- rites of passage
examples:
40 year old Virgin, Failure to Launch, Bucket List, Hero, Dan in Real Life
In the end,
these tales are about surrendering, the victory won by giving up to forces
stronger than ourselves. The end point
is acceptance of our humanity and the moral of the story is always “That’s
Life!” The structure of this story type
is charted in the hero’s grudging acceptance of the forces of nature that he
cannot control or comprehend, and the victory comes with the hero’s ability to
ultimately smile.
- Love and buddy love
examples:
Don Quixote, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Finding Nemo, How to Lose a
Guy in 10 days, Laurel and Hardy movies, Taming of the Shrew, Much Ado About
Nothing, Bringing up Baby
At first
the pair hate each other, but their adventure together brings out the fact that
they need each other; and realizing this leads to even more conflict. It’s just two people who can’t stand the face
that they don’t live as well without each other, who will have to surrender
their egos to win. Often the story’s
hero will do all or most of the changing while the buddy acts as a catalyst of
change (Lethal Weapon, Rain Man, Disney’s Hercules, E.T.).
- whydunit
examples: Chinatown, All the President’s Men, JFK, Citizen Kane,
Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
“Who” is
never as interesting as the “why.” It’s
about the audience discovering something about human nature they did not think
was possible before the “crime” was committed and the “case” began. The audience is the detective, ultimately;
surrogates in the story do the work but the audience must ultimately sift
through the info and be shocked by what they find. The investigation into the dark side of
humanity is often an investigation into ourselves.
- fool triumphant
examples:
Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Forrest Gump, Get Smart, The Man Who Knew Too
Little
On the
outside he is just the Village Idiot, but further examination reveals him to be
the wisest among us. Being an underdog
gives him advantage of anonymity, and makes villains underestimate his ability,
allowing him the chance to ultimately shine.
Set the underdog against a bigger, more power, and often “establishment”
bad guy. Often, the Fool has an
accomplice, an “insider” who can’t believe the Fool is getting away with it. If the accomplice is a bad guy, the crime is
being close to the idiot, seeing him for what he really is, and being stupid
enough to try to interfere.
- institutionalized
examples:
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Next, MASH, The Godfather, family-based situation
comedies on TV, 9 to 5, Animal House
These
stories are about groups, institutions, families that honor the institution and
expose the problems of losing one’s identity to it. The group dynamic these tales tell is often
crazy and even self-destructive. These
stories are the pros and cons of putting g the group ahead of ourselves. Loyalty to the group sometimes flies in the face
of common sense, but we do it. Often the
story will be told from the point of view of a newcomer.
- superhero
examples:
Gladiator, A Beautiful Mind, Superman, Frankenstein, Dracula, X-Men, Spiderman,
Zoolander
An
extraordinary person finds himself in an ordinary world. It’s often about being misunderstood and
different. The problem of how to have
sympathy for the super-anyone is solved by stressing the pain that goes
hand-in-hand with having these advantages, (this is where the Christopher Nolan
Batman movies nail it!) The hero is admirable
because he eschews his personal comfort in the effort to do what’s right with
the abilities he has got. The creation
myth that begins this story stresses sympathy for the hero’s plight. In truth, we will never truly understand the
Superhero. Our identification with him
must come from sympathy for the plight of being misunderstood.
