Rule of three (writing)
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- For other uses of "rule of three," see Rule of three.
The rule of three is a principle in English writing that suggests that things that come in threes are inherently funnier, more satisfying, or more effective than other numbers of things. From slogans ("Go, fight, win!") to films (The Godfather trilogy), many things are structured in threes. There were three musketeers, three little pigs, three billy goats Gruff, Goldilocks and the three bears, and Three Stooges.
A series of three is often used to create a progression in which the tension is created, then built up, then released. Adjectives are often grouped together in threes in order to emphasize an idea.
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[edit] Comedy
In comedy, it is suggested that maximum humor can be attained by creating a structure in which a joke is set up, the setup is reinforced, and the punchline breaks the pattern.
- How do you get to my place? Go down to the corner, turn left, and get lost.
- I used to own this hot Italian sports car, but it always got me in trouble. It had three gears: "moderato," "allegro," and "mama mia!"
- I know three French words: Boujour, merci, and surrender.
The generic three-panel daily comic strip reinforces this principle.
[edit] Story
In storytelling in general, authors often create triplets or structures in three parts. In its simplest form, this is merely beginning, middle, and end. Syd Field wrote a popular handbook of screenwriting, in which he touted the advantages of three act structure over more traditional five act structure used by William Shakespeare and many others.
Vladimir Propp, in his Morphology of the Folk Tale, concluded that any of the elements in a folk tale could be negated twice, so that it would repeat three times. This is common not only in the Russian tales he studied, but throughout folk tales and fairy tales -- mostly commonly, perhaps, in that the youngest son is often the third, but fairy tales often display the rule of three in the most blatant form, a small sample of which include
- Jack and the Beanstalk has Jack climb the beanstalk three times.
- The stepmother visits Snow White in the forest three times before she finally causes her to fall dead
- Rumpelstiltskin spins for the heroine three times
- The hero of The Twelve Dancing Princesses follows them to their ball three times
- In East of the Sun and West of the Moon, the heroine must three times bribe her way to the hero; the first two times she was unable to tell her story because he was in a drugged sleep
- In Cinderella and many of its variants, such as Cap O' Rushes, The Wonderful Birch, and Catskin, the heroine goes to the ball (or other event) three times
- In The Rose-Tree and The Juniper Tree, the dead child, transformed into a bird, receives three gifts that it uses for revenge
- The hero used magical horses to climb three times to The Princess on the Glass Hill.
- In most folklore, there are three tasks which have to be performed to reach a certain goal.
[edit] Music
Musical structure often takes a three-part form. Call and response songs (especially sea shanties and military cadences) generally involve a given call, the call repeated as a response, and a punchline or twist.
[edit] Culture
Some cultures use the Rule of Three in their everyday lives.
- It is a traditional Japanese custom to decline a gift twice before recieving it the third time.
