#white cishet men need to stop plagiarizing with story structure

[kimyoonmiauthor]

I love this post. You may be interested in the Dan Harmon Story Cycle too: studiobinder dan-harmon-story-circle/

I'm not fond of the word "Universal" in story structures 9/10 they are wrong. For those who don't follow: Universal means in every culture in the world. If their ego is big enough, they'll say it applies to every story.

Worldwide, to me, means in a bunch of different places.

Things are very, very rarely universal. For example, in all languages in existence today, none of them are without pronouns.

More white cishet men like to say something is "Universal" https://www.studiobinder.com/blog/dan-harmon-story-circle/

is basically the Hero's journey boiled down without the credit.

When people don't give credit for their ideas, you know what happens? You get massive retconning. And I get annoyed at the plagiarism. But let's examine why it's not universal:

You — A character is in a zone of comfort Jo-Ha-Kyu breaks this rule as do a lot of Japanese media, in general. Frames and prologues often break this rule too. 50/50 Ta'zieh breaks this rule.

Need — But they want something. Need and want aren't the same thing. This is basic philosophy. You need food, you need shelter, and a place to sleep. Do you *need* a 50 billion dollar mansion? But some people *want* it. Second issue with this is a whole genre can break the back of this: Slice-of-life. And also kids stories are still stories. (as supposed to stories for kids). Often it lists places and what they did there, but it isn't "I needed this." Sometimes in thematic order.

Go — They enter an unfamiliar situation,

Again, Slice of life breaks this. Often the situation is familiar, or starts strange and is familiar after all. (Second one is more Miyazaki)

4. Search — Adapt to it,

This isn't even true in the US. Often you do't need the character to adapt to it. Horror pulls this out a lot.

5. Find — Get what they wanted

This isn't universally true either. Jack London had it so a lot of his characters true-to-life didn't even get a bit of gold. So it doesn't even apply to European and European diaspora countries. China is famous for the fourth act--everyone dies, the evil lives, making international viewers anxious.

6. Take — Pay a heavy price for it, 

Also, see Slice of Life. Not very good if a whole genre can break you.

7. Return — Then return to their familiar situation, 

Korea puts this in the middle, and then flings the reader in several directions, disorienting them for the sake of heightening emotion. This is not what they are thinking here. Familiar situation? Nope. Koreans don't do this.

This is half true for Taz'ieh. (Which is truly one of the oldest trackable forms)

Noh totally breaks this rule (and Jo-Ha-Kyu within it)

Some forms of oral storytelling also break this. There is no return element. Some just leave you there. Antigone doesn't really return the character to before her father died.

Griot.

8. Change — Having changed.

Some characters are supposed to never change, and stay there.

Slice of Life, Slasher horror, Zombie films: the zombies.

In Chinese Qichengzhuanhe, the specific usage can also break this, because the aim is different.

There is literature which also breaks this: Don Quixote. He never changes.

About here:

Probably some blustering about how it's universal, but not in all stories...

Yeah, nope. This is why white men need to read more and more widely. Also get out of the 20+centuries and look backwards with the actual story structures used prior. (Also !@#$ Cite your sources. Just because Freytag did it badly, doesn't mean you have to. Remember he hated Japanese, women, Jews (though he revised a little), and a whole bunch of other people and wanted to genocide for Polish... If that's your example, no. Credit people, regardless of if you agree or not.)

Is your knowledge of the Earth's history of Literature wide enough to call it universal? I have that list and I'm humble enough to say I might wake up the next day and find out something I thought was universal isn't and will be shaken to my core--and I live for that. That's *exciting* and I think that's a philosophy we should have for stories and culture.

If I found a human existing or pre-existing language that uses no pronouns--you know that excitement I would have? I'd be spending hours asking how does it work then? Is there subject deletion or object deletion? Can you communicate for places like in Korean only in verbs?

And I think we need to approach stories the same way. The preoccupation with universal can erase the very specific. Say:

Karagöz and Hacivat

story structure, which is ONLY used in this genre of shadow puppetry.

And I think the search for universal erasing the specific is a shame. As did many of the 19th century writers. (And probably begrudgingly Lubbock himself).

Short version: Plagiarized a whole ton. Am I surprised? No. And it's not universal, because most people try to cram stories into their story structure, rather than examining how retconning destroys reading literature, because ego over facts.

An aside, but Don Quixote is *not* 3 act or 5 act. I looked it up and was shocked it's a different story structure entirely. (And Cervantes was a fan of other story structures).