Plot types

Phil Parker's 10 story types:

1. The romance - character is emotionally lacking or missing something or someone (the object of desire). This object of desire is seen as a potential solution. The character will struggle to overcome barriers between himself and the object of desire and overcomes all. The resolution comes when the character unites with the object of desire. 

2. The unrecognised virtue - character with a virtue becomes part of someone else's world and falls in love with a powerful character in this world. Character seeks to prove that she is desirable to the powerful character but the power relationship undermines this. Character attempts to solve a problem for the powerful character and her virtue is finally recognised. 

3. The fatal flaw - character has a quality that brings success and enables him to gain opportunities denied to other characters. He uses opportunities for his own gain at the expense of others, but when he recognises the damage he has done he sets himself a new challenge. However, the quality which brought him success leads to failure in the new challenge. 

4. The debt that must be repaid - the character wants something or someone and becomes aware that something or someone is available which will possibly give her what she wants (at a price). The character agrees to pay the price later and pursues her original desire. The character attempts to avoid settling the debt but is finally confronted by the debtor and the debt is repaid. 

5. The spider and the fly - character wants to make another character do his bidding but, having no power to force her, devises a plan to trap her into doing it. The character successfully executes the plan, achieves his initial goal and then faces a new future. 

6. The gift taken away - character has a gift which she loses and seeks to regain. The pursuit of the gift leads her into a new situation to which she becomes reconciled. 

7. The quest - the character is set a task to find someone or something. He accepts the challenge, searches for and finds the someone or something. He is then rewarded, or not, for his success in the quest. 

8. The rites of passage - the character recognises that she has reached the next 'age' in her life and attempts to learn what she needs to know to adapt to this new age. She tries to act as if she has already acquired the necessary knowledge and fails. She then encounters a challenge which requires her to reach beyond what she has already achieved. Her success reflects her maturation into the new phase of her life. 

9. The wanderer - character arrives in a new place and discovers a problem associated with it. In facing the problem she reveals why she left the last place, then attempts to move on again.

10. The character who cannot be put down - the character demonstrates his prowess in a certain situation but then faces a bigger challenge, which he accepts. He succeeds by triumphing over a range of antagonistic forces. 

Robert McKee's 6 plot types:

Maturation plot - coming of age story

Redemption plot - moral change in protagonist from bad to good
Punitive plot - protagonist changes from good to bad and is punished
Testing plot - willpower vs. the temptation to surrender
Education plot - protagonist's views of life/self/people change from negative to positive
Disillusionment plot - protagonist's views of life/self/people change from positive to negative