What Are the Seven Basic Plots?
Quick answer: The seven basic plots from Christopher Booker's theory: overcoming the monster, rags to riches, the quest, voyage and return, comedy, tragedy, rebirth.
The seven basic plots, as catalogued by Christopher Booker in his 2004 book of that name, are: overcoming the monster, rags to riches, the quest, voyage and return, comedy, tragedy, and rebirth. Booker's claim, built over thirty-four years of reading, is that nearly every story ever told follows one of these deep patterns, or combines two or three of them. Each plot is defined not by its scenery but by the shape of the protagonist's fortune and inner change.
Treat the list as a map, not a cage. Knowing which of the seven your story leans on tells you what readers will unconsciously expect from its middle and its ending, which you can then satisfy or deliberately frustrate. Writers argue endlessly about whether there are seven, twenty, or two plots; the arguing is itself useful, because it forces you to see structure.
The seven, briefly and honestly
Overcoming the monster: a hero confronts a threatening evil and destroys it, from Beowulf to Dracula to most thrillers. Rags to riches: an overlooked protagonist rises, is often humbled mid-story, and rises again with earned maturity, Cinderella, Great Expectations, and half of Dickens. The quest: a journey toward a vital goal through escalating trials, the Odyssey being the standing example. Voyage and return: a protagonist falls into a strange world, is first enchanted then threatened, and escapes home changed, Alice in Wonderland, Robinson Crusoe.
Comedy, in Booker's structural sense, is not jokes but confusion resolved: identities, misunderstandings and separations tangle until a recognition scene untangles them into union, the engine of Shakespeare's comedies and every romantic comedy since. Tragedy is the fortune curve inverted: a protagonist's flaw draws them down through temptation to destruction, Macbeth, Anna Karenina. Rebirth: a protagonist falls under a shadow, a curse, a bitterness, a frozen heart, and is redeemed, with A Christmas Carol as the pure case.
Booker also conceded dark and sentimental variations of each, and admitted some works, especially modern ones, resist the grid entirely. The grid is a lens, not a law of physics.
Where the theory comes from, and its rivals
Booker worked in a loosely Jungian tradition, reading the plots as expressions of psychological development. His book drew both admiration for its range and sharp criticism for forcing awkward cases and for judging modern literature harshly when it deviated. Read it for the pattern-spotting, not the verdicts.
Rival counts exist and are worth knowing. Georges Polti offered thirty-six dramatic situations in 1895. Kurt Vonnegut mapped a handful of fortune curves, man in hole, boy meets girl, drawn as graphs of good and ill fortune over time. Researchers who later ran computational analysis over thousands of novels found around six basic emotional arcs, an unexpected echo of these older intuitions. The lesson from every counting scheme is the same: readers navigate stories by a small set of deep shapes they have known since childhood.
How to use the seven plots in your own work
Diagnose, then design. When a draft wobbles, name its underlying plot. A rags-to-riches story usually needs its central humbling; a voyage and return needs the turn where enchantment becomes threat; a rebirth needs a credible agent of thaw, someone or something that reaches the frozen protagonist. Once named, the missing organ is often obvious.
Combining plots is normal and old. A novel can run overcoming the monster outside and rebirth inside; many great stories do exactly that pairing. In short fiction, choose one plot and compress it to its two or three load-bearing beats rather than miniaturising all of them. If you are writing for a contest deadline, this is a fast way to give a 1,500-word draft a recognisable spine that blind judges can feel scoring structure, without a word of wasted scaffolding.
Common mistakes and misconceptions
The first misconception is that seven plots means seven stories, and therefore originality is impossible. The plot is the skeleton; voice, character, setting and detail are the living body, and no two bodies match. Chekhov and a Hollywood studio can both use rebirth and share nothing visible.
The second mistake is forcing a story into a plot it does not want, trimming true material because the grid disapproves. Use the patterns to find what a draft is reaching for, never to amputate what makes it odd. Third, beginners sometimes treat the list as a formula generator, picking a plot and filling slots; the result reads exactly like that. Start from character and situation, then let the seven plots explain the shape you find yourself building.
What poets can take from this
- Name your draft's underlying plot, then check it has that plot's load-bearing organ.
- Combine an outer plot with an inner one, monster outside, rebirth inside, for depth.
- In short fiction, compress one plot to its essential beats rather than shrinking them all.
- Read Booker for patterns and Polti or Vonnegut's curves for alternative lenses.
- Never trim a story's strangeness to fit a diagram.
Try it yourself
Take the rebirth plot and stage it in a single evening: a character who has refused all invitations for a year attends one dinner. Decide what froze them, and let one guest, unknowingly, be the agent of thaw. No flashbacks allowed.
Questions
Who came up with the seven basic plots?
The journalist and critic Christopher Booker published The Seven Basic Plots in 2004 after decades of work. The idea that all stories reduce to a few shapes is much older, with Polti's thirty-six situations appearing in 1895 and similar claims going back to antiquity.
Are the seven basic plots scientifically proven?
No, they are a critical framework rather than a finding, and Booker's classifications are contested. Computational studies of novels have identified about six broad emotional arcs, which supports the general idea of few deep shapes without confirming his exact list.
By the Writory editorial team, reviewed by working poets. Updated July 2026.
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