structure and plot on the subway

I was sitting on the subway next to a man who was reading a book called Structure and Plot (or possibly Plot and Structure), so I peeked over his should to see if I could learn anything.

I learned:

• writers should use plot and structure
• some “literati”-type writers disdain plot, they think that plotting is something like slumming
• those “literati”-type writers are wrong
• there are two types of plots:
• literary plots, and
• commercial plots
• literary plots involve somebody’s internal journey, and they meander around to various points (the book included a helpful chart) until they come to:
• a hopeful ending, or
• a downbeat ending
• commercial plots, on the other hand—

And that’s when he closed the book and got off the train.

I suspect that, if there are only two kinds of plots, I must already be doing the “commercial plot” kind, since the diagram and description of the “literary plot” didn’t seem to resemble anything that I do.