This article is by Dr John Yeoman.
Every plot is a cliché, isn’t it?
According to Christopher Booker, there have been only seven basic plots since the dawn of story telling, although Georges Polti expanded the total to 36. No good plot is original because successful stories evoke one or more of the Seven Deadly Sins. (It seems humans are not clever enough to think of any fresh ones.)
Every one of the 3000+ tales I’ve judged at the Writers’ Village story contest have been grounded in a plot cliché. Yet some stories were spectacularly fresh. How come? Their writers had added a clever new twist, dropped in sensibility or played creatively with the cliché. Here’s how to do it: