When you steal from one author it's plagiarism; if you steal from many, it's research.
— Wilson Mizner
Over the years, numerous writing instructors have pointed out recurring types of plot patterns. The number of patterns varies. Is it thirty-six? Or three?
No matter what number you prefer, it is helpful to consider different patterns if only to understand what they’re trying to do. Understanding plot patterns helps you gain a clearer comprehension of plot overall.
There is another benefit to studying plot patterns — they may suggest fresh plot ideas to you. While the way a story is told belongs to an author, the pattern does not. Feel free to borrow liberally from the patterns as you brainstorm your own plots.
You can even combine patterns to create a fresh plot. That’s what Dean Koontz does in Midnight, a combination of the film Invasion of the Body Snatchers and H.G.Wells’s The Island of Dr. Moreau. He set it in a contemporary location and peopled it with his own character inventions, and there you have it — an original tale that shot up the bestseller list.
Below are some of the more prevalent plot patterns. I have not attempted to make a complete list. But these patterns seem to recur frequently, suggesting their timeless value.
This may be the oldest plot of all. A hero goes out into the dark world and searches for something. It might be for a sacred item, as in the story of Sir Galahad and the search for the Holy Grail. It might be the search for a person.
The quest for knowledge or inner peace can also form the basis of this plot pattern. The Catcher in the Rye is a quest plot — a young man searches for a reason to live in a world where most people are phonies.
Act I introduces us to the Lead and shows us some inner lack that the quest will help to remedy. If there is no dissatisfaction in the Lead, then there’s no believable motivation for him to go on the quest.
In The Catcher in the Rye, we see in various ways that Holden is not at home in his skin. He is moody, sensitive, and somewhat depressed.
The doorway of no return in Act I is the point at which the Lead commences the quest. In Catcher, it occurs after Holden has a fight with his roommate, Stradlater. This prompts Holden to leave school and go to New York. The quest has begun.
In a quest story, there is a series of encounters along the way, giving the plot an episodic feel. In most of these episodes, the character suffers a setback. That’s the conflict. But as he struggles to overcome each setback, he moves another step closer to his objective, and thus the plot unfolds.
In Catcher, Holden gets a room at a hotel. He then begins a series of encounters with people in the city. There is an encounter with a prostitute and her pimp, and later with a couple of nuns. He has a date with a girl named Sally that ends badly. He gets drunk.
The quest is not going well for Holden.
The second doorway, the doorway that leads to the final act, is usually a major crisis or setback, or some discovery or major clue. In Catcher, Holden ends up in Central Park at night, freezing. He believes he is going to catch pneumonia and die. He has been afraid to go home for fear of what his parents will think of him. But now, thinking that death is near, he wants to see his little sister, Phoebe.
The encounter with his sister leads him to the central revelation of the book. She asks him what he wants to be, and he tells her he wants to be a catcher in the rye, an image of someone who saves children from falling off a cliff.
There is a final haunting image with Phoebe on a carousel, and a famous last chapter that leaves open the question of whether Holden has found what he was looking for.
The quest is a powerful pattern because it mirrors our own journey through life. As we encounter various challenges, we suffer setbacks and victories, but strive to move on. We all have a quest, whether we recognize it or not.
Another of the oldest plot archetypes or patterns is revenge. That is the way tribal man operated. You kill one of my brothers; I go after one of yours. Early storytellers probably inspired the tribe and trained boys with stories of heroic revenge.
Revenge is a gut-level pattern, and therefore highly emotional.
In Act I, the Lead and his ordinary world are introduced. This world is a place of comfort so that, when it is violently disturbed, the reader will easily accept a novel-long desire for revenge.
The disturbance to the world is the wrong.
Following the wrong is a period of suffering. This bonds readers to the Lead, and gives them a rooting interest in the plot to follow.
The Lead is someone who is wronged, or who is close to someone wronged. Charles Portis’s True Grit is about a girl’s revenge when her father is murdered.
The wrong can also occur when the Lead is betrayed (and often left for dead) by a person he believes is a friend or ally. The Hunter, by Donald E. Westlake (as Richard Stark), is an example and forms the basis for the movies Point Blank, starring Lee Marvin, and Payback, starring Mel Gibson.
Or the Lead might be set up to take the fall for a crime he did not commit, as in The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexandre Dumas.
The first doorway of no return is usually when the Lead discovers who did the deed. Or, in the alternative, discovers a way to get at the wrongdoer.
The objective, as we have noted elsewhere, can take one of two forms, to get or to get away from something. In the revenge plot, it is to get revenge. The deeper motive is to restore order. A wrong has been committed, and by getting revenge the Lead hopes to balance the scales of justice.
The Lead will be opposed, usually by the machinations of the one on whom he hopes to exact revenge.
Or the opponent (in the case of Dumas’s tale, three opponents) may not know what’s going on. The Lead is hiding his intentions. The various confrontations he faces will amount to threats to his concealment.
Act II consists of a series of confrontations that keeps the Lead from gaining his objective. He has a chance to kill the opponent but is frustrated by some obstacle. The obstacle may be a circumstance or another character, perhaps an ally of the opponent.
So it goes, back and forth, as the Lead takes steps toward revenge and is set back.
Finally, he is given a prime opportunity — maybe it’s a way to take away the opponent’s own loved one, his business, or his position of power. This is the second doorway, the one leading to the climax.
Or maybe all the powers of the opponent and his allies create the biggest obstacle of all — the Lead is resoundingly defeated and almost dies.
But the Lead survives the major crisis and rebounds to complete his objective or gives it up, as suggested above.
Sometimes the Lead exacts his revenge, and it is satisfying to the reader.
Other times, he may give up his desire for a greater good — mercy or some higher good. This must satisfy the reader through the idea of sacrifice: By giving up his objective, the Lead gains something far worthier. Giving up a desire for raw revenge and replacing it with a desire that puts the greater good first actually restores the balance.
A revenge plot is a great way to explore human nature. The very real emotion of revenge is understood by all of us.
What is the best way to proceed? Is it better to personally seek cosmic justice through revenge or leave it to proper authorities? Is it better to show mercy or is mercy, in some contexts, a fool’s game?
What does the desire for revenge do to a soul, especially if revenge is the objective over a long course of time?
Taking your readers on a revenge ride is a great way to make them turn the pages. When the setup is strong, and the wrong terrible, readers will desire revenge right along with the Lead.
A note of caution: It’s tempting in a revenge plot to make the opponent a 100-percent villain. This is understandable since the writer thinks it will increase readers’ outrage.
Readers, however, will feel manipulated if you do this. Give the opponent his own good reasons for doing what he did. Far from diluting the effect of the revenge motive, it will deepen the reality of your novel in the reader’s mind. And that’s always a good thing.
When it comes to this one, you can have either of the lovers be the Lead character, or create parallel plots with each lover taking a Lead role.
Romeo and Juliet is a parallel love plot. Shakespeare gives us glimpses of each of the lovers apart and then together.
Getting the love of the object of one’s affections is one goal.
Or the lovers may have the objective of getting together in spite of obstacles.
In a classic, one-Lead love story, the opposition can come from the other lover, who does not return the affections of the Lead. Many romantic comedies follow this pattern.
Or there can be a rival for the lover’s affections, and this is the main obstacle for the Lead.
Finally, if the lovers want to be together, the opposition can come from another source: the families, as in Romeo and Juliet, for example.
Love stories can end happily, sadly, or tragically.
Obviously, if the lovers end up together, they’re happy.
If one of the lovers ends up dead, it’s sad.
If both lovers end up dead, then you’ve got a tragedy on your hands, like Romeo and Juliet.
There are numerous variables here, depending on the type of love story. In Act I, for example, the lovers might meet for the first time, and one falls in love with the other. Act II becomes the struggle to gain the love of the other person.
Or perhaps the lovers fall in love with each other in Act I, and Act II introduces something that threatens to keep them apart, as in Romeo and Juliet. The lovers struggle to get together as forces oppose them.
Another popular variant on love, of course, is when the destined lovers hate each other when they first meet, as in the film The African Queen. The challenges they face together draw them toward each other over the course of the story.
In a straight love story, the old formula often is best: boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl.
In other words, the lovers get together, but then something happens to put them in opposition.
This pattern also works well as a subplot.
The classic Frank Capra film, It Happened One Night, is worthy of study as a perfectly structured love story. Clark Gable plays a cynical reporter, and Claudette Colbert is a runaway heiress. He meets her on a bus and they take an instant dislike to each other. But Gable strikes a deal. He won’t reveal her whereabouts if she will give him exclusive rights to her story.
That gives them each an incentive to stay together. And gradually they come to love each other.
But then a huge misunderstanding takes place. Colbert mistakenly believes Gable has run out on her. She thinks he only wanted the story after all. So she returns to the fiancé she does not love. Gable thinks Colbert has run out on him.
This is the circumstance that has them opposed to each other near the end. In the nick of time, the misunderstanding is cleared up and the lovers are reunited.
Love stories are resonant in two ways. If they end happily, it gives us hope. Maybe we can find love in this world, too.
If they end tragically, we have a bittersweet reminder that it is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.
Adventure stories are among the oldest in literature. They originally created a vicarious thrill for the audience, who were usually stuck in one physical location for life.
These stories were also used to inspire and encourage acts of discovery for the benefit of the community.
Are we any less needful of adventure stories today? While we can travel anywhere now, most of us are in predictable life patterns. That’s not necessarily a bad thing; predictability and certainty help us feel secure. But every now and then, we wonder what if we just chucked it all and went looking for adventure?
In the late ’60s there was a TV show called Then Came Bronson, starring Michael Parks. Bronson was a guy who chucked the rat race, got a motorcycle, and just hit the road.
The credits started with Bronson pulling up next to a guy in traffic. The guy looks beat and frustrated. He asks Bronson where he’s going. Bronson shrugs and says, “Wherever I end up, I guess.”
The guy gives a rueful smile and says,“Man, I wish I was you.”
Then Bronson went on his adventure of the week.
To write an adventure story, make the readers wish they were your Lead.
To go on an adventure, you have to leave. In Act I, therefore, the Lead is introduced just before he goes in search of adventure, thus showing briefly the life he’s going to leave behind. There may be various forms of dissatisfaction that the Lead has with his current environment. This may arise out of a real challenge to the Lead’s well-being, as in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, or a perceived need to get out into the world and do something, as in Don Quixote.
Let’s consider The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn for a moment. Despite Mr. Twain’s warning in the foreword that anyone attempting to find a plot in the book will be shot, his title exposes him. The adventures of Huckleberry Finn are the plot.
Huck begins his tale living with the widow Douglas. Then his Pap shows up and takes Huck to his cabin. Eventually, Huck fakes his death and gets to Jackson’s Island, where he meets up with the escaped slave, Jim.
The river portion of the adventure begins, with Jim and Huck floating on a raft down the Mississippi. Then they’re separated. Another adventure involves Huck with the Grangerford family, a reuniting with Jim, more raft time, meeting the Duke and the King, and so on.
What makes the adventure story work here is Huck’s unique voice and the colorful characters he interacts with. In such a plot, the adventures must each stand on their own as mini-plots.
The challenge of the adventure plot is in keeping it from becoming purely episodic. That is, you shouldn’t have the Lead just jump from one episode to another and come out the same at the end.
Character change, or at least reflection, is therefore crucial. As in the quest, the adventurer should come to a new understanding of life, himself, or both.
Most of us have had dreams of being chased. We are trying to get away from some dark figure, but the more we try, the slower we go. It seems as if we’re going to be nabbed for sure.
But then we wake up! And what a relief it is! The threat is over. We have escaped.
The same feeling drives the chase pattern. There is threat, chase, and ultimately relief. If we sympathize with the person being chased, the relief is based on our own feelings of knowing the right person escaped.
If we are on the side of the person chasing, however, our relief is based on a sense of justice that the right person has been caught.
Act I usually establishes sympathy for the Lead, who is forced to run because of some terrible mistake (as in the movie The Fugitive); because he’s getting out of a bad situation (like a prison); or simply because he’s done something wrong for a good reason (Les Misérables).
If the Lead is running, he should be flawed so as not to stack the sympathy deck too high. The chase often brings about a change in the Lead, who learns many things about himself.
Sometimes the Lead is the chaser, as Sheriff Brody is in Jaws.
Usually the chase must come to an end, and we find out who wins. But an ambiguous ending can have a haunting effect. At the end of the classic Warner Bros. movie I am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang, we have Paul Muni fading into the shadows, after being asked how he can continue to survive. “I steal,” he says, as he disappears.
Rudyard Kipling extolled several virtues in his famous poem “If.” One being, “If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs, and blaming it on you …”
There are times we must stand up for what we believe, even if most people are against us. This takes a lot of inner strength, more than in most other plot patterns. We value reputation. The one-against story is powerful because the Lead carries off that moral duty, and we admire him for it.
In Act I, the Lead is presented as someone in the hero mold. He is looked up to by those in his ordinary world. The doorway to Act II comes when the Lead’s world is threatened by the opposition, or when the opposition and Lead declare they are going to fight it out.
In Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Act I introduces Randle Patrick McMurphy, who has arranged to have himself admitted to the psychiatric ward. The ward is dominated by Nurse Ratched. McMurphy wants the men in the ward to get out from under her domination, but they are all afraid of her.
The first doorway occurs when McMurphy gets the men to pretend to watch the World Series on television. Ratched has denied the actual pleasure to the men, so McMurphy uses the power of imagination to get the men excited and involved. The big nurse and McMurphy are now in a war over the men. That’s what occupies Act II.
Act III is the resolution, where the hero’s example to the community inspires a rising up against the opposition, and its ultimate defeat.
Sometimes this is done through self-sacrifice. In One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, it is McMurphy’s attack on Ratched that inspires most of the voluntary inmates to leave. And it is his lobotomy that gets to the Chief. Out of mercy, he smothers McMurphy, and then throws a control panel through a window and escapes into life.
The Western film High Noon, scripted by Carl Foreman and directed by Fred Zinneman, is a classic one-against plot. Will Kane is the hero of the town, and he’s just retired and gotten married. But as the wedding ends he learns that the killer he put away, Frank Miller, has been pardoned by the governor and is on his way to town on the noon train. He has vowed to kill Kane and has three other gunslingers waiting to help him do it.
Kane is urged to flee with his new bride, but just outside of town he decides he can’t run. He turns back. He still feels it is his duty to protect the community. Besides, he’ll get enough men to join him as a posse, and it will be easy.
Act II, however, proves to be a confrontation not with the killers, but with the town itself. Kane is unable to get anyone to join him. In a twist on one against, it is the community that becomes the opposition. They want Kane to leave because any gunplay will hurt them with the state government, and so on. Everyone has an excuse not to help.
In Act III, there is the conflict with the killers that must be resolved. Kane, with the surprising help of his wife, manages to kill all the bad guys.
But what of his relationship to the community? In this case, the hero turns away. Kane drops his badge in the dirt and, without a word, rides away for good with his wife by his side.
Another great one-against movie is Twelve Angry Men, directed by Sidney Lumet and written by Reginald Rose. Henry Fonda plays the one juror who is holding out for a not guilty verdict in a murder trial. He is one against the other eleven.
Therein lies the conflict. I recommend the movie for its sense of pace and tension. It will show you that you don’t need a lot of physical action in your plot to create a gripping read. All it takes is characters (in this case twelve of them) who are passionately committed to their beliefs.
In contrast to one against, the one-apart Lead does not seek confrontation. He is not standing up for any great principle. He is the anti-hero, who merely wants to be left alone. But events keep going against him and force his hand.
The anti-hero is portrayed in various ways as being apart from the larger community, preferring to live by his own code. For example, Hank Stamper in Ken Kesey’s Sometimes a Great Notion is not interested in compromise or accommodation.
The quintessential anti-hero in Casablanca is Rick. As he says in Act I, “I stick my neck out for nobody.”He is allowed to run his saloon in Casablanca because he is completely neutral on the war. He does have a certain code of decency that surfaces on the sly, such as when a young girl seeks his help because her husband loses their money at the gambling tables.
Act II is about forces coming against the Lead, forcing a confrontation the Lead does not desire. Rick does not want to get between the Nazis and the resistance leader, Viktor Lazlo. But when Lazlo turns up in the saloon with his wife, Ilsa, who happens to be Rick’s former lover, he can’t avoid the confrontation.
In Act III, either the Lead continues to live apart, reasserting his rights as an anti-hero, or he comes back into the community.
In Sometimes a Great Notion, Hank Stamper resists until death and even afterward, when his hand (with upraised middle finger) remains as a sign of his spirit.
Rick, on the other hand, decides to rejoin the war effort. “Welcome back to the fight,” Lazlo tells him. “This time I know our side will win.”
We are fascinated by power. Most of us never wield very much of it. We cannot move world financial markets, like Gordon Gekko in the movie Wall Street. And most of us will never oversee a vast criminal empire, like Vito and Michael Corleone in The Godfather.
But we love seeing what it would be like.
The power pattern is all about a rise and fall, or a rise with a moral cost. Power is not seen as something a person handles well. The Ring of Power in The Lord of the Rings is a dangerous item to the one who possesses it.
The Godfather is a novel about the rise to power of Michael Corleone (see notes on the structure of the novel in chapter two).
Michael’s position in Act I is to stay out the family “business.”He is motivated to get involved only after his father, Don Corleone, is nearly assassinated by rivals.
As Michael rises in influence, we begin to see the moral cost he is paying for all the power he gains.
In Act III, we see that Michael lies to his own wife, Kay, about the murder of his sister’s husband. He has become corrupt, and the last line has Kay saying “the necessary prayers for the soul of Michael Corleone.”
This is a special sort of pattern. It can come in many plot forms, but in the end, the pattern is that the characters represent ideas, and the events of the story are meant to show the consequences of those ideas.
George Orwell’s Animal Farm is an obvious allegory about totalitarianism. C. S. Lewis’s Narnia novels are about Christianity.
J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings is sometimes read as an allegory about the eternal struggle of good versus evil and the temptation of power. Tolkien claimed he was creating myth, which I see as allegory on steroids.
Moby Dick is another huge allegorical novel, full of symbolism.
Jack London’s The Call of the Wild has allegorical significance. It is a dog story on the surface, the story of a domestic dog living the civilized life, forced into survival mode when dognapped and sent to the Klondike. Upon Buck’s return to nature, he overcomes great odds to become not only the Lead dog, but the legendary “Ghost Dog.”
Under the surface, however, London’s philosophy of the survival of the strong is at play, showing his chief influences of the time — Darwin and Nietzsche.
Notice, however, that all of these novels follow the three-act structure. If you analyze them, you’ll see they all do the tasks the three acts demand, and in the proper order. That is why they work.
In The Call of the Wild, Act I is in civilization, and Act II is Buck struggling between two worlds. Act III is the slide into the wild for good.
Moby Dick is three acts as well: Ishmael on land. The pursuit of Moby Dick. The battle with Moby Dick.
Allegory is difficult to do well since it may come off as merely preaching in the guise of an imaginative tale. If you choose this pattern, be sure to work hard on all the elements of plot discussed in this book. Make the characters real and not just stand-ins for your ideas.
Analyze some of your favorite novels. Can you recognize each plot as a familiar pattern or combination of patterns?
Analyze the structure of the novels you selected. Write down what happens in each act.
Choose one of the above patterns and sketch out a fresh plot based on it. Don’t worry about making it too original at this point. Just write a two- or three-page narrative, with characters you make up. This will give you a feel for structure in pattern.
Do the above, only this time combine two of the patterns.