I came across this page by accident - via this page in fact (don't ask) - and I'm amazed at how closely a lot of the stories here fit the list.

Morphology of the Folktale

This is a page giving the autobiography of the Russian professor Vladimir Propp who thought up the rules involved, so scroll down the page and eyeball the 31 'rules' he defined. A lot of these can be instantly recognised in our scribblings, a very few may occur just occasionally. In particular, I think #29 is going to be a slam-dunk in nearly all BCTS stories! There are also 8 character archetypes, some of which may be represented by more than one character, or possibly merged together into a single character.

For myself, it seems that Something Else Entirely looks as if it's going to fit most of the above purely by accident... except the hero is a heroine, and vice versa, of course (or possibly not...). I leave whom or what the other rules represent as an exercise for the reader.

Penny