Trying to think of an idea for a story? Here are a few lists of plot ideas:
- The Thirty-six Dramatic Situations by Georges Polti
A descriptive list which was created by Georges Polti to categorize every dramatic situation which might occur in a story or performance. The list was created as an aid for writers, but it has become popular with dramatists, storytellers and many others.
- The Big List of RPG Plots
A collection of RPG plots in abstract form, built by examining and boiling down to common denominators the premises of hundreds of published adventures for all RPG systems. The "plots" are arranged in alphabetical order by titles, which serves no useful function at all since the titles are arbitrary.
- Twenty Basic Plots
Ronald B. Tobias's list of 20 fundamental plots that recur through all fiction, for writers to adapt and elaborate in their own fiction. Provided by the Tennessee Screenwriting Association.
- The Straight Dope's discussion of literary plot lists
Pick any integer from one to a hundred and you can probably find somebody arguing that that's how many basic plots there are. No taxonomy can encompass everything in literature, and second, they don't tell you anything beyond the obvious. A more useful approach would be to abandon the chimera of universality and focus on what works today.
