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>A story would in all likelihood involve more than one dramatic situation. The article [...] makes the same mistake right in its title. I'm not making the same

by jasode 6y ago

>A story would in all likelihood involve more than one dramatic situation. The article [...] makes the same mistake right in its title. I'm not making the same mistake and I wasn't equating "situations==stories". Yes, there exists a many-to-1 relationship of situations nested inside of a story ... but that is not relevant to my point. I'm emphasizing the meta layer of creating <n_count_of_buckets> for <any_topic> and how it's arbitrary and subjective instead of being definitive. So your link with extra information of the 37 types is diving deeper in the wrong direction for my purposes. Instead of reading more about 37 situations, we ask where does the number _37_ itself come from? Why not 34 situations? Why not 42?!? Because it's arbitrary and it depends on the human dividing up the mental buckets. E.g. the first paragraph[1] in the article of this thread sort of hints at this "meta" layer arbitrary taxonomy. A bullet summary of differences: - 2 types of stories -- Leo Tolstoy - 3 basic plots -- William Foster-Harris - 20 -- Ronald Tobias - 36 -- George Polti [1] excerpt: "Great literature is one of two stories," we often quote Leo Tolstoy as saying: "a man goes on a journey or a stranger comes to town." That's all well and good for the author of War and Peace, but what about the thousands of screenwriters struggling to come up with the next hit movie, the next hit television series, the next hit platform-specific web and/or mobile series? Some, of course, have found in that aphorism a fruitful starting point, but others opt for different premises that number the basic plots at three (William Foster-Harris), six (researchers at the University of Vermont’s Computational Story Lab), twenty (Ronald Tobias), 36 (George Polti) — or, as some struggling screenwriters of a century ago read, 37.

strogonoff 6y ago
You could have supported your point better by offering an alternative taxonomy of possible dramatic situations. Maybe you could invent one? Either way, the author of the website I have linked concisely sums it up as: > Georges Polti says that all stories boil down to just 36 dramatic situations and takeoffs of those situations. Somebody else out there added #37. If you're stuck for a situation, try this. That’s it. The number is arbitrary to a degree. It’s a tool for writing. It is obvious how situations listed can be segregated more coarsely (just “rivalry” instead of one for equals and non-equals) or finely (see subplots on that resource). Being less specific (fewer categories) ensures relevance over longer period of time and/but leaves more to writer’s interpretation. Looking at successful stories from another angle, one can likely identify a different set of dramatic situations. (edited)

by jasode 6y ago

strogonoff 6y ago

You could have supported your point better by offering an alternative taxonomy of possible dramatic situations. Maybe you could invent one? Either way, the author of the website I have linked concisely sums it up as: > Georges Polti says that all stories boil down to just 36 dramatic situations and takeoffs of those situations. Somebody else out there added #37. If you're stuck for a situation, try this. That’s it. The number is arbitrary to a degree. It’s a tool for writing. It is obvious how situations listed can be segregated more coarsely (just “rivalry” instead of one for equals and non-equals) or finely (see subplots on that resource). Being less specific (fewer categories) ensures relevance over longer period of time and/but leaves more to writer’s interpretation. Looking at successful stories from another angle, one can likely identify a different set of dramatic situations. (edited)