The Seven Basic Plots

Voyage and Return: Summing up
A fourth way in which a story may take shape in the human imagination shows the hero or heroine being abruptly transported out of their `normal' world into an abnormal world, and eventually back to where they began. The pattern of such a story is likely to unfold like this:
1. Anticipation Stage and fall' into the other world: When we first meet the hero, heroine or central figures, they are likely to be in some state which lays them open to a shattering new experience. Their consciousness is in some way restricted. They may just be young and naive, with only limited experience of the world. They may be more actively curious and looking for something unexpected to happen to them. They may be bored, or drowsy, or reckless. But for whatever reason, they find themselves suddenly precipitated out their familiar, limited existence, into a strange world, unlike anything they have experienced before.
2. Initial fascination or Dream Stage: At first their exploration of this disconcerting new world may be exhilarating, because it is so puzzling and unfamiliar. But it is never a place in which they can feel at home.
3. Frustration Stage: Gradually the mood of the adventure changes to one of frustration, difficulty and oppression. A shadow begins to intrude, which becomes increasingly alarming.
4. Nightmare Stage: The shadow becomes so dominating that it seems to pose a serious threat to the hero or heroine's survival.
5. Thrilling Escape and return: Just when the threat closing in on the hero or heroine becomes too much to bear, they make their escape from the other world, back to where they started. At this point the real question posed by the whole adventure is: how far have they learned or gained anything from their experience? Have they been fundamentally changed, or was it all `just a dream'

5. The Goal: After a last `thrilling escape from death, the kingdom, the `Princess' or the life-transforming treasure are finally won: with an assurance of renewed life stretching indefinitely into the future

The basic Quest story unfolds through a series of stages like this:
1. The Call: Life in some `City of Destruction' has become oppressive and intolerable, and the hero recognises that he can only rectify matters by making a long, difficult journey. He is given supernatural or visionary direction as to the distant, life-renewing goal he must aim for.
2. The Journey: The hero and his companions set out across hostile terrain, encountering a series of life-threatening ordeals. These include horrific monsters to be overcome; temptations to be resisted; and, probably the need to travel between two equally deadly `opposites'. These each end with a `thrilling escape, and the ordeals alternate with periods of respite, when the hero and his companions receive hospitality, help or advice, often from `wise old men' or `beautiful young women'. During this stage the hero may also have to make a `journey through the underworld', where he temporarily transcends the separating power of death and comes into helpful contact with spirits from the past, who give him guidance as to how to reach his goal.
3. Arrival and Frustration: The hero arrives within sight of his goal. But he is far from having reached the end of his story, because now, on the edge of the goal, he sees a new and terrible series of obstacles looming up between him and his prize, which have to be overcome before it can be fully and completely secured.
4. The Final Ordeals: The hero has to undergo a last series of tests (often three in number) to prove that he is truly worthy of the prize. This culminates in a last great battle or ordeal which may be the most threatening of all.

Fourthly, in the most fully-differentiated form of the relationship between the Quest hero and his companions, the latter are each given distinct characteristics which complement each other, and add up to a 'whole'. In Watership Down, for instance, the hero and leader of the rabbits is Hazel.

Firstly, the hero's companions may simply be a large number of undifferentiated appendages, few if any of whom we even know by name. Such are the twelve boatloads of men who set out from Troy with Odysseus, Aeneas's Trojans or the main body of the Jews who accompany Moses.
Secondly, the hero may have an alter-ego who has no real distinguishing mark except his fidelity. Christian, for instance, has Faithful; Aeneas's close friend is `fidus Achates'; Frodo in The Lord of The Rings has the `faithful Sam Gamgee'2 (another instance of this relationship in a quite different type of story is Hamlet's with his `faithful Horatio').
Thirdly, the hero may have a subtler type of alter-ego whose role is to serve as a foil, displaying qualities the opposite of those shown by the hero. In

Rags to Riches: Summing up
A second way in which a story naturally takes shape in the human imagination is that which shows how some young, unrecognised hero or heroine is eventually lifted out of obscurity, poverty and misery to a state of great splendour and happiness. But their upward progress is unlikely to be a continuous unbroken climb, and most Rags to Riches stories, except the very simplest versions, may well unfold through a recognisable series of stages like this:
1. Initial wretchedness at home and the `Call': We are first introduced to the young hero or heroine in their original lowly and unhappy state, usually at home. The most obvious reason for their misery is that they are overshadowed by malevolent `dark' figures around them, who scorn or maltreat them. This phase ends when something happens to call or send them out into a wider world.
2. Out into the world, initial success: Although this new phase maybe marked by new ordeals, the hero or heroine are here rewarded with their first, limited success, and may have some prevision of their eventual glorious destiny. They may make a first encounter with their `Princess' or `Prince, and may even outstrip `dark rivals'; but only in some incomplete fashion, and it is made clear that they are not yet ready for their final state of complete fulfilment.
3. The central crisis: Everything suddenly goes wrong. The shadows cast by the dark figures return. Hero or heroine are separated from that which has become more important to them than anything in the world, and they are overwhelmed with despair. Because of the earlier lift in their fortunes, and because they are so powerless, this is their worst moment in the story.
4. Independence and the final ordeal: As they emerge from the crisis, we gradually come to see the hero or heroine in a new light. Although still unfulfilled, they are discovering in themselves a new independent strength. As this develops, it must at last be put to a final test, again usually involving a battle with some powerful dark figure who stands, as a dark rival, between them and their goal; and this forms the climax to the whole story. Only when this has been successfully resolved, and the shadow over their lives wholly removed, are they at last liberated to move to the final stage.
5. Final union, completion and fulfilment: Their reward is usually a state of complete, loving union with the `Princess' or `Prince'. They may also finally succeed to some kind of `kingdom, the nature of which is not spelled out but which, from their mature and developed state, implies a domain over which they will rule wisely and well. The story thus resolves on an image which signifies a perfect state of wholeness, lasting indefinitely into the future ('they lived happily ever after').

`Though for the moment K. was wretched and looked down on, yet in an almost unimaginable and distant future he would excel everybody.'
Franz Kafka, The Castle
Again and again in the storytelling of the world we come across a certain image which seems to hold a peculiar fascination for us. We see an ordinary, insignificant person, dismissed by everyone as of little account, who suddenly steps to the centre of the stage, revealed to be someone quite exceptional

At the most basic level, whenever we identify with the fate of a hero or heroine, we share their experience as the story unfolds in a particular sense. As they face ordeals, or come under threat, so we feel tense and apprehensive; even in extreme cases so terrified that we can scarcely bear to watch or listen. As the threat is lifted, we can relax. Our own spirits are enlarged. In other words, along with the story's central figure, we feel a sense either of constriction, or of liberation; either of being shut in and oppressed, or of being opened out. And in a story which is well-constructed, these phases of constriction and release alternate, in a kind of systole-diastole rhythm which provides one of the greatest pleasures we get from stories.
But of course these alternations are not evenly pitched throughout the story. As it unfolds, the swings from one pole to the other may become more extreme until usually the most violent of all comes just before the end, with the story's climax. This is the point where the pressure of the dark power is at its greatest and most threatening, followed by the miraculous reversal and release of the ending

Overcoming the Monster: Summing up
One way in which a story seems naturally to form in the human imagination shows the hero being called to face and overcome a terrible and deadly personification of evil. This threatening figure is defined by the fact that it is heartless, egocentric and seemingly all-powerful, although we ultimately see that it has a blind spot which renders it vulnerable. As the story is usually presented, there is a long build-up to the final decisive confrontation, and the story is likely to to run through these five stages:
1. Anticipation Stage and `Call': We usually first become aware of the monster as if from a great distance, although in some stories we may be given some striking glimpse of its destructive power at the outset. Although initially we may see it as little more than a vaguely menacing curiosity, we gradually learn of its fearsome reputation, and how it is usually casting its threatening shadow over some community, country, kingdom or mankind in general. The hero then experiences a `Call' to confront it.
2. Dream Stage: As the hero makes his preparations for the battle to come (e.g., as he travels towards the monster or as the monster approaches), all for a while may seem to be going reasonably well. Our feelings are still of a comfortable remoteness from and immunity to danger.
3. Frustration Stage: At last we come face to face with the monster in all its awesome power. The hero seems tiny and very much alone against such a supernaturally strong opponent. Indeed it seems that he is slipping into the monster's power (he may even fall helplessly into the monster's clutches), and that the struggle can only have one outcome.
4. Nightmare Stage: The final ordeal begins, a nightmare battle in which all the odds seem loaded on the monster's side. But at the climax of the story, just when all seems lost, comes the `reversal'.
5. The Thrilling Escape from Death, and Death of the Monster: In the nick of time, the monster is miraculously dealt a fatal blow. Its dark power is overthrown. The community which had fallen under its shadow is liberated. And the hero emerges in his full stature to enjoy the prize he has won from the monster's grasp: a great treasure; union with the `Princess'; succession to some kind of `kingdom.

Despite such caricatures, the significance of the thrilling escape from death runs very deep. It is one of the most consistent motifs in storytelling, cropping up again and again in stories of every kind. And it is hardly surprising that we should find stories based on little else but the build-up to a thrilling escape