…there’s a bit more to it, and I’ll write up a blog post on it, but it’s remarkably similar to how I animate, either in 3D or 2D. Must just be how I’m wired.

Yes, many people have spent MUCH time on this very subject. It’s called literary criticism, and if you’d like an excellent overview, I recommend Critical Theory Since Plato, by Hazard Adams. (If you want something shorter and less daunting than Hazard’s tome, you could do worse than E.M. Forster’s Aspects of the Novel.)

While often in popular media, ‘criticism’ has come to mean ‘critique,’ that’s not quite criticism’s purpose. Its purpose is to figure out what makes a work of art successful (or not), and why. (I’m vastly condensing, here.) It’s not that criticism exists to coldly and cerebrally dissect a story and break it down into its components. It’s that when a story isn’t working, criticism is the toolbox full of tools you’ll need to figure out what isn’t working in it, why it’s not working, and how to get it working again. This is why literary criticism and critical theory are mandatory requirements in every university creative writing program.

As a short example, let’s take why critics so often bring up the ‘type’ of story, in their reviews of a book or film.

If you want to figure out if a work’s successful, it generally helps to know what sort of work it is supposed to be in the first place. For example, The Lord of the Rings is a story, and a rather successful one. However, strictly speaking, it’s a failure as the specific form of story called a novel (and so have been most of its imitators). It fails as a novel, because it was never written as one; it’s actually a modern version of the storytelling form known as the epic. The interlacing narratives, the breaks into poetry and song, the peculiar diction — all of those things a lot of modern readers skip, to, as they put it, ‘get on with the story’ — those are all characteristics of the epic. The Lord of the Rings has much more in common with the Kalevala and Beowulf than it does with a Dickens novel. So when a critic describes a story as ‘a buddy story,’ you know one measure of the story’s success is going to be how well it meets the criteria of the Buddy Story. The Epic of Gilgamesh is, amongst other things, a buddy story; so is Lethal Weapon. They’re wildly different on the surface, but they’ve got a lot of things in common; they share the same basic pattern.

Identifying the type of story isn’t necessarily about proving a story isn’t original. Because, as Harold Bloom pointed out, nothing is. Which brings me to plots. It’s been said there’s only two plots; only 20; only 36; only 69. You can come up with your own arbitrary number. But here’s the thing: a plot is a pattern of human behavior. Humans haven’t changed very much at all, and neither have our patterns. It’s not a bad thing to stick to a pattern. We instinctively like them. If something in a story doesn’t ring true, it’s most likely because one of those patterns of human nature has been deviated from. Knowing those basic patterns can help immensely when your story’s broken, and you want to fix it. That’s when you reach for the toolbox of critical theory.

Brave is an excellent example. Yes, the critics are absolutely right that it is a princess story very similar to what we’ve seen before. Nothing really new unless you want to count that this princess rejects the suitors for a more modernist/feminist view of young womanhood. Which really isn’t new either, just not always explored in this specific type of story. But you know what, who cares? A reviewer I respect highly, Bob Mondello, who does reviews for NPR put it really well (paraphrased, ’cause I heard it a long time ago): Sure, Disney/Pixar really isn’t breaking new storytelling ground, but they tell this type of story because it’s a winner for them and it wins for a reason. We like to hear it and they tell it well. And sure, it doesn’t break any new technological barriers like they so often have, but it’s still the best technology currently used. Go see this movie. You’ll be glad you did.

Personally, even if Brave wasn’t a new paradigm of storytelling or technology, I do think it broke new ground for Disney. My wife & I were talking just yesterday about how in the vast majority of Disney Princess movies, there is no mother. And if there is a mother figure she’s a wicked stepmother type. And yet here in this movie, not only is there a mother, but a loving, involved mother. The story does a great job exploring mother/daughter relationships. And gets father/daughter pretty well too, I’ll add. Being the father of a Disney Princess infatuated 5 year old. Even if that’s been done before, I like that story. Disney did an amazing job telling it. I loved Brave.

http://thenewinquiry.com/essays/just-another-princess-movie/

http://awaitingthemuse.wordpress.com/2012/09/16/on-feathered-wings/

~ Effy

My one question would be, do you have a source with some “cliche” story types like you illustrate with the Buddy story, the Princess story, and the Fish out of Water story? I did find this, which I might use for inspiration:

http://dragonwritingprompts.blogsome.com/2007/09/29/the-not-so-grand-list-of-overused-fantasy-cliches/

Does anyone else have some ideas? I would hate to write the same story as Bear, you know? :)

~ Effy