Ciao, SEers. Today we’ll be discussing the last of the Seven Basic Plots as defined by Christopher Booker. If you’ve missed the others, you can find them here: Rebirth, Tragedy, Comedy, Voyage and Return, Quest, and Rags to Riches.

Our final basic plot type is: Overcoming the Monster.

When I began this series of posts, I started with Rebirth because it coincided with Easter and Spring (times of… well, rebirth). From there, I worked backward rather than starting at the beginning of Booker’s list. But there’s a reason he started with Overcoming the Monster.

Overcoming the Monster is, in its simplest form, good versus evil or hero versus villain. None of the other trappings matter. This is just black and white—no frills, no complex plot devices. Well, perhaps there is one item to note. The hero is often an underdog to the…