A typical plot structure, i.e. one common to several narrative texts (e.g. a genre). A plot schema is more complex than a motif or a narrative chain. Schema-oriented storytelling is typical of oral storytelling, but also of modern popular and entertainment literature. E.g.: courtship schema, perilous courtship, or farcical schema. A plot schema does not require motivation.

Causal motivation (cause and effect), final motivation (everything is predetermined from the outset), compositional motivation: metaphorical (events that serve as metaphors for the entire narrative), metonymic (things are only mentioned because they will later become important). Typical for the Middle Ages are: Blind motifs (motives that are not taken up again) and hierarchical coherence (sections of a text are coherent in themselves but disagree with the entire text).