Pick a film, read a book or look at a comic strip. Can you boil the story down its most basic elements? What’s driving this narrative and how is it resolved at the end? What genre is it or is it an amalgam of more than one? Reflect on your findings.
You might want to extend this by finding another story with the same basic structure, but told using a different treatment or genre.
I began this Research Task by searching for theories or ‘rules’ for storyline structures and found there are quite a few, including 4 point, 6 point and 7 point story structures…
Shape of Stories by Kurt Vonnegut
The concept I found particularly interesting was the Shape of Stories put forward by Kurt Vonnegut, which he outlines in the brief video below.
I thought the visual representation of narrative arcs and Vonnegut’s humorous explanations made it easier to comprehend. I also found an infographic of Vonnegut’s concept, which clearly depicts and thus explains each of the shapes that a story can form in the graph format.
(click on image for larger version, opens in new tab)
Source: Visual.ly.
When considering Western films (as in Hollywood, etc. and not specifically cowboy films), I think it would be appropriate to state that the majority of the blockbuster, mainstream output is based on three of the storylines outlined by Vonnegut:
- Man in Hole
- Boy Meets Girl
- Cinderella
The profiles of the visual curves of these three narrative structures have the benefit of ups and downs, which will keep the viewers watching as this allows for the most drama. It’s important to note though that these always end on a high or ‘happily ever after’.
I would suggest that certain horror films, such as Saw (2004) are the exception to this as the prospects for the main characters are on a continuous downward spiral (to put it mildly) and so would be classed as ‘From Bad To Worse’. Having done a previous Research Task on the book The Metamorphosis by Frank Kafka, it was interesting to see that Vonnegut referred to this as another example of this category.
I have noticed that the storylines in many foreign language films, such as French, are often much more ambiguous. These do not have such intense peaks and troughs and have unresolved endings. As such these could be considered more realistic in their depiction of life and, therefore, classed in the ‘Which Way Is Up?’ category. Of course, there are examples of US output that also follows this structure, such as the one given in the diagram of the TV series The Sopranos, which has an open-ended conclusion (much to the frustration of many viewers).
Seven Basic Plots by Christopher Booker
Another theory for story structure is the Seven Basic Plots defined by Christopher Booker in which he suggests that all stories can be categorised into one of seven plot lines, which are fairly self-explanatory:
- Overcoming the Monster
- Rags to Riches
- The Quest
- Voyage and Return
- Rebirth
- Comedy
- Tragedy
Analysing Chosen Story Structure
I chose to analyse the animated short film Wallace and Gromit: The Wrong Trousers (1993) for the purpose of this Research Task.
Source: Radio Times.
The basic elements of the story are:
The goodie (Gromit) has to prevent the baddie (Feathers McGraw) from succeeding in his evil plan.
What’s driving this narrative and how is it resolved at the end?
The narrative in this film is driven by engaging the viewer with the plight of the characters. The story evokes sympathy for Gromit as he is pushed out of his own home and therefore the viewer is rooting for him to return to his rightful place at Wallace’s side. In the end Gromit triumphs, with the questionable ‘assistance’ of Wallace, Feathers is locked up and the reunited pair receive a reward for catching him – thus everything is neatly resolved by the end.
What genre is it or is it an amalgam of more than one?
I would suggest that the overriding genre of the film would be comedy. It does, however, have quite an emotional edge to it so it also could be placed in the sub-category of drama. Alongside this there is also the thriller and horror aspect of Gromit playing detective and battling the evilness of Feathers.
As an observation, I feel this combination of genres demonstrates why The Wrong Trousers is such a successful and timeless film. The creators, Aardman Animations, clearly put so much emphasis on the emotional depth of the story. This skill is also evident in Pixar films, which are repeatedly praised for having such strong, emotionally rich storylines rather than being purely focused on the ‘wow’ factor of the technology used for the animation.
In terms of Booker’s Seven Basic Plots, I believe this story would be categorised as Overcoming the Monster, rather than Comedy, as the main underlying plot line, although humorous, is based on Good defeating Evil.
With reference to Vonnegut’s Shape of Stories, I would classify The Wrong Trousers as Man in Hole. The curve of the story starts goes downwards as the events unfold, before rising back up again at the end when all the loose ends are happily tied up, or as Wallace often says, “All’s well that ends well, eh, Gromit lad?”
Reflect on your findings.
As with most people, I generally do subconsciously tend to loosely place stories into genres. Following this Research Task, I plan to take time to consider this in more depth to understand how this has been achieved.
It is fascinating when one considers that so many stories have been created from such a small selection of basic outline structures and they can all be pared back down again to this origin.
I am especially keen to use Kurt Vonnegut’s Shape of Stories theory to categorise stories, perhaps even try drawing out simple curves of the narrative arc.
Bibliography
Blurb Blog (n.d.) What is Story Structure? Definition, Types, and Elements. Available at: https://www.blurb.com/blog/what-is-story-structure (Accessed 2 June 2023).
Comberg, D. (2010) Kurt Vonnegut on the Shapes of Stories. 30 October Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oP3c1h8v2ZQ (Accessed 2 June 2023).
Flood, A. (2016) Three, six or 36: how many basic plots are there in all stories ever written? Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2016/jul/13/three-six-or-36-how-many-basic-plots-are-there-in-all-stories-ever-written (Accessed 2 June 2023).
Johnson, S. (2019) Kurt Vonnegut on the 8 “shapes” of stories. Available at: https://bigthink.com/high-culture/vonnegut-shapes/ (Accessed 2 June 2023).
O’Hara, T. (2020) The Eight-Point Story Arc: Worth Thinking About? Available at: https://bluepencilagency.com/the-eight-point-story-arc-worth-thinking-about/ (Accessed 2 June 2023).
Popova, M. (n.d.) Kurt Vonnegut’s 8 Tenets of Storytelling. Available at: https://www.themarginalian.org/2012/04/03/kurt-vonnegut-on-writing-stories/ (Accessed 2 June 2023).
Radio Times (n.d.) Wallace & Gromit: The Wrong Trousers. Available at: https://www.radiotimes.com/movie-guide/b-u6ecno/wallace-gromit-the-wrong-trousers/ (Accessed 3 June 2023).
Riddle, H. (2023) The 8 Point Story Arc: What It Is and How to Use This Story Structure. Available at: https://www.scribophile.com/academy/what-is-the-8-point-story-arc (Accessed 2 June 2023).
Swanson, A. (2015) Kurt Vonnegut graphed the world’s most popular stories. Available at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/02/09/kurt-vonnegut-graphed-the-worlds-most-popular-stories/ (Accessed 2 June 2023).
Visual.ly (2023) Kurt Vonnegut – The Shapes of Stories. Available at: https://visual.ly/community/Infographics/other/kurt-vonnegut-shapes-stories (Accessed 2 June 2023).
Wikipedia (n.d.) The Wrong Trousers. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wrong_Trousers (Accessed 3 June 2023).