Researchers analysed 1700 novels to reveal six story types • Hacker News Board

Re: Researchers analysed 1700 novels to reveal six story types

#101

Post by CuriouslyC » Mon, Oct 29, 2018, 3:02 PM UTC

rayalez wrote: post #58

There are dozens of writing mentors/gurus, and every one of them has discovered the story structure, or the 3/7/10/50 basic plots. All of them are different. From vague and meaningless "beginning-middle-end but not always in the same order" to Blake Snyder's Beat Sheet or Dan Harmon's story circle(Campbell's hero's journey). They all are kinda true, for the same reason you can find the proof of UFO in the Bible, or d…

You misunderstood the research in the article. They aren't saying that there are only 6 plots, rather that there are 6 basic progressions of valence (i.e. mood of the story) that almost all stories are minor variations of. There are of course variations that are outliers, and the way in which these valence transitions occur differs from story to story, but the emotional "ride" these progressions create should be very similar.

Re: Researchers analysed 1700 novels to reveal six story types

#102

Post by CuriouslyC » Mon, Oct 29, 2018, 3:08 PM UTC

yellowapple wrote: post #89

thinkingemote wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are no television scripts in the article.

Indeed, hence the curiosity. The article (both title and content, and the original title of the HN post before it got changed for some reason) claims that every story follows one of the proposed six plots, and the lack of any discussion of non-novels betrays a narrow definition of "story" in order to justify that claim. Even revising the claim to "all novels follow these plots" is surely easy to disprove given the re…

Any television series with a plot arc is going to have multiple stories occurring simultaneously, starting and ending asynchronously. Each of those stories will likely follow a valence arc like the ones described in the article if analyzed independently.

Re: Researchers analysed 1700 novels to reveal six story types

#103

Post by CuriouslyC » Mon, Oct 29, 2018, 3:52 PM UTC

nprateem wrote: post #29

sambeau wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I blame Joseph Campbell for ruining modern cinema with it's simplistic boring plots (like Star Wars's) where yet another hero battles some evil tyrant to save the world, universe or forest. There are so many more interesting, surprising stories to be told that leave the viewer with unresolved things to think about and captivating cul-de-sacs along the way. The 1970s films were full of odd, interesting plots and films…

Agreed. Hollywood wanted a formula and found one in Campbell. After reading that book or others about the "hero's journey" most mainstream films are quite bland. Having said that, there are only 7 notes in the major scale and look what that's done for us...

The evolution of music in the 21st century is all about creative deviation from music theory, so I'd say your analogy isn't saying what you intended it to.

Re: Researchers analysed 1700 novels to reveal six story types

#104

Post by stewbrew » Tue, Oct 30, 2018, 4:05 PM UTC

sacado2 wrote: post #69

stewbrew wrote: post #33

Or maybe, every story has one of this one basic plot: (1) setup/intro/beginning, (2) stuff happens, (3) things somehow come to an end (for now).

Not sure you even need the first part. A character has a problem and tries to solve it, until he either succeeds or definitely fails. Lots of stories start with a conflict at the very first line, without any kind of setup (especially thrillers).

Well, most stories somehow try to establish who is the protagonist of what follows.

Re: Researchers analysed 1700 novels to reveal six story types

#105

Post by pssflops » Tue, Oct 30, 2018, 5:29 PM UTC

sacado2 wrote: post #67

mrob wrote: post #21

Counterexample: A poor man finds a magic lamp. He summons the genie, and wishes for great fortune. (Rags to riches.) He makes another wish, and it horribly backfires. (Icarus.) No longer trusting genies, he wishes he'd never found the lamp. The genie rewinds time. A poor man finds a magic lamp.... (Infinite loop plot not included in the classification.) EDIT: Downvoter, how would you classify this story?

There's a traditional variant of this schema: A poor man uses all his money to buy a horse. "You must be happy", his neighbor says. "I don't know", answers the man. The next day, the horse escapes. "Your hard-earned money, and your horse, both gone. You must be sad", his neighbor says. "I don't know", answers the man. A few days later, the horse comes back, with a female horse. "Now you have two horses, and very soon…

"There are two tragedies in life. One is to lose your heart's desire. The other is to gain it.” ― George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman