The 7 original stories - Part 2

All good stories have one (or more) plots. A plot is the basic structure or the skeleton of the story and since the beginning of time, different plots have been categorized in order to tell the difference between the types of stories. Most of these stories have a main character (hero, anti-hero, villain, etc.) and describing the plot often relates to this main character.

Are you familiar with “the 7 original stories” ? (See part 1 here >> )

Read this in Danish here >>

I will explain the last 3 of the 7 original stories here, and hopefully, this will give you some insight into the story you’re working on right now or maybe even what kind of plot you think is the most exciting to read or work with. It can be a great place to start, just to have something to guide you, when you’re all caught up in writing.

The Comedy

The comedy should really have a blogpost to itself, because it covers so much and in my eyes isn’t ‘just’ a description of a type of story or plot, but rather a mood of genre. Most stories when boiled down, are either comedy, tragedy or a tragicomedy (a mix of the two).

Some of the sharpest (classically dramatic) comedies are written by Shakespeare and Holberg, where the characters face some obstacles and conflicts, that just become bigger and bigger, only to end up with either a very simple solution or no solution at all, because the conflicts might even have been superfluous, ridiculous or without meaning or real impact. The whole plot then resolves in a happy, joyful ending and the conflicts are resolved or disappears.

Most romcoms (Romantic comedies) are comedies, like Mr. Bean or most movies with Jennifer Aniston in them (Rumor has it, Picture perfect, etc.)

The Tragedy

Just as the comedy, the tragedy should have a dedicated blogpost, as I see it more as a general category more than a plot/story-category in itself. Most people have an idea of what a tragedy is, but here is a general description;

Usually it involves one or more protagonists (or characters to sympathize with), but they are unlucky, make mistakes or bad decisions, maybe they even have a personality that gets in their way, even though they are “the good ones”. The outcome of the story is almost never to the advantage of the protagonist, even though we cheer for them, which is why it is tragic. We think they deserved better.

Most will know stories such as Hamlet, Romeo & Juliet or the Disney version of Hamlet: Lion King. (Hamlets dad/Simbas dad is killed by his uncle, and the uncle then takes the kingdom etc.) These are all tragedies and I’m sure you can think of a lot more!

The Rebirth

The Protagonist starts out being in a certain way and throughout the events of the story, they are forced (or need) to change, either in their looks, habits, social status, personality etc. Usually, the personality is the element that changes and something else follows as a sort of bonus or a reward, like in Beauty and the Beast, where the Beast changes his personality, falls in love and then is rewarded by being able to return to his human form – and he gets Belle too.