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The Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories | 
 enlarge | Author: Christopher Booker
Publisher: Continuum International Publishing Group
Category: Book
List Price: $39.95
Buy New: $28.81
You Save: $11.14 (28%)
New (1) Used (10) from $28.78
Avg. Customer Rating:  12 reviews
Sales Rank: 828411
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 736
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.8
Dimensions (in): 9.2 x 6.5 x 2.2
ISBN: 0826452094
Dewey Decimal Number: 809.924
EAN: 9780826452092
ASIN: 0826452094
Publication Date: January 31, 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
From The Epic of Gilgemesh to Jaws and Schindler's List, Christopher Booker examines in detail the stories that underlie literature and the plots that are basic to story telling through the ages. In this magisterial work he examines the plots of films, opera libretti and the contemporary novel and short story. Underlying the stories he examines are Seven Basic Plots: rags to riches; the quest; voyage and return; the hero as monster; rebirth and so on. Booker shows that the images and stories serve a far deeper and more significant purpose in our lives than we have realised. In the definition of these basic plots, Booker shows us we are entering a realm in which the recognition of the plots proves only to be the gateway. We are in fact uncovering a kind of hidden universal language: a nucleus of situations and figures which are the very stuff from which stories are made. With Booker's exploration, there is literally no story in the world which cannot be seen in a new light: we have come to the heart of what stories are about and why we tell them. Here, Christopher Booker moves on from some of the themes he outlined in his hugely bestselling book The Neophiliacs. Seven Basic Plots is unquestionably his most important book to date.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 7 more reviews...
 100% excellent November 30, 2008
I've read many books on writing. This one is 100% excellent. It is a master work, abounding with useful and profound information. Truly, I'm in awe of what Christopher Booker has accomplished in his treatment of plots. Each of the seven is enunciated with great clarity and numerous examples. Writers of fiction will find the concepts illuminating and inspiring.
 Overwhelmed by the Ego September 6, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This review is just to cover several points that Olly Buxton's and Allen Smalling's excellent review did not stress. While I could shrug off the author's dismissal of books that didn't fit into the archetypes (a criticism of Buxton and Smalling), there are some other serious problems with this book.
1. As Allen Smalling suggests, a la Orwell's observation that inside every fat man is a thin man trying to get out, there is a provocative, insightful much smaller book hidden away in this bloated beast. But it is buried under endless plot summaries. The top of every page in the first half could have a "***spoiler warning***" on it. If you've already read the book/play/movie, the plot summary is likely to be boring. If you think you might want to read the book some day, it could ruin it. That means that the only summaries that are worth reading are for books that you know you have no desire or time to read. And quite frankly, anyone reading a 700+ page book on plot probably has already read most of these books and seen the same movies and plays. And the redundancy! The author shows how a story fits into one plot pattern and then summarizes again to show how it fits into another. He does this over and over again. In terms of the author's language, his Ego has become out of balance.
There are some great moments in this book, like showing how Big Bang theory fits into the archetypes and the comparison of the Book of Job and _Nineteen Eighty-four_. I'm also sure that I'll use some of Booker's terminology like `going below the line'. And no matter how irascible his style of criticism is, it does get at why certain works feel ultimately unsatisfying and why others are so enduring and innovative. But Smalling hit it on the head when he called this book `inefficient'. This is a book to be skimmed.
2. This book is a dinosaur. As I was finishing it up, I thought, `Books like this started dying out -- or rather got ridden out on a rail -- in the 1970s.' Then sure enough, the author's note at the end said it took 34 years to write. The reason people don't write books like this anymore is that you get slaughtered by the charge of ethnocentrism. Except for a few moments when it says it is about Western story-telling over the last 200 years, the book purports to be about all story-telling. All. It, however, commits a huge fallacy: it looks almost solely at Western stories and then tries to root them in biology -- as if the West exhausts the range of human experience. Similarly, the author's notions of gender do not appear to have changed since the 1950s and he talks blithely about `light' versus `dark' without any recognition whatsoever of the pervasiveness of racism to world history for the last five hundred years. (Towards the end he does briefly talk about feminism and that only reinforces the sense that he still refuses to accept that the Sixties happened.)
Before I read this book, I naively believed that there were a small and set number of plots. Contra its intentions, the book convinced me that that is not true. It gives so much evidence of constant human ingenuity to create more plots. So the would-be writers who give this four or five stars, as a reader, I hope instead of trying to use the plots described in this book as templates, you use it as a catalog of cliches and try to push beyond them.
Great work ... not the end of the story April 26, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Many reviews here both positive and negative describe this facinating work in great detail ... consider whichever of them you will, then factor this into your decision: Everything you are ever told is an opinion. That's true of Mr. Booker's book and the reviews expressed here. I read not to agree with the author of a work on all points but in order to see what a book makes me THINK ... to this end a book can make many points that I do not agree with and still be highly useful, entertaining, even life transforming.
I did not find that the Christopher Booker's seeming critism of certain works being "flawed" or refered to in other seemingly negative ways really damaged his basic theory ... I chose to take it that they were flawed as to how they applied to his model and pressed on. Yes, he has what may be seen as a "traditional" point of view regarding literature and other subjects but in a work about the evolution of storytelling tradition counts for quite a bit.
It's a hefty tome. I described it to some of my friends as "a career." MANY subjects (certain psychological theories and much else) must be accepted as a given or the thing would be much longer and would take forever to make any point at all. Much of the controversy stems from Booker's seeming condemnation of certain types of entertainment produced in the last 200 years.
He makes some good points, some feel like moralizing ... some are possibly legitimately moralising. Much of his discussion of "Waiting For Godot" MAY have been criticism as it emerged from his word processor (or typewriter!) however I could EASILY read it as commending the play for brilliantly identifying issues at large in the culture at the time ... his point is clear but his opinion is not ... and MY opinion (high praise for Godot) was built entirely on his observations.
There are places where the examination falls short, again there must be or this work that took 30 years to complete would remain perpetually unfinished. He, and others, fail to take into consideration the fact that much of the work he discusses prior to the Romantic Period was not "commercial writing," the author wasn't working for a paycheck, a fact that motivates many writers to put out work that isn't as completely "cooked" as material that they have revisited several times over a decade or so. Movies are examined but an aspect never discussed (by this author or most members of the entertainment press) is the influence of several levels of creative executives all submitting both intelligent and idiotic ideas to the writers (sometimes dozens and many incredited) and director ... ideas that cannot be ignored (because these executives are "the boss," the final authority at the studio). Also not considered is the fact that many of the more traditional stories were told for many years before being written down, then were told more times and written down again and again. Each time they dipped into the well of the unconsious, becoming more and more distilled ... this is very different than a modern novel which is often written over a limited time frame, rewritten over a more limited time frame and then rushed into print. The modern work runs the risk of being less purely refined than a work in existance hundreds or thousands of years before it's modern incarnation. It is slightly possible that someday in the far future the recent film version of Beowolf will be considered 'the original,' it ceratinly has many of the features of 'classical' literature. However, it is a distinct, wonderful, and innaccurate reworking of what we know to be the story ... the true original might have been very different.
All that said, I return to what I hope is a meaningful point. This is not a highly controversial work but it is right and proper for anyone reading this or any other book to point out its imperfections. In many cases, especially in a work of complex opinion such as this one, that is the evidence that the author is doing his job. People are thinking, thinking hard about what he has said. Their opinions indicate that they have learned from or refined their thoughts because of what he has written.
The Seven Basic Plots is a great work. No one needs to take it as some kind of gospel. No one needs to agree with every point for it to be the learning experience of a lifetime. It's successes and failures are simply food for more creative thought. It's a big book with small type but if you have the time and an open mind you too can read it, learn from it, agree and disagree with it.
Unusual justification for reading Booker's book. December 12, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I've just ordered this book and have read others with similar approaches in condensing the possibilities of literature (Joseph Campbell essentially narrowed it down to one story - the hero's journey). There are a variety of books with 33, 48, 7 or whatever number they've concluded. They all have value to me as a researcher on writing fiction (I run a place called Writers' Village University and develop courses and writing programs for our members -- we want to know the rules, but more importantly, how to break them with accessible style). All of these books have worthy insights, but writing should have no boundaries outside of having one foot in entertainment and or an educational value, and the other foot in unexplored territory (writing is exploration for both reader and writer). That's how literature and progress itself move forward. All our abstract concept metaphors are teamed with concrete metaphors to help us understand them (life or love = the journey metaphor (crossroads, rocky road, we've come a long way, dying, one-way street); argument, business and even love = the war metaphor (tactics, strategies, win, defeat, concede,); business = the plant or tree metaphor (cultivating, branches, growing, fruits). The Internet is using the Super Highway metaphor. The problem I'm beginning to see is the metaphors we use to understand concepts also limits where we can take them. Booker's book is helpful in showing the limits imposed on the art of telling a good story. If you understand the conventional boundaries, you begin to understand where you can tear down the walls. This is an unusual endorsement for a book, but as critical reader, I thrive on opposing points of view and look between the lines for practical values, especially ones that offer alternate avenues for refreshing literature.
RJ Hembree
A great resource to help you write a bestselling novel or highly successful movie screenplay. September 23, 2007
9 out of 9 found this review helpful
I liked this book very much. It was kind of longwinded. But since it is a resource book and not a mere how-to on writing, I could overlook how long it was. The more content the better because it gave me more examples and things to think about regarding the subject matter.
The book is broken into four basic parts:
1. The 7 basic plots
2. Stories told well
3. Stories not told well
4. Why people tell stories
And the 7 basic plots are as follows:
1. Overcoming themonster
2. Rags to riches
3. A journey - the quest
4. A journey - the voyage and return
5. Comedies
6. Tragedies
7. Rebirth
This book took 34 years to write (so says the author). But I think it took so long because the author was not motivated to finish it a lot sooner. This is true even though the book is kind of heavy at 728 pages. There are many stories cited throughout the book as examples of what the author discusses. And all the stories cited are referenced in an index at the end of the book.
What I liked the most about the book was how logical and informative it was. I particularly liked the fact that I could look at the Table of Contents and pretty much tell what the book was about. As a result, reading the book was a pleasure. However, I did have to dig a little when it came to Chapter 12. At first glance I thought the author had added another plot and forgotten to tell me about it or to redo the title of the book. I probably would have liked the book better if Chapter 12 had been put someplace else.
When I read this book I also read The Writer's Journey (ISBN: 193290736X) and Story (ISBN: 0060391685). All three books compliment each other and relate to the art/process of writing a bestselling novel, drama, or movie script. I recommend if you read one, then go ahead and read all three.
At the end of this book there is a glossary of terms. I found it to be a little helpful. In fact, I found it to be very helpful when reading The Writer's Journey because that book failed to have a glossary. 5 stars!
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