Tuesday 6 July 2010

The two types of plot

Somebody once told me that there are only two plots in all fiction: boy leaves home and stranger comes to town. As metaphorical as they are, I'm not sure I trust it. Let's have a look at various film, book, and TV things:
  • The Road There's a lot of leaving home going on here. They find that nice bunker full of peaches and then they leave again. So it happens more than once.
  • Doctor Who In general this seems to be both. The assistant leaves home because the Doctor has arrived, who is pretty strange.
  • The Bourne Identity He's on a journey, but was he ever at home to begin with?
  • District 9 Lots of scaley strangers coming to town. Also, the protagonist is turning into an alien, so that can't be very comfortable.
  • The Lion King It's Hamlet, right? And in Hamlet people go mad, which is strange. This is maybe stretching it slightly. Shakespeare is awkward.
  • Taken Boy leaves home to kill everyone in France. Technically he's an ex-CIA operative, but lets say boy.
  • A Knight's Tale He's definitely leaving home here. He goes back at the end but that doesn't count.
  • Pride and Prejudice Stranger comes to town. In Jane Austen it is always stranger comes to town.
  • Lost Everything at once from ten different viewpoints and alternative timelines. Also: polar bears.
  • Lord of the Rings Probably the definition of boy leaves home.
Does it work? Maybe. But then you could easily write a story that doesn't follow the rules, just to be sly. I did not include sly artists in this list.

3 comments:

  1. What about us grils?

    We are siblings in lion imagery.

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  2. Now I'm going to spend the rest of my afternoon thinking of fiction to disprove this theory. Hm.

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  3. Reminds me of when Godard said that the history of cinema is the history of boys filming girls.

    ReplyDelete