There's a traditional variant of this schema:

A poor man uses all his money to buy a horse. "You must be happy", his neighbor says. "I don't know", answers the man.

The next day, the horse escapes. "Your hard-earned money, and your horse, both gone. You must be sad", his neighbor says. "I don't know", answers the man.

A few days later, the horse comes back, with a female horse. "Now you have two horses, and very soon a third one. You must be happy", his neighbor says. "I don't know", answers the man.

The next day, the man's son tries to care about the new horse, but the horse rebels and the son has his leg broken. "That's your only son, and know he won't be able to work or provide for you in your old days anymore. You must be sad". "I don't know", answers the man.

A few days later, this is war. All young men must leave and go to war. Since the man's son is injured, he doesn't have to go. "Your son won't have to face the horror of war. How good for both of you ! I wish my own son was still there with me".

Some versions of the story stop there, but it can keep going, and end either on a positive event or on a negative one. Basically, this is a story about how you can never know if an event will be good or bad, no matter the first impression. It cannot fit any of those story patterns.

This is from the Tao Te Ching. This verses teaches one to be balanced and not to be attached to outcomes because in life there are endless highs and lows.

This is a parable, not a novel. It's hard to imagine expanding this narrative to anything novel-length and also readable, so it's unrelated to TFA.

Of course, GP post is similarly OT.

This is not a novel, but it's a traditional oral tale (from Tao Tö King apparently). I've heard it several times from different storytellers. It usually lasts about 2-3 mins, no more.

But the original article is not especially about novels, it's about stories in general. Cinderella is mentioned in the article, as a story archetype, and although longer, it is not a novel either (and would be pretty boring as a full-length novel).

So, sure, it's not a novel, but is it a story? My point is, it's very debatable. Most people, me included, would say "I heard a story yesterday, about a poor man who bought a horse, and..." But it does not fit the usual, ultra-simplified structure of a story (a conflict, and then a resolution of the conflict).

> it cannot fit any of these story patterns.

Of cause it can, just because you have a character proclaim he doesn’t know doesn’t suddenly make it so. The curve goes down when his son breaks his leg and it goes up when he doesn’t have to join the army. There is no requirement to integrate all future development into the current state of the curve.

Which one is it then? Oedipus? Cinderella? Man in the hole? That story looks like a perfect sine wave, and has no defined ending (I heard it with more or less steps). It does not fit any of those 6 predefined patterns.

"There are two tragedies in life. One is to lose your heart's desire. The other is to gain it.” ― George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman

That sounds a lot like some kind of episodic serial.

Actually that's why series on TV are so addictive. They have different plots with different lengths at the same time. Typical schema: one plot episode-length (the case being solved, this week's bad guy), one plot season-length (the season's big bad guy), and one or more character plots (A and B fall in love, and then break up, and then...) that can span anywhere from a few episodes to the whole show.

This is addictive like crazy because we have several stories told at once, each with their own succession of rises and falls at different paces.

Depends which season of Star Trek it's from.

Early in the run it'll come across as kinda corny, but mid-way through the run it'll be a strong episode and one fans will cite as a favorite forever.

It took me a while to figure out that on HN you get downvoted if you aren't agreed with or your opinion is disliked - quite often nothing to do with any actual intellectual argument. I've learned to ignore all the downvotes that I get - they are meaningless, and usually associated with what I consider to be my more insightful posts. (Since more insight implies that more other people haven't made the same observation - thus more downvotes.)

That's alright, next you need to make the sequence normal so that it's never repeating

Another counter example: https://serprex.github.io/w/Ad%20nauseum%20ad%20nauseum

This is a story I started writing last year, it doesn't have rises & falls, just someone reminiscing on the way to the corner store for a bag of chips

If my writing doesn't count since it's just some random page on the internet, there's Bob Dylan's Tarantula, & he's won a Nobel for literature. You'll be forced to say "Every story has one these six basic plots, where a story must have a plot, & a plot must be composed of rises & falls" since anything that would go against that gets categorized as a "sub story" or "not part of the story"

The timeline may be an infinite loop but your story still ended, with the revelation that the man is doomed to repeat his Icarus story for everytime. An author could play that as a sad or happy ending, as they like.

Not if it's a goosebumps novel (they have you jump to specific pages based on choices you make).

"goto start" doesn't make it a new story, it's just a repeat, or re-telling of the story (possibly with variations, a la groundhog day)

I also disagree with the contention that all "stories" have to fit the patterns, unless you narrow the definition of story to fit the patterns.

Also see: Finnagans Wake, which is a loop of a story. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnegans_Wake