INTRODUCTION 

The Story Template is a new writing tool soon to be available on the market in 2010-2011 (Deardon 2009).  It describes story structure on the data-driven assumption that "good" stories are nearly identical in the elements of structure they describe.  The template’s data sample does not include short stories, comics, TV shows, documentaries, plays etc., but does include novels and full-length movies (Deardon 2009).  In The Story Template, the proposed description of story includes a greater number of essential elements than those described in systems such as Freytag's Pyramid, The Hero's Journey, or The Monomyth (Vogler 1998).  However, The Story Template also insists that existing systems, particularly The Hero's Journey and The Monomyth are too rigid in their interpretation of story to be applicable to most "good" works (Deardon 2009).  The Story Template embraces a more fluid model that the creator, Amy Deardon, claims is both sensitive and specific to most "good" works.  The Story Template was compiled by analyzing subjectively chosen "good" modern stories side-by-side for similarities.  The proportions of these similarities in reference to the story's endpoints were finalized through a statistical analysis among subjects (Deardon 2009)

A story is an account of events, whether true or fictitious, that entertains, educates, and expresses hidden and obvious facets of humanity.  Stories are presented through many mediums including spoken/recorded audio, written novels, graphic novels, and film.  Additional presentation formats will no doubt be created subsequent to advancing technological breakthroughs.  The Story Template presents the interpretation that story (in full form) remains essentially the same, at least in terms of major and medium level structural components, despite changes in medium: for example novel and full-length movie formats.  Therefore, due to time constraints, this research was conducted under this platform of changlessness despite medium, because all data presented here is exclusive to movies. 

There is no solid consensus on which works are considered “classic” let alone a set of rules that could be used to objectively identify them.  There are two repeatedly mentioned important aspects: timelessness and impact.  Timelessness is the characteristic of artistic durability.  A timeless work has generation-spanning popularity with many audiences.  In contrast, there are two primary aspects of impact: external and internal.  The external impact is the work’s measure of ingenuity in creating and applying the story world, format style and various other potentials of the medium.  The Star Wars Trilogy is a good example of a work with a strong external impact on society.  Its brilliant application of special effects raised movie-making to a new standard for drama, and inspired fans’ enthusiasm for a new futuristic science fiction genre.  Another type of artistic impact is the internal component, that primarily the moral conviction conveyed by the work that progresses society’s mindset.  An example of a work demonstrating a high internal component artistic impact is the 1852 novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin.  The volatile nature of the story’s implied politics, a strong support of the abolition of slavery, fueled the movement that succeeded gradually over the course of the remaining century. 

One method for evaluating the timelessness of a work is to examine the listed popularity rating (i.e. number of sales) for each work.  In early stages of research, though, it was determined that there was no practical way to determine an annual sales statistic from the collective bookstore market, because top booksellers (such as Amazon, Borders, and Barnes & Noble in the US) do not release this information; instead they simply compile “Best Seller” or “Featured” lists which do not indicate their source or identify sales rankings (Barnes and Noble 2009) (Amazon 2009) (Borders 2009). 

Timelessness and artistic impact were evaluated on the more general criteria of whether a given work was reproduced after at least one literary generation which might be considered approximately 25 years.  The reproduction of a work indicated strong interest in the work, because each reproduction requires a large investment of time and money on the part of the producer.