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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/27063
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/27063
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

You can create an average of any data set. If you average out enough story data than you can describe an average story arc and assign names to all of the moments in that arc. This exercise is not without value. It gives some insight into the nature of the beast. But few if any stories will actually conform to the arc which describes the average of a hundred stories. If we take the average as the prototype rather than the archetype the result will be false specificity.

This is not to say that many people have not successfully turned the archetype into a prototype to create a formulaic story. One could argue the George Lucas did exactly that when he very consciously based Star Wars on Campbell's _Hero with a Thousand Faces_.

But even if you can be successful by turning the archetype into a prototype does not mean that you have to do so to be successful. There are no iron laws of story that say that any given moment has to occur at any given percentage into the plot. There may be specific formulas for formula fiction that say something along these lines, and they may work within the limits of their artistic and commercial ambitions, but they are not the whole of literature, and there may be may different formulas with their key events at different milestones that also work just as well.

Original score: 3