Write What You Know
Booker proposes that any story will follow one of seven different plots:
1. Overcoming the Monster. The protagonist must defeat an antagonist (usually an
individual, force, or entity) that threatens them and the wider world.
2. Rags to Riches. The protagonist achieves something they lack, loses what they’ve
gained, and then gets it back again.
3. The Quest. The protagonist must set out in pursuit of a treasure, place, or other
goal, overcoming challenges along the way.
4. Voyage and Return. The protagonist travels to a strange new place, experiences
hardships and makes discoveries, and then returns home with the lessons they
have learned.
5. Comedy. The protagonist experiences a series of lighthearted or confusing events,
before the story resolves into a happy ending.
6. Tragedy. The protagonist has a central trait or flaw or makes a mistake, which
results in catastrophe.
7. Rebirth. The protagonist undergoes a transformation, and often ends up a better
person as a result.
These seven plots can be drawn upon to break down a moment in time and give it meaning
as a narrative, or help you structure a story that covers many days, months, or years.
Let’s practice with a moment* in time:
*Anywhere from a second to an hour
Plot Types
Moment 1 Walking up
onto a stage
in front of a
room full of
people
Moment 2 Unwrapping
the lunch you
didn’t realise
your dad had
packed
Moment 3 Subbing in to
a basketball
game after
being
benched all
season
Moment 4 Reading the
comments on
you most
recent TikTok
upload
Moment 5 [insert idea
related to
belonging]
Overcoming
the Monster
Rags to
Riches
The Quest
Voyage and
Return
Comedy
Tragedy
Rebirth
List of some of the formative events/experiences in your life:
List some stories (books, movies, Instagram stories, TikToks, other people’s experiences
told to you in conversation):
Can you match any of these with any of the seven plot types?
An Authentic Message
When writing for school, you will usually be given some type of prompt or stimulus. It’s
important to brainstorm a range of ways into this prompt/stimulus.
Consider:
● Where does it start?
● What was before it?
● Is it painful?
● Is it complex?
● What would be its opposite?
● If it was an animal, what would it be? Why?
● What are some related words?
● What are some very UNrelated words? Why?
● Who/where is it experienced/found?
● What if it were experienced/found somewhere else/by someone else?
● How would you describe it to someone from another planet?
● What would the world be like if it didn’t exist?
Ask these questions of your topic for your English task…
Conveying Message Through Form
Use any of the above questions and answers to help you think about structure. For
example, if my prompt was ‘finding peace’ I might think about what the world looks like
without it - that’s where my story should start. Then I could take the question, what if it was
found by someone else? And decide that the most unlikely of characters will bring peace to
my protagonist. Okay, who would be unlikely? What is a plausible way I could have my
protagonist encounter this unlikely person? → rising action, conflict, climax,
falling action…
A Writing Activity - Word: an interjection; a verb; a noun
Read the extract below. Think about the way the word ‘grief’ is spoken about.
Write a similar paragraph on ‘Belonging’. Think about what type of word ‘belonging’
is…verb? noun? adjective? Start from there.
“Grief manifested itself in ways that felt like anything but grief; grief obliterated all
feelings but grief; grief made a twin wear the same shirt for days on end to preserve the
morning on which the dead were still living; grief made a twin peel stars off the ceiling
and lie in bed with glowing points adhered to fingertips; grief was bad-tempered, grief
was kind; grief saw nothing but itself, grief saw every speck of pain in the world; grief
spread its wings large like an eagle, grief huddled small like a porcupine; grief needed
company, grief craved solitude; grief wanted to remember, wanted to forget; grief raged,
grief whimpered; grief made time compress and contract; grief tasted like hunger, felt
like numbness, sounded like silence; grief tasted like bile, felt like blades, sounded like
all the noise of the world. Grief was a shape-shifter, and invisible too; grief could be
captured as reflection in a twin’s eye. Grief heard its death sentence the morning you
both woke up and one was singing and the other caught the song.”
― Kamila Shamsie, Home Fire