I really enjoy comical oversimplifications, especially about writing. Still, deep down, I suspect we storytellers wish that Once Upon a Time > Suddenly > Luckily > Happily Ever After, is all
a great story needs. I've noticed that dragons don't come around all that often, and neither for that matter, do superheroes. But, be frank, would you really want them to? Do you need winged, fire-breathing reptiles -- or whatever the real world equivalent might be -- to give your heroine a problem big and scary enough to build a story around? Besides, shouldn't the Suddenly
element arise most effectively out of your heroine's character? For instance, a heroine afraid of water gets caught in a flash flood. Wouldn't that be her dragon? And, at the end of the day, shouldn't her Luckily! moment come straight out of her her own growth?