How many basic plots are there?

Answer 1

It depends on how detailed you want to get.

At the crudest there are three:

* Man against man, * Man against nature, * Man against himself. I have a book in my library which lists 40 basic plots. By George Polti. ___ The above and many of Polti's 'plots' are really themes and not plots in the usual sense of story line.

Answer 2

There are typically seven basic plots, which were identified by Christopher Booker in his book "The Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories." These plots are: overcoming the monster, rags to riches, the quest, voyage and return, comedy, tragedy, and rebirth.

Answer 3

Nobody can really decide, but most people think it's seven.

A purely academic perspective:

There are five. All others sprout from those. Psychology aside, plot is defined by the central conflict. The sprouts just make it interesting.

The five possible plots:

1. Man vs. Man - human vs. human, sentient being vs. sentient being.
2. Man vs. Nature - sentient being vs. anything that is of nature or the environment.
3. Man vs. God, the gods, or the supernatural/anything outside of nature that has unnatural advantage over the human/sentient being.
4. Man vs. Self - no other characters necessary, all conflict is internal.
5. Man vs. the Man-made - this is the Frankenstein element, "if you build a monster, it will try to kill you." The argument can be made that this could fall under any of the other four, but that can be countered by the fact that it has been done so completely since Mary Shelley did it, that it has attained status as a separate form.