Are all stories the same?

After some thoughts about the stories I had read, especially the ones from this year, I am starting to believe that all stories may actually be structurally same. 

this is a joke :)

This claim does NOT mean that all stories are identical. Of course, all novels are unique; each novel has different characters, character traits, character development, character adversities, character background, character relationship - you get the point. This is why we read books. We want to partake in a character’s unique journey to find out the ending. 


But at the core of all these stories, they all follow the same structure. In “Story Structures in Short Stories” by Philip Brewer, he simplified the structure of all stories into 7 parts, but I like to think of it in 4:


  1. A character is introduced

  2. This character is faced with a struggle (internal or external)

  3. The struggle leads to either a happy or sad ending- or maybe both.

  4. The author leaves a takeaway for the readers OR the character


Here is an example of what I mean: 

In the Awakening by Kate Chopin, Edna Pontellier (the character) feels mistreated by her housewife duties (internal struggle), which causes her to have affairs with a man named Robert Lebrun and to abandon her children. In the climax, Edna walks deep into the lake, which can be interpreted as a suicide from her life (sad ending) or her finally finding freedom from her oppression (happy ending). Through her story, Chopin reveals the inherent cruelty in gender stereotypes (take away).


Furthermore, in the Stranger by Albert Camus, Meursault (the character) struggles to understand the irrational explanation that the Prosecutor unceasingly imposes on Meursault’s murder. He is then faced with a death penalty (sad ending). Through this story, Camus shares that the universe is ultimately meaningless, just like how Meursault’s murder has no rational explanation, and that we, as humans, try to make meaning out of arbitrary, incorrect claims (take away).


In “All Stories Are The Same,” Yorke mentioned that “All stories are forged from the same template, writers DON’T simply have any choice as to the structure.” Although this is a bold statement, perhaps what he is saying is true. Each story needs a purpose and some form of a quest, struggle, and resolution, or we wouldn’t be able to call it a story.

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