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Really? Even the good books or the great are all: Start from a relative calm position and get to know the Characters. Something happens or something lacks. Go d

Really? Even the good books or the great are all: Start from a relative calm position and get to know the Characters. Something happens or something lacks. Go down in the underworld or into danger and returns with something (sometimes knowledge), but is changed. Uses this something to save the world (whatever the world may be, could also be the universe or his family) and arrives again at relative calm.

watwut 4y ago
This assumes that all the great books end well and that they are all adventure books. Also, fairly frequent ending is cliffhanger, where author intentionally ends in conflict and suspense to make you buy next one. Even the Homer Odyssey is more complex then this pattern (except for its most boring chapters).
- number6 4y ago
  I guess you can end a book somewhere before or after the circle completes to have a cliffhanger ending. So maybe the story hasn't ended yet, but the book has. And you are right; not all books are like that: I just finished “Catcher in the Rey”. The protagonist goes through his ordeal totally unchanged; it is infuriating. I wanted to scream: Dude, didn't you get any wiser! On the other hand: He goes from a safe place, in the underworld of NY, through the night, faces dangers, returns home; depressed and tired; having learned… nothing!
wnkrshm 4y ago
I think a lot of the confusion comes from people not separating story and plot. A plot can be the most boring thing ever, the entertainment is in the telling.
tsimionescu 4y ago
While I completely agree that many excellent books/stories follow this format (even some of the best in history, such as the Odyssey, or the Epic of Gilgamesh), this is certainly not a universal structure. Many excellent moving stories follow different conventions, or end the story on different notes. For example, sticking with ancient myths, the story of Orpheus and Eurydice ends with the hero's defeat, he fails his greatest challenge and returns empty-handed, nothing having been resolved, not even any wiser. You could say the story contains the first few elements, but it wildly diverges towards the end.

watwut 4y ago

This assumes that all the great books end well and that they are all adventure books. Also, fairly frequent ending is cliffhanger, where author intentionally ends in conflict and suspense to make you buy next one. Even the Homer Odyssey is more complex then this pattern (except for its most boring chapters).

number6 4y ago
I guess you can end a book somewhere before or after the circle completes to have a cliffhanger ending. So maybe the story hasn't ended yet, but the book has. And you are right; not all books are like that: I just finished “Catcher in the Rey”. The protagonist goes through his ordeal totally unchanged; it is infuriating. I wanted to scream: Dude, didn't you get any wiser! On the other hand: He goes from a safe place, in the underworld of NY, through the night, faces dangers, returns home; depressed and tired; having learned… nothing!

wnkrshm 4y ago

I think a lot of the confusion comes from people not separating story and plot. A plot can be the most boring thing ever, the entertainment is in the telling.

tsimionescu 4y ago

While I completely agree that many excellent books/stories follow this format (even some of the best in history, such as the Odyssey, or the Epic of Gilgamesh), this is certainly not a universal structure. Many excellent moving stories follow different conventions, or end the story on different notes. For example, sticking with ancient myths, the story of Orpheus and Eurydice ends with the hero's defeat, he fails his greatest challenge and returns empty-handed, nothing having been resolved, not even any wiser. You could say the story contains the first few elements, but it wildly diverges towards the end.