Patterns In Story Writing

(This isn't garbage, it's interesting. Abitbolism elided.)

• Agreed. The time and effort spent on removing RA stuff serve no purpose, except to prolong resentment on both sides of the dispute.

It would be interesting to see if there are any design patterns relevant to creative writing of fiction. Stories have a certain set of elements, and a lot of characters in stories follow certain behavior patterns.

For example:

• There is a list of 36 dramatic situations: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thirty-Six_Dramatic_Situations

Also, various characters in books and stories and movies have followed simple rulesets and have come across as very compelling characters:

• Robocop, the robotic police officer, would 1) Serve the Public Trust, 2) Protect the innocent, 3) Uphold the law, 4) (classified) do not oppose a board member of OCP.
• The Terminator would: 1. protect or kill john connor, depending on the movie and the robot
• IsaacAsimov's robots all followed the 3 laws, which are a variation on the rules followed by Robocop.
• Is it worth noting that IsaacAsimov stories don't translate as well, with their 3 laws, into movies as compared to stories involving Robocop? :)

Jungian Archetypes

The JungianArchetypes describe a set of characters and images that often appear in stories:

• The Shadow can often be found in characters that represent our dark side (Gollum of LordOfTheRings is a good example).
• The Anima (female) or Animus (male) follows the idea of a member of the opposite sex who forms a complement to your natural disposition. Take, for example, the meek, helpless damsel in distress who unites with a brave and valiant prince. This type of character has been increasingly hard to find since the FeministMovement.
• The Divine Couple (or syzygy, if you can pronounce it) is something to do with uniting unconscious and conscious minds. Can someone with greater knowledge on the subject fill this in? Likewise, any help adding the rest of Jung's archetypes would be appreciated.

Links to formulas and archetypes

• http://www.supershadow.com/starwars/formula.html

• http://www.bmoviecentral.com/bmoviecentral/articles/Cinematic Formulas.html

• http://www.users.nac.net/delliott/007/bond formula.htm [ObnoxiousSoundWarning]

• http://oldsci.eiu.edu/psychology/Spencer/Jung.html

• http://www.acs.appstate.edu/~davisct/nt/jung.html

• http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Delphi/5804/heroic.htm

Links to things that might be developed into patterns in a PatternLanguage.

• http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Cafe/1131/14notesen.htm (HpLovecraft Notes on Writing Weird Fiction)
• http://www.catch-sink.net/phpbb/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=454 (Pattern: Keep plot-based threads and story-based threads separate.)