Back during the times of the Ancient Greeks, there were Tragedies and Comedies.
What kind of story it is comes from the architecture of the story:<p>Structure of a Tragedy: "They're going to win, they're going to win, they're going to win--they lose."<p>Structure of a Comedy: "They're going to lose, they're going to lose, they're going to lose--they win."<p>As you see, it is the reversal that makes the story pattern.<p>Great example: In 1840, Charles Dickens was writing the serial novel "The Old Curiosity Shop". It was published in weekly serial installments over 88 weeks. Dickens was writing it as it was being published. The story is about a Grandfather and his granddaugter Little Nell. The grandfather owes a huge amount money to a loan shark Quilp. Quilp says pay me by giving me Little Nell.<p>The story is about the flight of the old man and little girl across the London countryside with Quilp in pursuit.<p>As Dickens was writing the story (and published two chapters a week), his friend John Forster said: "You know you're going to have to kill her." Dickens was horrified because he realized he had been writing a Tragedy--which had to end in "they lose".<p>In the famous account, when oceanliners crossed the Atlantic Ocean with copies of the 88th and final installment, a crowd of 100,000+ were waiting on the docks of Boston harbor, all yelling the same thing to the debarking passengers: "Is Little Nell dead?" She was.<p>"Fiction is not interior decorating--it's architecture"--Ernest Hemingway.