An update from our sixty-first Writing Workshop with Conner Bassett
A summary of the workshop held on Saturday, March 25
To start the workshop, Conner told us about the book The Seven Basic Plots by Christopher Booker. However, before we jumped into what those plots were, we explored the meta-plot, which Booker argues every story uses in some way. The meta-plot has several stages: the anticipation stage, the dream stage, the frustration stage, the nightmare stage, and the resolution. The sequence of these stages is similar to a story arc. After learning about the meta-plot, we talked about the seven narratives: overcoming the monster, rags to riches, the quest, voyage and return, comedy, tragedy, and rebirth. After investigating these seven plots, Conner drew what they looked like; the quest, for example, looked like a series of ups and downs, with an extreme conflict and climax at the end.
The Challenge: Write an outline of a story that uses one of the seven narratives discussed in the workshop, then write the actual story in exactly 100 words.
The Participants: Emma, Sarah, Ava, Stella, Catherine, Ana, Aarush, Anushka, Samarina, Amaya, Miya, Annie, Seva, Eric, Yueling, Madeline, Lina, Nova, Josh, Alice, Genevieve
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