The Seven basic plots : why we tell stories / Christopher Booker.

Part I "The Seven Gateways To The Underworld" examines each of the seven "basic plots". Outlines certain key elements in common and shows how each is in fact presenting its own particular view of the same central preoccupation which lies at the heart of storytelling. Part II "The Complete Happy Ending", looks more generally at what these main story-types have in common. It is pointed out that there are not only basic plots to stories but a cast of basic figures who reappear through stories of all kinds, each with their own defining characteristics. Also shows that there are certain conditions which must be met before any story can come to a fully resolved ending. Part III "Missing The Mark", concentrates almost entirely on stories from the last 200 years, explores how and why it is possible, in a storyteller's imagination, for a story to go wrong, or "lose the plot". Provides the clues to understanding what has gone amiss, and why they cannot come to fully satisfactory endings. Part IV "Why We Tell Stories", relate myths about the creation of the world and "the fall from innocence", to the evolution of human consciousness and man's relations to nature and instinct. "In " The Seven Basic Plots: why we tell stories" 2005