" Stories the world over are almost always about people (or personified animals) with problems. The people want something badly—to survive, to win the girl or the boy, to find a lost child. But big obstacles loom between the protagonists and what they want. Just about any story—comic, tragic, romantic—is about a protagonist’s efforts to secure, usually at some cost, what he or she desires. Story = Character + Predicament + Attempted Extrication "

― Jonathan Gottschall , The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human