Simple stories

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Definition of Story Types

As stories have evolved for thousands of years, they began to fall into patterns called story types. These types tend to operate on the same underlying values. They also share similar structures, characters, and what Robert McKee calls obligatory scenes.

But Wait, Do Story Types Really Exist?

First, I want to address some discomfort you might be feeling with this idea. If you think that stories are magical and mystical, and the idea of putting them in a box feels terrible to you, I just want to say, I get that. I feel like that about stories, too!

You see, there are two ways you can figure out the patterns that stories take—the different types of stories.

You can start with stories themselves: looking through hundreds or even thousands until you get to four, seven, twelve, or even thirty-six master plots. This is what Christopher Booker did with his excellent guide The Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories, and you can get breakdowns of each of his types here.

And that can be helpful, certainly, but what about stories that are a little strange, genre-breaking, or out of the box?

Do they not have a “type”?

The other way you can figure out the types of stories is by going deeper, to the underlying reasons humans tell stories in the first place, the reason we've been telling stories for thousands of years, all the way back to the campfire stories our ancestors told each other.

Why do we tell stories? The reason humans have always told stories (and always will) is because we want something.

Maybe we want something as simple as to stay alive. This was one reason our long-ago ancestors told stories about surviving attacks from ferocious beasts.

Maybe we want love or belonging, so we tell great love stories about couples destined (or doomed) to be together.

Maybe we want to become the best version of ourselves. We tell stories about how people have overcome adversity, even pushed back against their narrow-minded communities, to fully self-actualize.

Or maybe we want to tell stories about what it's like to transcend, to go beyond yourself and your circumstances and serve the good of the whole community, the whole world, and so we tell stories about sacrifice and great heroism.