김윤미 Kim Yoonmi Author

Because there are more continents on the planet than Europe. And sometimes we need to escape from such imperialism.

Disclaimer: There are missing types from this list. I haven’t found all of them. If you wish to share some you know, I will give you credit. These are just a handful I’ve stumbled across by reading and consuming as widely as possible. I’d love to collect them all. 

The complete information for each of these story structures is not all in this post. This gives only a rough overview and some ways to research it further yourself. Please don’t use this post for appropriation purposes. It does not have enough information to do that. Some information is left out. This is primarily to say they exist and to ask publishing professionals to loosen up about stories that don’t use the 3/5-act story structure upon submission.

Introduction

In Sixth Grade, my rather lazy (and inappropriate) Literature Teacher stood up in from the the class and drew something like this:

And most writers will recognize it (though drawn wrong because as I’m going to outline he was kind of a donkey and a half).

Anyway, after my childhood reading African American Folktales through a worn copy of “The People Could Fly” by Virginia Hamilton, my parents being intellectuals and reading me all sorts of books, my grandmother giving me stories from Japan (I have a very rare english copy of Princess Kaguya from her), Russia, and the Grimms Brothers, my Aunt (a professor of Greco Roman Women’s studies) also gave me Greco-Roman myths as bedtime stories, and then expanded by giving me Egyptian and other locales and probably somewhere rattling in the back of my head stories from Korea–though I had Korean folktales at the time, I stared at it and was determined that this was wrong and not the only way. It didn’t match what I knew and I didn’t know why it didn’t work.

Still, this sexist misogynistic teacher, who actively hit on several of the female white students in the class, though he was married and had a child persisted in this line of pursuit, concluding: EVERYTHING IS CONFLICT. Internal conflict. External Conflict. Man v. Nature.

Which ironically, turned out to be true… for him.

This also clashed with everything I knew about story at the time, but I had no words to describe exactly why this was the case. This also wasn’t congruent with the various religions I’d skimmed and learned.

Being a nerd and stubborn, I raided all kinds of libraries for books on folktales of different kinds and it didn’t fit. The story about Turkey Girl didn’t end that way. What about Aesop’s Fables? And so, I was a bit more determined to collect more than this single narrative.

I should note that in doing this list, I found out that all of my Literature professors and teachers were wrong about European story structure. Seems like no one ever bothered to backtrace the history of the story structure because people kept saying, “It always was and always will be.” Though this proves it is not true. (So the above story structure is completely wrong and Aristotle would have actively hated on it. Also Freytag. Probably Shakespeare. And Sophicles. Maybe also Syd Field to a degree.)

However, I’ve always gotten resistance from professors and other academics on the fact that Europe’s ideology is not the only way to do story. People argue up and down that sexist pig Aristotle was correct. (Also things like Aristotle couldn’t help himself though there were philosophers before and after him that would have been considered “progressive” by today’s standards about gender and other issues.)

The papers I wanted to do on the subject pretty much were rejected. Given that, and I have pretty good evidence they do exist, I’m writing this up and compiling the list. Because even Wikipedia can’t stop kissing White (Mostly NW) Europe’s butt. And I, for one, am sick of it. I want options and I’m tired of feeling anxious all the time from the endless narratives about conflict.

So if you want to take this journey with me to expand your toolbox and let yourself know they these exist, this is the post for you. This post will deliberately not give you the tools to replicate any one story structure. It is simply letting you know of their existence and ways you can play with story structure for yourself and experiment! This also exists to try to rattle agents and editors to let the people from other storytelling traditions get past the implicit bias in the industry.

I, personally, also think after exploring the world (though not all of the regions and structures) and that other regions of the world hotly debate actively the best way to tell stories with competing story structures. Constantly. It allows them to mine emotions, grow and change and keep their readership on their toes. Korea, for example, has three at least and 2 traditional. Japan has two attributed, though you can’t quite categorize Sei Shonagon with any real story structure (She’s Twitter before Twitter). China–well, there’s at least five I’ve found–and that’s only from the ethnically Han. There has to be more with the number of ethnicities and subethnicities in China. India has multiples in play… and all of those have different ideologies and things that the writers think they are good at portraying over others. I would like that for the English-speaking world too. Debate story down to structure and how to mine the genres we’ve created with the best story structures creating the correct height, width and depth of emotion. Don’t you get bored sometimes and wonder what else you could do?

In doing this list, I also found out that most of what I’ve been taught about “The correct way to do story” was retconned into place anyway and no one has bothered to check their sources. So even if you worship Europe’s donkey, you might learn something, like I did about the truth of the conflict narrative. (e.g. that is was only put in starting in the 1920′s. lol) If you’re going to worship white European people (really, white American Hollywood men who pushed out white women and people of color), at least do it correctly. And get the correct information about it (and also tell all your lit professors and teachers they are wrong with sources and page numbers)

If you want to continue to kiss the butt of Europe that you imagined and was taught was correct (though it is completely incorrect historically), and only one particular regionality of it, go ahead–I won’t care if you continue using 3 and 5 act structures. Just know your absolute worship of it is wrong and to let the other ones, you know, exist and are used by others.

Note: BTW, it’s slow, but I’m working to correct the European history of story structure, so this doc might be a tad behind. Also, I’ve been working on adding the list to Wikipedia. It’s not 100% the same, but I included a lot of the references found here, there.

Aboriginal Folktales

Country/Ethnicity: Roughly Australia, various ethnicities.

Number of Acts: Fluid, depends on the tribe/ethnicity

David Unaipon doesn’t define an act structure in his book. It’s not really defined along that line because the story does not hinge on characters+events, or plot. It hinges on the entirety of what a story is to serve a particular tone or theme, usually the specific way better ways to live needs to be viewed.

What is it?: Again, varies by tribe. The similarities according to David Unaipon and the editors are that ownership of the tale is collectively owned by the tribe members. One person might have memorized the tale in question, but the group owns that tale together.

Story Driver(s): Better ways to live.

David Unaipon says for example, a tale on how to fish better. Who are your totems and why? Who is better to marry for whom. Since the tales are orally told, passed down, the motifs are usually big. The meaning of the tales also seems to change over time as the meaning changes for different ages.

Notes:

My main source was David Unaipon’s Legendary tales of the Australian Aborigines. He is a famous Aborigine activist who is on Australian money for his achievements. Unfortunately, his book, which was finally published with a lot of effort after the work was stolen from him, is now going out of print, while the white colonizer plagiarized version continues to be printed. Second crime against him. I spent a month and a 60 USD trying to obtain the original with his own voice. And it was worth it. I suggest you do the same before it is out of print forever. The introduction made me feel rage for him. The treasure that was lost if they had only paid him to continue makes me feel even more rage. So invest in it.

I am very, very aware of the fact the designation Aboriginal is a collective of thousands of tribes. However, the book editors worked really hard with David Unaipon’s family, tribe, and other Aboriginal communities to double check edits and the introduction of the book. And other tales online seem to have a colonizer taste to them, such as “how great the coming of white people must have been.” (Cue my utter disgust)

He did lump them together and was an own voice and passionate about trying to uplift his and other tribes by collecting their tales at a time when his people were at one of their lowest. He was quite ahead of his time, since he acted as Anthropologist and folklorist.

I’m well aware this lacks the nuance, but as I said, this list isn’t for outsiders to copy-paste, but for outsiders to read and understand differences in general approach as readers, editors and agents. I will take effort if I get the resources to try to fill in specific tribes if they are willing. But some tribes are closed and I respect that. You should too.

Aristotle’s TWO Act Play (and why it’s so very wrong for contemporary writers)

Note that your Lit professors lied to you because they didn’t bother to sit down and read Poetics. This is a repetition error on their part. Be sure to correct them for me and emphasize how much of an a-hole Aristotle was.

Country/Ethnicity: Greek, Aristotle, an Athenian, who are notoriously bad at women, which is why they were worshipped by the Tudors and later Victorians.

Number of Acts: 2

What is it?:

- Complication

- Denouement (More like conclusion, since Denouement is a word made much later. 1752, to be exact, imported from the French, but wasn’t used for plot until about the 19th century)

(Note that the definition of beginning middle and end is actually still 2 acts, not 3 according to him.) http://www.authorama.com/the-poetics-19.html

The order of importance according to Aristotle is:

1. Melody
2. Events
   
3. Diction
4. Character
   
5. Spectacle

Note, again, this would give most Literary Agents serious pause if you said that. (If you want a reason, look at Gertrude Stein’s Modernist writers as the primary motivator, though there are earlier writers that brought characters to the fore over events, such as Jane Austen, it solidified later in history, but this is not a lecture on European and European Diaspora individualism in Literature. Research that yourself.)

Despite that, I still have this picture of someone setting their manuscript to music and then demanding that the agent read a list of events without much characters and the agent screaming WTF and posting it on some social media website. But wait til you get to the part where women can’t be “manly”…

Errata he argued for:

Note: When he says plot, he means events, since he separates plot and characters as different things, but doesn’t talk about events as separate from the plot. Plot to him, is more like the event chain, absent of character. Character is more an avatar for the audience.

- “If they had to perform a hundred tragedies, they would be timed by water-clocks, as they are said to have been at one period.” http://www.authorama.com/the-poetics-8.html

- Can be performed from memory. http://www.authorama.com/the-poetics-8.html

- “The limit, however, set by the actual nature of the thing is this: the longer the story, consistently with its being comprehensible as a whole, the finer it is by reason of its magnitude.” http://www.authorama.com/the-poetics-8.html

- “The Unity of a Plot does not consist, as some suppose, in its having one man as its subject.” http://www.authorama.com/the-poetics-9.html

- “Tragedy, however, is an imitation not only of a complete action, but also of incidents arousing pity and fear. Such incidents have the very greatest effect on the mind when they occur unexpectedly and at the same time in consequence of one another; there is more of the marvellous in them then than if they happened of themselves or by mere chance.” –http://www.authorama.com/the-poetics-10.html

- “Of simple Plots and actions the episodic are the worst.” – http://www.authorama.com/the-poetics-11.html

- “A Discovery is, as the very word implies, a change from ignorance to knowledge, and thus to either love or hate, in the personages marked for good or evil fortune.”– http://www.authorama.com/the-poetics-12.html

- “…Peripety, will arouse either pity or fear“–http://www.authorama.com/the-poetics-12.html

- “A third part is Suffering; which we may define as an action of a destructive or painful nature, such as murders on the stage, tortures, woundings, and the like.” – http://www.authorama.com/the-poetics-12.html

- This is how the stage was to be divided: “Prologue, Episode, Exode, and a choral portion, distinguished into Parode and Stasimon…“ –http://www.authorama.com/the-poetics-13.html

- He argues for the tragic flaw here: (loosely, error in judgement): http://www.authorama.com/the-poetics-14.html

- “The tragic fear and pity may be aroused by the Spectacle; but they may also be aroused by the very structure and incidents of the play—which is the better way and shows the better poet“ – http://www.authorama.com/the-poetics-15.html (Note that modern writers mostly would say either combination of events+character or character, not plot alone.)

- Argues for emotional artist here who is “mad”: “Given the same natural qualifications, he who feels the emotions to be described will be the most convincing; distress and anger, for instance, are portrayed most truthfully by one who is feeling them at the moment. Hence it is that poetry demands a man with special gift for it, or else one with a touch of madness in him; the, former can easily assume the required mood, and the latter may be actually beside himself with emotion.”

Story Driver(s)?: Morality (first and foremost, created by fear and pity, i.e. negative reinforcement.)

Notes: I will make no secret that I utterly think that Aristotle is a sexist ethnocentric classist asshole. But in order to prove that, I will pull his own words to do so, before getting to the problems with this idea and structure.

Latent asshole-ness:

“So again in language, whether prose or verse unaccompanied by music. Homer, for example, makes men better than they are; Cleophon as they are; Hegemon the Thasian, the inventor of parodies, and Nicochares, the author of the Deiliad, worse than they are. The same thing holds good of Dithyrambs and Nomes; here too one may portray different types, as Timotheus and Philoxenus differed in representing their Cyclopes. The same distinction marks off Tragedy from Comedy; for Comedy aims at representing men as worse, Tragedy as better than in actual life.”

All male writers… because you see…

“Such goodness is possible i.e. very type of personage, even in a woman or a slave, though the one is perhaps an inferior, and the other a wholly worthless being. The second point is to make them appropriate. The Character before us may be, say, manly; but it is not appropriate in a female Character to be manly, or clever.”–http://www.authorama.com/the-poetics-16.html

If you worship him because he uses fancy words for beginning, Middle and End, then think yourself very clever, I don’t think it’s worth your time. Remember, he was using Greek words as a Greek, so that’s like me using Korean for head, and saying I’m extra smart, because I called my head, “meori” so I must be smart because it’s in a foreign language to you. He also, notably wasn’t the one that argued for the 3-part play. That was later.

But, pray, let’s continue…

“Tragedy i.e.sentially an imitation not of persons but of action and life, of happiness and misery.“– Aristotle: http://www.authorama.com/the-poetics-7.html

This would give a lot of modern Literary Agents a heart attack:

“A further proof is in the fact that beginners succeed earlier with the Diction and Characters than with the construction of a story; and the same may be said of nearly all the early dramatists. We maintain, therefore, that the first essential, the life and soul, so to speak, of Tragedy is the Plot; and that the Characters come second—compare the parallel in painting, where the most beautiful colours laid on without order will not give one the same pleasure as a simple black-and-white sketch of a portrait. We maintain that Tragedy is primarily an imitation of action, and that it is mainly for the sake of the action that it imitates the personal agents. Third comes the element of Thought, i.e. the power of saying whatever can be said, or what is appropriate to the occasion.“ – http://www.authorama.com/the-poetics-7.html

He says the events must come before the characters and their choices. Instead, it is beautiful speech and events that drive the plot forwards. But pray… is this better? Let’s continue.

“Character in a play is that which reveals the moral purpose of the agents, i.e. the sort of thing they seek or avoid, where that is not obvious—hence there is no room for Character in a speech on a purely indifferent subject. Thought, on the other hand, is shown in all they say when proving or disproving some particular point, or enunciating some universal proposition. Fourth among the literary elements is the Diction of the personages, i.e. as before explained, the expression of their thoughts in words, which is practically the same thing with verse as with prose. As for the two remaining parts, the Melody is the greatest of the pleasurable accessories of Tragedy. The Spectacle, though an attraction, is the least artistic of all the parts, and has least to do with the art of poetry.”

– http://www.authorama.com/the-poetics-7.html

The characters are only there to serve as a way to tell MORALS of the story. But everything else comes before the characters (minus the spectacle). Since these were performed with music, he’s saying also the music is more important than the characters. (So frustrating to read.)

“We have laid it down that a tragedy is an imitation of an action that is complete in itself, as a whole of some magnitude; for a whole may be of no magnitude to speak of. Now a whole is that which has beginning, middle, and end. A beginning is that which is not itself necessarily after anything else, and which has naturally something else after it; an end is that which is naturally after something itself, either as its necessary or usual consequent, and with nothing else after it; and a middle, that which is by nature after one thing and has also another after it. A well-constructed Plot, therefore, cannot either begin or end at any point one likes; beginning and end in it must be of the forms just described.“–Aristotle

What he actually said. And this kinda feels like one of those school grade assignments where you’re supposed to define the thing, but forgot to study before the exam, and you have a definition in front of you, but you don’t know how to bullshit it properly. Yeah, beginning has stuff after it and ummm… end middle has things before and after it and then end… has things before it. (Silently screaming to myself.)

So, if you sum up what he said, basically events before character, make sure the plot teaches something moral through fear and pity, make sure the character has a tragic flaw, there are 2 acts. Long simple plots are the best and most awe-inspiring. You can memorize the entire thing easily. Make sure to have lots of side stories (though they must interconnect or it will seem too episodic), and deviate from the main character. Make sure it raises anxiety and fear so people will live better lives. It better not have more than one episode. Should have discovery in it that brings man to better knowledge of mind (not quite emotions) (See Plato for that sort of earlier discourse). Events are better formed by consequences to previous actions (per Homer) and character discovery. (The only two decent things he said). And the most important thing on stage: The Melody, or the Chorus. How can one have a tragedy without one? Oh and he’d say women are immoral trash, and so are slaves, so why do you expect them to write anything like a decent play (though they did make such plays in the streets. But all of them are considered lost.)

Examples:

Both of them are Sophicles. Oedipus Rex and Antigone–the only ones he sampled as truly good. And Homer is called great in some things, but terrible in others. He does mention others, but only in holding up those 2, the rest are called inferior.

References: https://storyality.wordpress.com/2012/12/17/storyality-26-3-acts-did-aristotle-ever-say-that/

https://storyality.wordpress.com/2012/12/20/storyality-29-why-aristotles-poetics-is-so-very-very-wrong/

http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/poetics.1.1.html

http://www.authorama.com/the-poetics-2.html

Bengali Widow Narrative

Country/Ethnicity: Bengal, in India. Note that India’s provinces vary in culture and by ethnicities (as I’ve been told repeatedly by various own voices and ethnographies), so don’t take this as a universal form for all of India.

Number of Acts: 4

What is it?:

Childhood

Marriage

Children (or the struggle to have them)

Close/Abandonment.

Usually it’s both a set story structure and a genre of story bundled into one package.

Story Driver(s)?: Circle of Life?

Notes: Jae Kim helped me get the PDF so I could check some examples “Being a Widow  and Other Life  Stories” by Sarah Lamb I got the tip off for this style from Vida Cruz from another doc, also linked: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/329064597_The_Myth_of_%27Universal%27_Narrative_Models

What’s notable is that it emphasizes the circular look at time itself. You are born, live, get married, and die, returning back to the earth. You can see similar themes in the Dream Record (Buddhism version) and 4-act East Asian (also Buddhist based), but this is more strongly Hinduism-based since Bengal is heavily Hindu. The ending can be happy or sad as noted in the Research Gate model.

Academic work on it with examples. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5325/ecumenica.12.1.0014?seq=1

There are some (minor) similarities to Bollywood (North India, BTW, Southern India has a different movie industry and the movies also feel slightly different in structure), which often starts Rom Coms in childhood. though often the other 2 acts are filled with other elements. (Still trying to find Bollywood specific discourse).

I should note going back to watching Bollywood movies in the last few months and asking around to friends, that Bengali Widow’s tale as of 2020-ish is falling out of favor because Widows finally won rights like getting remarried and being treated better as Bengal and Indians worked at it. However, the tale itself and the widows that still tell it this way still exist. It’s just not as popular in popular media as India finds ways to navigate women’s rights.

Examples:
In the Sarah Lamb doc (paywalled, but I was able to retrieve it.):
The anthropological ethnography divides it as above. She gives the first example of a widow that was really happy with her father as a child, then she got married, but got blamed for not being able to have children, so was sent to a sanitarium. While there, her husband died. Then the rest of her story is about being a widow. (So downward trajectory emotionally as you feel for her.). She ends with: “What  did  /  do  that  was  wrong?!”  "I didn’t  do anything  unjust!“ and then “I received  everything  in  this  life, but not  peace. Ever since I came to my husband’s house after marriage all this began to happen—one thing after  another. What caused it all to happen?” (You will notice a recursive element in this last piece–repetition. which brings a circle feel to the narrative as well, time wise.) She then blesses the anthropologist to have children.

Bildungsroman

Country/Ethnicity:

Originated in Germany, often used in France, sometimes used by other European countries.

Number of Acts: 3

What is it?:

1. Introduction

2. Experiences that shape the protagonist’s character.

3. The character grows up.

Usually it’s both a set story structure and a genre of story bundled into one package.

Story Driver(s)?: Growing up; Growth/Maturity

Notes: This is pretty easy to combine with Kishotenketsu. The one I can think of off the top of my head is “Red Balloon” which I had to watch repeatedly for French Class. If you haven’t watched it, it’s pretty much little boy wonders where babies come from when his mom is pregnant. He does a lot of things to find out. Then he finds out and grows up. A ton of YA tends to combine these structures with other structures that can come off as this genre. For example, Catcher In the Rye, is a combined version of this type of story. (Using a 5-act structure in combination with a Bildungsroman) However, when this genre is done purely, it’s often on the Warm and Fuzzy side, or slightly sad and nostalgic.

Examples:

“The Red Balloon” (French Movie) 1956
“Catcher In the Rye” by J.D. Salinger-Note combined with 5 act.
“Neverending Story” by Michael Ende- combines: epic, 5 act and Bildungsroman

Bollywood

Country/Ethnicity: Northern India, mainly. Note that Northern and Southern India have slightly different forms of cinema. I probably should also repeat what was told to me and say that the provinces sometimes feel more like separate countries, so the individual representation of them may vary depending on the director, writer, etc.

Number of Acts: (Act structure–whatever they feel like) Several sources say they mix whatever appeals to them: 

pg 388

Song and dance is often a feature of Bollywood, though there are films without it. Particularly newer films are veering away and have a split.

(391-392)

“Popular Hindi Cinema by Sabrina Ciolfl“
https://www.ledonline.it/acme/allegati/Acme-12-I_16_Ciolfi.pdf

Benazir Manzar & Aju Aravind (2019) (Re) Thinking women in cinema: The changing narrative structure in Bollywood, South Asian Popular Culture, 17:1, 1-13, DOI: 10.1080/14746689.2018.1585601

Story Driver(s)?: No particular Story drivers. Might switch during the course of the story.

Notes: Some help from Hana Soh (Northern Indian descent) and an Indian friend of mine I’m anonymizing out of respect.

Bollywood films tend to use a little of everything. Particularly the Northern ones tend to have bits that you will recognize from The Bengali Widow’s tale, European 5-act, musical structure and some of it does feel a bit like Hakawati at times. There is a sub story type where there is a particular type of coming-of-age story, which seems to be echoed in Chinese dramas as well, but I haven’t been able to track it down that often features in Bollywood films. It pretty much traces a girl from being young and innocent, through to being adult, sometimes beyond the marriage point to her having kids. This is often used in Bollywood as well.

As the articles point out, the internal structure isn’t important, innovation isn’t important, it’s the repetition of the core story that is important. Bollywood takes heavily from oral traditions and being handed down. The spectacle, much like Hakawati is part of the entertainment and ability to remember the form. A lot of the stories serve as a way to remember the mythology, and morality of the religion being served. (Being India, it’s mostly Hinduism, but occasionally some of the other religions are also featured.)

Examples:
- Bollywood films.
- You can also find the “format” a bit in novels written by own voices like Spice and Smoke by Suleikha Snyder.

Conflict Narrative-High Stakes (as a story driver) (And European Diaspora) BTW, What’s commonly taught is wrong…

Country/Ethnicity: It was started by Percy Lubbock in 1921, right after WWI, but took off in the United States through some doubling down through other authors, such as Kenneth Rowe, Lajos Egri and Syd Field. It was mainly supported by Cishet men, who didn’t give credit to Lubbock. It’s still popular narrative in the US, but is losing favor within the US.

Number of Acts: 3 (or 4, if you’re counting Syd Field’s Midpoint) or 5.

5, if you go from Rowe, plagiarizing from Selden Whitcomb.

3, if you go Syd Field.

Story Driver(s)?: Conflict

Notes: The history often taught in schools and colleges is wrong and stands correcting.

I’m aware of the myth. It goes that Shakespeare, yadda yadda, Aristotle (whom I corrected above), all wanted conflict as the center of stories. And tada, this is why. Ignore the Shakespearean and historians who said to the contrary. Ignore everything about technology and the 19th century. Ignore the books that are badly cited. Ignore all the marginalized voices crying out, no, please don’t do this. Ignore the Modernists, because they are snooty.

What really happened was this: https://www.kimyoonmiauthor.com/post/656908181479555072/the-real-history-of-the-european-5-act

And if that’s too many references: https://www.kimyoonmiauthor.com/post/671983829021556736/maybe-updated-version-of-a-redux-of-3-and-5-act

And posts about the discovery:

https://www.kimyoonmiauthor.com/post/655970779781005312/so-i-was-wrong-about-conflict-narrative

 https://www.kimyoonmiauthor.com/post/663317854615191552/aelius-donatus-did-not-argue-for-a-three-act

tldr; NOT Aristotle, NOT Aelius Donatus MAYBE Horace (not descriptions of what they contain), NOT really Freytag (and Freytag was an a-hole), Percy Lubbock (erased because he was gay !@#$ Homophobes)–>Kenneth Rowe (Plagiarized a truckload, despite being a uni professor, stole from Lubbock, Esenwein, and Whitcomb. Shame him.)–>Lajos Egri (Jew, but backstabbed Jewish structure)–>Syd Field. None of them would be happy with the final result. Oh and marginalized voices objected to this at every turn. (Mostly because the majority of the people that created this monster were saying women and other marginalized voices couldn’t write for crap since they supported the Modernist movement and how dare they be so “snobby” and “academic”)

Ahh… Misogyny, racism and homophobia… the sweet juice that made the Conflict model because white cishet abled men couldn’t stand flashbacks, women, or Gertrude Stein, a white lesbian Jew talking. (This is why Syd Field ignores her when talking about his story structure and talks about how great the men of the movement were… which is subtle misogyny.)

I’m still working out what marginalized people did in the same time period. The debate raged through as lat as the 1990′s, I suppose, but the labels came out by then, to separate it.

This started losing favor in the 2000′s with the advent of Globalization and probably marginalized voices gaining voice.

Examples:

Every Hollywood movie from 1940′s-1980′s. (Especially with the Hayes Codes. I feel stabby towards the Hayes codes given all of the great voices that were destroyed with them.

Crick Crack (Kwik Kwak)

Country/Ethnicity: Caribbean among black community, from elements taken from African Diaspora.

Number of Acts: 2

1. Tell Riddles to test the audience.

2. Audience becomes a chorus and comments on the story.

Story Driver(s)?: Memory and History of how to live.

Notes: Tip off From Vida Cruz. Original article here: https://www.stabroeknews.com/2009/08/16/sunday/arts-on-sunday/the-african-story-telling-tradition-in-the-caribbean/

There is also a ritual ending. There are similarities with (griot) in that it emphasizes memory and the history of the people’s way to live.

Examples:

The Ti Jean tales of St Lucia

https://carribbeanliterature.weebly.com/plot-summary.html

Dream Record

Country/Ethnicity:

Originated in China (during the Ming dynasty), but often used in Korea (mongyu-rok)

Number of Acts:

No set number of acts

Story Driver(s)?: Self-Reflection/Regret

What is it?:

A Chinese pioneered format that works as a half-remembrance/Half Dream pioneered during the Ming Dynasty. Sometimes the person is dead, or about to die and is having flashbacks. Sometimes it can run surreal or reflective. It often looks back on the teller’s life.

In Korean incarnations of this story format, it can also be the person has died and is telling another soul this story, which solves an issue or problem for both the soul telling it and the person receiving it.

Notes: This format is likely to be hated right out of the gate by most US literary agents, but is a valid sort of format. The point of the format is self-reflection (and I suppose penance a bit, but not as heavy). Where did I go wrong?

It is often in Korean works is synchronized with giseungjeongyeol (East Asian 4-act), but in a more tragic form with the hero flawed and having brought themselves to that state. It also often is synchronized in the Korean tradition with the religion Mugyo and concepts of Mugyo.

As the late-Ming social fabric, too, became frayed, violent uprisings against the well-off began to impinge on the consciousness of intellectuals, who came to fear for their properties, incomes, families, and lives. Such anxieties peaked as the decades-long Qing conquest ensued. The sense of losing control over one’s affairs and of needing to deal, however actively or passively, with unpredictable exigencies also heightened attunement to the unbidden. Such attunement was directed either outward to the cosmic forces behind events or inward to “the feeling and memory of what happens”—to adapt Antonio Damasio’s characterization of core and autobiographical consciousness.

The increased attention to dreams and dreaming that all these factors generated during the Ming disintegration and collapse persisted among those who survived the Qing conquest and lived on under alien rule, sustained or tormented by memories—often oneiric memories—of what or whom they had lost. The dream arc was extended to the end of the seventeenth century mainly by the life spans of “remnant subjects” (yimin) of the fallen Ming.9 The total effect of these changes was to weaken the distinction that people normally drew between waking and non-waking awareness and to make doubts about parsing “reality” and “unreality” emblematic of the age. (Struve : pp. 12-13).

I do not currently know of a Japanese version.

It treats time, itself and a non-linear progression and can jump around, which is very much like older ideas of shamanism in the region. (For example in really old Mugyo, time is only experienced when the live soul and the deal soul merge together, thus ghosts themselves are not tied to ideas of time. And very old versions of Chinese shamanism (Wu jiao) also similarly think of time in this way, rather than circular.)

 
Examples:

“Romance of the Three Kingdoms” by Luo Guanzhong
“Unyong -Jon” (Unyeong Jeon in revised) by Unknown, translated by Michael Pettid
“Another Oh Hae Yeong”-Korean drama. It’s technically epic style, and the main arc is Dream Record, but the individual events are a mix of Giseungjeongyeol and 5 act. It shifts between realization and conflict.

East Asian 4-act

Country/Ethnicity:

Originated in China (起承转合 qǐ chéng zhuǎn hé), by accounts but also used in Korea Gi Seung Jeon Gyeol (Hangul: 기승전결; Hanja: 起承轉結) and Japan Kishōtenketsu (起承転結). How the characters and stages are interpreted vary country to country ever so slightly.

Number of Acts: 4

Story Driver(s)?: Self-actualization, Self-realization, and self-development. (tends to be introspective)

What is it?:

China:

qi 起: means start or introduction, usually meaning the reason something started

chéng 承: meant handling, process, or hardships

zhuǎn 转: turn, turning point, crescendo

hé 合: result

Korea

gi 기 : raising issues and introducing characters

seung 승 : the beginning of the action (But not to solve a problem, necessarily more for self realization)

jeon 전 : a change in direction or reversal

gyeol 결 : the thing to be concluded and any lessons gained through the process or results.

Note: With the exception of the “Jeon” the reported structure of this matches the Kishotenketsu, below, however, mapping how it feels storywise is difficult, because of the strong return element. In another words, while time is going forwards, the character is returning to a previous point in their life, re-examining it–or forced to reexamine it. So the shape of the story overall contradicts the timeline making it almost impossible to map graphically.

Japan

The popular diagram on the internet via Google is made by a white person who doesn’t understand that tension isn’t the heart of the story and is wrong since the twist is the high point of the story. The climb to the realization point can have different shapes as well as long as the twist is the high point of the story. The one I made you can find from own voices here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tfi0FvD9Yu0 

kiku (起句) (or Ki)- Introduction

shōku (承句) (Sho)-Development

tenku (転句) (ten)-twist

kekku (結句) (Ketsu)-Conclusion

Notes:

The understood structure varies by country. It’s often used in slice-of-life story formats and often also used to enhance warm and fuzzy feelings in the viewer. But it can also be used effectively for mysteries (Japan’s version is really good for this) and sometimes dark dramas. Because the conclusion can amp up conflict or completely deescalate it into nothing, it gives a lot more options and allows for open endings. This format is also used in poetry, music, calligraphy, art, chess, strategy and in arguments. Below are notes for mostly the modern iterations, though further back in time, they were more similar than dissimilar.

China tends to Introduce the characters and settings in the first act. The justification for this is that it allows the rest of the action to happen more quickly. Then it introduces the problems/issues, second act. And then puts a sudden adversity into the third act. This can either resolve, or not resolve in the fourth act, which often makes C-drama fans super upset. The older versions of it DO NOT resolve. (I did ask someone Chinese about why and China often thought of itself as the victim in turbulent upsets.)

Korea tends to raise the thing that needs to be changed or resolved, into the first act, which may not happen in Chinese version and then introduce the characters. Then it lays out the problem further in the second act, as in why is this a problem, etc. Jeon is the change in direction–modern Korean tends to view it as the “return” (as in the person comes home and discovers they were not being themselves.) or a reversal in direction. (as in they stubbornly were smoking cigarettes, now they are determined to quit). Some versions do both a twist, (usually first) and then a return element. (An example of this is Parasite, which had both a twist and then a return.) Then the conclusion, which usually includes any lessons they learned.

Japan tends to Introduce the characters and the problem (usually only one problem), with the emphasis on the characters. Then show how the problems the characters have obstruct them in their everyday life. Then they put in something that you didn’t expect to happen, or a revelation about the past that makes everything before change and reveal the core of the problem. Then come to the conclusion. The conclusion isn’t always a resolute solution to everything in this form, which, BTW, Belgium relationship therapist Esther Perel said was the problem with Americans in an interview. It’s more like wrap up for that particular issue, while indicating the story still goes on beyond that and then the result of the previous decisions–often with notes about the occasional backslide. More than the other two subtypes, Kishotenketsu usually focuses on only one minor character trait that needs to change over the course of the entire story no matter how long it is. And usually it is one small trait or small problem for the character, while the other flaws and traits, while problematic for the character may not change at all. This trait can change for good or for ill after the realization point.

Unlike most 3-act and 5-act European stories, it heavily is based in self-realization, self-actualization and self-development. Anything short of this in this story type are usually pretenders. It also often thinks of time itself as a circle.

You can also find it in other Asian countries and regions such as Thailand (adapted version) and Taiwan (mostly a synchronized version of Japanese and Chinese version).

The origin of why East Asian 4-act came to be is roughly this: Economically, China set itself up early on to be interdependent on each other and cooperating–an Integrated economy. (Cecil 22:55-39:03) This meant, over time, there was famine, if there was yet another overthrow of the throne. China got TIRED of all the conflict, having to deal with famines, etc, and so pretty early on instituted the exam system (Han Dynasty), which helped mitigate the violence and allowed commoners to become officials (Cecil: 19:36-23:57). Conflict always, always was bad for the state. (27:30-29:00)  qǐ chéng zhuǎn hé doesn’t have conflict at the center for that reason, and this is why development is the key. Also, why the third act of this version has usually some conflict, but it’s quickly squashed in favor of personal development. (Wesley Cecil: Podcast: 06-04 Chinese- Languages and Literature–Humane Arts 2015) I used this source since it reflects what own voices have said before to me privately.

I also did heavy edits to the Wikipedia Kishotenketsu page which is why a lot of the information looks similar, but could not find academic backing directly for all I’ve stated above. (Because Eurocentricism sucks, and 4 articles on the subject on JSTOR and 1 on qǐ chéng zhuǎn hé makes me go ARRGHHH)

Examples:
qǐ chéng zhuǎn hé

Lovely Us- Chinese drama (16 Episodes)

Youth Makes the Century (Every single episode and the arc.)

Gi Seung Jeon Gyeol

Let’s Eat (1, 2, 3) 

Reply Series

Minari (US movie) kinda uses flavors of it around the edges.

Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter, and then Spring (movie, you can find subs for it)–is about as pure a version of giseungjeongyeol as one can get with literal Buddhism.

Kishotenketsu

Most, if not all Ghibli films. “Spirited Away” is a strong example of this.

Solitary Gourmet by Masayuki Qusumi, Illustrated by Jiro Taniguchi (The drama too, which is overseen by Masayuki Qusumi)

Kokoro by Natsume Soseki

For a non-Warm and Fuzzy version: Botchan by Natsume Soseki. (Warning though, the protag is intentionally very annoying and very inactive.)

Reset (2009)- Japanese drama. It’s technically an omnibus. But the individual structure of the drama episodes is kishotenketsu–but for the sake of psychological horror. (It truly messes with your head.)

Taiwan

In Time With You (BTW, one of the best dramas ever–it’s one you want to rewatch to see what you missed.)

Though it technically is not nor intended to be, When Harry Met Sally can also be argued into this structure since a lot of the way the the story moves is through realization, not purely conflict.

Emotional Story Structure

Country/Ethnicity: Argued to be universal.

Number of Acts: Not dictated by this style of story structuring.

What is it?: Instead of the axes being time on the bottom and then tension to the left, as in the European 5-act model and European 3-act model, it plots purely on emotionality of “happy/content” and then “sad” on the other.

Kurt Vonnegut argued that this was the way stories should be thought of and came up with a thesis for it, but was rejected. (Because you know, worship conflict more.)

But since, there have been arguments by some scholars that one should look at emotionality in plot structure and this is a different sort of structure than the typical analyses about events. But how does it make the reader and the character feel during the course of the story. https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/bitstream/handle/2142/17673/ctrstreadtechrepv01984i00322_opt.pdf?sequence=1

Story Driver(s)?: Emotion

Kurt Vonnegut argued for the following:
Man in Hole
Boy Meets Girl
From Bad to Worse
Which Way is Up
Creation Story
Old Testament
New Testament
Cinderella

https://www.openculture.com/2014/02/kurt-vonnegut-masters-thesis-rejected-by-u-chicago.html

Examples:
One can find the particular examples given by Vonnegut, but it’s likely also in stories that you’ve read–where the trajectory of the event structure may contradict the emotionality of the story either for good or bad effect.

WW1984 is 5-act, but fails the basics of nailing emotionality correctly. There wasn’t proper emotional mapping.

Something like Miyazaki’s Spirited Away follows pretty closely to the 4-act shape with the emotionality as well, for great effect.

The arc of Breaking Bad has points where the audience feels differently from the character and contradicts the event structure for enhanced effect.

Often when a villain wins, the audience might feel the opposite way from the character and plot.

It’s worth for (writers) to give this idea of plotting weight.

Epics

Tends to feel more integrated for the audience as it slowly builds for the big bad to take down or whatever the arc goal is. The arc goal is usually an event that is long time coming.

This isn’t as common in modern European and European-derived epics, though is notable for being more like the Odyssey and Iliad. Feels more episodic.

Note that the two styles can be mixed for different effects, though I have found they rarely are. Also, sometimes people intersperse the main arc story (purple) between the two stories that work on the arc, though this is more of a US television ploy than it is a common literary structure.

Country/Ethnicity:

Unclear origin

Number of Acts:

Varies by region.

Story Driver(s)?: varies by region

What is it?:

It’s more like a bigger storytelling structure for longer stories. Often there are “stages” of the story which may be structured like a 3-act, 5-act, Hero’s Journey, kishotenketsu, etc. Usually there are layers to the story as the character moves through stages that are often, but not always an allegory for growing up or change. It comes in two basic internal styles: Pivot-hook, and hook pivot.

Since it’s a bunch of stories strung together, often what differentiates different epic styles is how it transitions from one story to the next and what is considered “acceptable” given a time period and for that particular ethnicity.

For example, Epics such as 1001 Nights is strung together by a frame–someone is telling the story to try to save their own life. The pivot point–as in when the next tale is told is when it transitions back to the storyteller in each round, meaning each time it needs a fresh new hook to hook the next story.

But sometimes the set up for the next story is in the previous story. The placement of this hook often emerges at the last minute. In this case, it is a hook-pivot. This is often used in more American epics and late European epics, where the story picks up on a previous, theme, event or thread to continue the story, like a dirty lantern that was hung in the corner, but now is being dusted off. Lord of the Rings often has smaller events which are internally structured and then there is a dirty lantern hung before it moves to the next storyline so they string together.

Sometimes the hook is placed much later in the story before the pivot, so they are closer together, so it’s more like a creeping shadow that suddenly overtakes the reader.

Often the tiny stories are strung together to create a main plotline and reveal something big about the characters, setting or previous events. The main plotline, in turn, can be also formally structured or unstructured to create a bigger effect by manipulating the theme or tone of the smaller stories within.

Examples:
“Gilgamesh”
“Odyssey”- Epic with 3 act mostly.
“Tale of Genji” by Lady Murasaki Shikibu- It combines other styles internally as well.
“Lord of the Rings” by JRR Tolkien

European Five Act Plays

Country/Ethnicity: It’s a Frankenstein. Probably started with Gustav Freytag (Germany) trying to retcon Shakespeare. Then Kenneth Rowe (1939) made a similar, but not the same diagram in his book “Write that play” but labeled that diagram differently. (Climax was Crisis, for example). (We mostly use his diagram, but not his instructions.) Doubled down and developed by Lajos Egri in his treaties which added the “Inciting Incident” and changing it back to “Climax”. Further developed by Syd Field and later Hollywood, but it’s a twisty journey. (You’ll have to look elsewhere to put it all together–post forthcoming when I finish the research).

Some influence may have come from Troubadours and the candles at Black Friars (tip given by Buzz Dixon, source found by me: https://www.eaton.com/sg/en-us/company/news-insights/lighting-resource/trends/lighting-the-stage-a-history-of-early-theater-lighting-technology.html: “The Blackfriars incorporated candles made from tallow, sheep or beef fat, which were cheaper than beeswax but required more maintenance due to their fast disintegration. Each performance required more than 100 candles. Stagehands stayed busy, as candles had to be replaced or trimmed four times over the course of the show, and chandeliers were manually raised or lowered to vary lighting effects.” Cross reference: https://muse.jhu.edu/article/49937/summary)., but this is kinda retconning the point it was a German trying to say German plays are the best (especially mine) and the rest of you people suck.

And then a bunch of Americans trying to retcon the whole of history by trying to legitimize their story structure by using Aristotle (Kenneth Rowe) and Freytag (without credit, Kenneth Rowe, you plagiarist) and then further refined in the 1960′s and 1970′s into what was aptly described as a male version of how men experience sex? (Meander, Spiral, Explode by Jane Alison, Introduction)

Number of Acts: 5

What is it?:

Exposition

Rising Action

Climax

Falling Action

Denouement

Story Driver(s)?: Conflict

Notes:

Historically, the attributions for this are quite wrong. So, excuse me while I correct all of your Lit teachers and actually fix the attribution issues and what the shape was supposed to look like v. what it looks like these days (the top one with the bright colors is the shape of “these days).

The first attribution is Aristotle, but he didn’t argue for the 3 act. He argued for 2. He was retconned later on by a combination of Hollywood, Freytag, Horace and a wrongful attribution to Aelius Donatus. He has nothing to do with the shape of the plot above. (See Aristotle TWO-act above).

The original shape of this was created by Freytag and wrongfully attributed to Shakespeare (https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/36059/theater/shakespeare-sunday-hamlet-of-acts-and-scenes), who did no such thing as create the 5-act. Gustav Freytag have an equilateral triangle (roughly) drawn with dots drawn along it which look nothing like the diagram above, but some elements were stolen later.

Now Freytag, in turn was an imperialist (which you need to actually read his biography and books for) and also a devout Christian. So his whole shtick, was that imperialism== good. Imperialism is the stuff. But he needed justification for his “discovered” 5-act. So he retconned history in order to do so, and argued that the 5-act was something that Shakespeare employed.

BUT he argued for the 5 act structure to look different from above, which I’ll cover in his own section, ‘cause it gets sticky up in here.

He also was pro wiping out the Poland. Saying the dominance of all Literature was now Germany, and everyone else was failing. And super pro-Christian. (You can find the roots of Nazism in his thinking. Personally, reading his is a chore ‘cause he’s loquacious, full of himself and an imperialist, which you can taste throughout his writing. AND he blatantly made up things he never cited in his work. Like you can’t fight in Greek sandals. Excuse you? And made up facts about Greeks and Shakespeare to suit him. But at least he’s not so blatant about his imperialism as some others on this list, so it’s like you have to be that extra vigilant.)

He also argued for the foundations of some of the things that would become conflict in this model, but isn’t really what he argued for. He argued instead, for through emotion, heightened, but not conflict, but through contrast of episodes. (He also argued episodes are the best thing ever and choruses are now stupid.)

This becomes a sticking point. Where did the conflict model come from? Who lied to you so heavily like this?

The conflict narrative came down to 1921 (Percy Lubbock), which made people at the time–the fellow authors raging mad. That’s the first mention of conflict. Virginia Woolf was not pleased and said the whole thing–which sold like hotcakes–flattened story telling. Which it did.

Next comes Kenneth Rowe in 1939. He made a shape similar to the above, but made different arguments about it and it’s not an exact replica. The shortening of the Denouement is probably his fault.

Then Lajos Egri renamed the parts–since there are no citations, it’s unclear if he read Kenneth Rowe. He made several points that make me think he did, such as correcting notions about Aristotle which flew straight against what Rowe had said (He’s also correct, having shown signs of reading Aristotle in full–a very Jewish things to do and I say this as a Jew). But he added more psychology of the character and likely started the basic types of conflict model.

Kinda, Syd Field? Hollywood and California Syd Field. He invented the Inciting Incident. But also conflict. But… he never argued for 5 acts. He argued for 3, which is kinda 4 if you ignore him.

And then, that was synchronized later into the 5 act (though at this point it’s not clear who because there are a ton of screenwriting books out there.) which creates the shape of the modern “European” 5-act, which is a frankenstien created by mostly white male critics and writers (Most of them are abled. They are all cis and het (except 1 who was gay, but he was trying to pass as straight for most of his life.)) and one huge a-hole of a pro-genocide imperialist. (I mean if you’re pro-wiping out Polish people… what else do I call you?) Because of this, this structure has some tastes of Christianity about it, but really is from the 19th century, based on an opinion of one German dude, trying to argue that Shakespeare used it, when Shakespeare didn’t use it at all. And then retconned again in the Modern era, which unfortunately would mean this very concept is likely from the Hollywood era, and really has nothing to do with Shakespeare, who was just a guy messing around and trying to structure based on candle time and an editor after Shakespeare that forced it into the 5-act.

This means the modern structure as you see above is heavily influenced by Christianity, Capitalism and imperialism. (Which is why I now have 4 more to add to explain why this one exists. (Not thrilled at having to add more European structures.))

I should note that even Freytag admitted he compared his story structure to cis het (mostly abled) sex.

Yeah… so… if you need a redux, it’s here: https://www.kimyoonmiauthor.com/post/671983829021556736/maybe-updated-version-of-a-redux-of-3-and-5-act

Pros and Cons:

The positives of the above model are:

- Good at creating anxiety and depression. (The stuff that makes pushing products easier). (I think Aristotle would be kinda proud of it, but disturbed at the lack of a chorus, and OMG, why is conflict the main driver when he said morality should be the main driver. And why are you sooo concerned about character?)

- Good for linear storytelling.

- Good for event, event, event, action on screen moments.

The negatives include:

- Too much focus on events, and not enough on character. (This is why the previous versions asked that you focus on emotion, character development, motivations, morality, etc and not conflict). It is the LEAST character-centric of the story structures. Because it is so event-focused, a character slowing down and thinking things through, and quiet on the screen can feel wildly out of place.

- Can seem too commercial, especially when news uses it to push products like Botox. Bad, thing, bad thing, car chase with black man/Latinx, look, BOTOX. BUY BOTOX. Commercial. You have conflict in your life and don’t feel adequate because we’ve been pushing conflict all your life and not giving you time to reflect? Here is solution to all your problems until you feel empty after you buy it.

Also, because of this, time is often treated as a singular line, not branches, loops, or anything else, but a single line, with a beginning, middle and end. (or as Doctor Who put it, “People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but *actually* from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint - it’s more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly… time-y wimey… stuff.”

Examples:
Most (contemporary) US movies such as Wonder Woman 1984

(Most, but not all) of the Marvel Movies (Joss Whedon is a wild card since he mixed in other plotting elements).

European Three Act

Country/Ethnicity:

Athens Greek, (wrongly) attributed to Aristotle, 

developed by Aelius Donatus (also semi-wrong attribution) in On Comedy and Tragedy.

Correct attribution is Syd Field, born 1935, in the United States, California. Mention of the three act before then does not exist.

Number of Acts:

3

What is it?:

Protasis, Epitasis, Catastrophe–attributed to Aelius Donatus in the 4th Century CE BTW, is wrong.

The Syd Field version:

Plot Point–protagonist gains a goal

Confrontation- which contains the midpoint, which is a reversal in fortune.

Struggle- To achieve or not achieve their goals.

Story Driver(s): Conflict

Notes:

Not said by Aelius Donatus, but wrongly attributed to “On Comedy and Tragedy” which, as a book does not exist. His actual Bibliography looks like this: (Another repetition error for those in the back)

• Donatus, Aelius, 4th cent.: Ars maior [Latin]
• Donatus, Aelius, 4th cent.: Ars minor [Latin]
• Donatus, Aelius, 4th cent.: Commentary on Terence, Comedies, with preface About Tragedies and Comedies [Latin] (Commentvm Terenti, Publii Terentii Comoediae Sex, Preface de tragoedia et comoedia)
• Donatus, Aelius, 4th cent.: Explicatio in Ciceronis De inventione [Latin]
• Donatus, Aelius, 4th cent.: Vita Vergili [Latin]

https://medieval.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/catalog/person_37012417

What he said was that he was in favor of a 5-act Chorus, which was the correct story structure. But when he was breaking down the plays, he used the Greek words for roughly translated as “Beginning” “Middle” and “End” (which is a similar copy-error to Aristotle) BUT he also had a “Prologue” (Prologus) in there, which was not in Greek. I spent a long, long time typing up his words in the original Latin, then used Google translate. So he’ll get his own section. https://www.kimyoonmiauthor.com/post/663317854615191552/aelius-donatus-did-not-argue-for-a-three-act

He did celebrate when Terence used 5-acts for the Chorus. But he kinda was an asshole, since he thought that one of Terence’s plays, which were all comedies, needed a really good defense, when the play had a three entire rapes in it. Left me with a sour taste in my mouth. Anyway, did not make the 3-act.

Falsely attributed to Aristotle, but most likely a lie made out later in time according to this source: https://storyality.wordpress.com/2012/12/17/storyality-26-3-acts-did-aristotle-ever-say-that/

However, if you actually sit down and read Aristotle’s Poetics, which clearly most people who teach literature haven’t, you will find he did not ever argue for Three acts. What he argued for for negative reinforcement of morals through a two-act format, with the Point in Change (Something bad happens) being in the first act (see Aristotle’s Two Act at the top). And this was only for tragedy. (He barely makes comments about comedy, seeing it as lesser of the two.) Repetition and attribution error.

What likely happened was something like this:

If you sit and read Aristotle, he makes reference to water clocks: This marked out the time which the play must happen. Similarly (if you bother to read it), the European 5 Act is marked out by candles. The Tudors often tried to copy the “Classics” and that the root of all particularly British (and maybe even more particularly English) plays come from that.

If you skim read Aristotle, you’ll find a section where he loosely (and quite badly) defines a play as having a Beginning, Middle and End. (But it’s an argument that such things need to be continuous, not skip around) But if you don’t read the rest of the Poetics, you miss out on the part where he defines the act structure itself as 2 parts: Complication and Denouement. Complication is everything is happy until something bad happens. Denouement is the tragic end. (Also his 16 act structure)

However, Aristotle was Pre-Christianity, which later, adapted something like a Beginning Middle and End. (Genesis, the stuff in the middle, and the the Apocalypse) 

Freytag came along and declared Aristotle to be good and he did the three act play. (Though, as established, this is a lazy interpretation). Freytag was also a devout Christian. So it served him to think of stories in 3 acts. Genesis, the stuff in the middle after genesis, and then the apocalypse (with Germans out on top). Freytag’s retcon stuck. It’s worthy to note that Freytag was also very, very for imperialism. To the point he wanted Germany to wipe out Poland because he thought Germany was the cream of everything civilized. (This is also kinda why the Five act and Three act have some taste of imperialism.) Also, he was arguing the entire time on how superior he was to Shakespeare and Aristotle, because Prussia was the pinnacle of civilization. (Reading all of his book makes you want to kick him, which is why most people don’t.)

Then everyone ignored Freytag. And Hollywood was born. The earliest stories of Hollywood in the silent film era that were narrative were not conflict-centric. Then men took over Hollywood, but you need justification for how you think, so another retcon. Being short films (at the time) and no television, people lifted structures for short stories and applied them to films.

Then Kenneth Rowe tried to assert that he wasn’t really stealing from Freytag, he was taking from Aristotle. (Obviously took from Freytag. Several of the terms are exactly the same) Made for 5-acts.

Lajos Egri is in there. He hated Kenneth Rowe for getting Aristotle wrong, so didn’t cite him. Hated Freytag for being anti-Semitic, so also didn’t cite him. (Speculation, but it’s kinda obvious…) and came up with his own theory.

So the real person you’re looking for is Syd Field, who, BTW, is born in 1935, who came up with the Three Act format. His is actually 3 acts with a break in the second, act, making it 4 acts, if you think about it too hard.

The problem is the original structure was for SHORT films, which were suited to SHORT Story format. But films reached Titanic proportions. Haha. Joke intended. But no one questioned, hmmm… maybe we should change the format? Also, at the same time, women were being ignored about what they wanted for story structure and other marginalized communities.

This means that the proper history goes like this: 2-acts–>4-acts (But argued for 5)–>4-acts (briefly in the 1500′s)–>5-acts (1863)–>3-acts (no conflict)–> Let’s have a structure, but no determined number of acts (Conflict–1921 Lubbock)–>5-acts (Kenneth Rowe)–>3 acts (conflict Syd Field)–>5-acts (conflict)–>5-act (shortened denouement). Feel dizzy yet?

They need the 3-act, because that later becomes again, the 5-act Hollywood version of it. But this is historical skimming of Literary history. And what sounds better in the minds of white history, as established by the Tudors? White person in Hollywood came up with the 3 act after the 5-act, but people in the modern era came back to the 5-act, or IT WAS ARISTOTLE! A GREAT GREEK SCHOLAR! (Though he was an ass to poor, women and ableist.) Thus the structure is ANCIENT! (And not started sometime in the 1970s) Also ONLY WHITE CISHETABLED MEN CAN COME UP WITH GREAT STORIES. (’cause believe me, I tried to find women and marginalized groups who supported this retconning academic masturbation and most of them said no.)

So correct your history.

Examples:
Antigone by Sophicles (not really. It’s 2 acts.)

Oedipus Tyrannos by Sophicles (not really)

Syd Field’s screenplays: Los Banditos

Freytag’s Pyramid (pure, unadulterated, just him.)

The correct one looks like this (I made both diagrams). This is the one in his book (He couldn’t put the text with the diagram in the original, so had to label it ABCD, but this is what it pretty much looks like with the text in place.

You can check that I’m correct on p. 115 (diagram) in his book. (I also screenshotted it here: https://www.kimyoonmiauthor.com/post/656908181479555072/the-real-history-of-the-european-5-act

Under Freytag’s section which goes into a lot more detail.

This one was made, much, much later and was never made by Freytag. Please see European-5-act (Contemporary)

Country/Ethnicity: Germany, Gustav Freytag: Pyramid in Die Technik des Dramas  

Number of Acts: 5

What is it?:
Introduction

Rise

Climax

Return or Fall

Catastrophe

Story Driver(s)?:

Heightened emotions created through emotional contrast.

Notes:
- While he didn’t ever name the inciting incident, (that might be attributable to Lajos Egri, though I can’t get my hands onto his book to double check if he coined it yet.) p 94-95
- He was a novelist and playwright.
- He was pro-genocide of Polish people. (I know, and yes, this is before WWI) (And you’ll notice this with a lot of the people who they attribute to the final form.)
- He did list 1 female playwright, though didn’t think much of her.
- He did write sexist things, though it’s far more subtle.
- He had an ego. He thought that Hamlet would have been improved if only Shakespeare followed his plot structure… *cough* arrogant *cough*
- He argued for Exciting force and Tragic Force on page 190-191
- I should note that his time period coincides with the “Pre-Raphelites” and other conjoined art/book/play movements which you can look at writers like John Ruskin for. These writers often thought that the “classics” were best and eschewed the “Modernists”, which explains why he referenced Sophicles, Shakespeare, Aristotle and some older German playwrights.
- he compared his story structure to his experiences of sex.
- no one actually uses his story structure, since the thing he labels the climax is now called the “midpoint” from Syd Field.

Examples:

Any of Freytag’s works which include:
Ingo und Ingraban (1872)
Das Nest der Zaunkönige (1874)
Die Brüder vom deutschen Hause (1875)
Marcus König (1876)
Die Geschwister (1878)
Aus einer kleinen Stadt (1880)

(This list of his works is taken from Wikipedia)

BTW, STRONG CONTENT WARNING: He tends to write into his fiction his hatred of Polish. You might be gritting your teeth while reading it–especially if you’re anti genocide. (I have to wonder about you if you are pro-genocide.) He’s also racist, and anti-semitic. It’s not a pleasant read, which is why he’s not cited by any later writers.

Frame

Country/Ethnicity: Worldwide structure. Might be older than we know.

Number of Acts: Often used in combination with other story structures due to its nature.

What is it?: The set up for a story inside another story. For example, Neverending Story is a story within a story.

Story Driver(s)?: Varies by region.

Notes: Though it’s often used in Europe, it never seems to be mentioned as a type of story structure in any of the writing classes, etc that I’ve taken. People see it, dismiss it and then don’t talk about it or when it does or doesn’t work.

Examples:
“Princess Bride” 1987
“Neverending Story” by Michael Ende
“Sutekina Sen Taxi“- Japanese drama, but slowly over the course of the strung together story, you realize there is a frame within a frame that’s brought together in the final episode, marrying the epic style and the omnibus with the frame. It’s not any of these, but all of them at the same time.

(Griot)

Country/Ethnicity:

West African oral and poetry tradition. Not formally named, but told and handed down by Griots (thus the parenthesis around the name–if there are formal names, please correct me.)

Number of Acts: 3

What is it?:

Opening formula-includes jokes and riddles to engage audience participation Story telling events, done seriously.

the body/expository section- narration of the tale, setting up the characters and the events, defining the conflict.

the conclusive formula- closure of the story and the moral.

Story Driver(s)?: Memory (especially to help live a more moral life)

Notes: I used mainly the Cameroon formula, but it has to vary by tribe and region, so keep that in mind, but it is similar. The main point of these stories is MEMORY. They often help people to remember the tribe’s history and past as well as help them to live a better life. This is why there is often emphasis on good language use, repetition and clear imagery. They tell how the people live. And it varies by tribe and region. Griots were important to their communities.

Sometimes the riddles help, also, to set up the story not just warm up the audience.

You will also notice that while conflict is included, it’s not the point of the story.

This had a very, very important influence later on in the African Diaspora such as the Caribbean (noted in Crick Crack), North American, particularly slave and free black people narratives, Creole, and Voudon folktales.

https://teachers.yale.edu/curriculum/viewer/initiative_09.01.08_u

https://allgoodtales.com/storytelling-traditions-across-world-west-africa/

Examples:

Anansi (Ananse) Folktales.

http://www.365cinderellas.com/2011/05/cinderella-129-chinye-west-african.html

“The People Could Fly” by Virginia Hamilton - African American version of it.

Zora Neale Hurston’s collected folklore of Lousiana’s black community.

Yes, he was a butt and a half… but it is true Ruyard Kipling used this formula in his “Just So” stories. How the Elephant Got His Trunk. (At least he’s dead, so you don’t have to feel guilty about buying it.)

NK Jemisin also kinda used shades of this in Hundred Thousand Kingdoms (for a US locale contemporary example).- (semi-intentional from what she said in author interviews about reading worldwide folktales.)

Nigerian dramas (which BTW, are mostly in English and also subbed) also use this structure in some degrees.

Stories Mother Told Podcast has several.

Hakawati

Country/Ethnicity: Much of West Asia. Attributed to also contributing to Northern Egyptian mythology (somewhat). (Lower Egypt)

Number of Acts: Not set, something between an epic, a live performance, and a genre of story so it’s hard to define.

What is it?

“Hakawati” is defined as a storyteller” Though it does act much like an epic, there are a few things that are necessary for it to pass:

- Strong Narrative with frame story devices

- Numerous characters who drive the action, but also narrate.

- Dramatic and sometimes fantastical and unreal actions and events.

- The actions sometimes involves journeys over may lands or across time

- A sense of wonder created through music, singing, imagery and symbolism.

- A strong message, parable of didactic undertone about how to lead a principled life.

https://gulfnews.com/entertainment/arts-culture/hakawati-the-ancient-arab-art-of-storytelling-1.712001

Story Driver(s)?: Morality

Notes:
Often the stories also include a duality as a theme. For example. Heaven and Earth. Man or woman. Man or animal. Light or darkness. I spent some time with various texts to see “why” this might be, but couldn’t find a solid answer. https://www.britannica.com/topic/dualism-religion/Historical-varieties-of-religious-dualism

There are also often recursive elements of the story, where there is repetition of themes, character, past, the morals, etc. This might be because it started as an oral performed tradition of the area.

Because of the morality and a way to a better life it often teaches, the stories often exaggerate and do it on purpose to make sure that the audience remembers the story and the message being told.

Elements of it often include things like a man swindling other people of their worldly goods because those people are viewed as beneath them (See Abram in the Torah/Bible, Genesis after he shows up, before Sodom), though this is not required. (Reading this source is a chore for the average person, so not posting it. You’ll have to look it up with mythology of the area.)

Emphasis on the GROUP over the individual is also a key theme.

Honor and Shame are often themes that run throughout these stories. (Maybe this explains why the US imposes this so much on East Asian culture.)

The morality raised can either be a statement or a question. (In Jewish tradition, it is a question, not a statement).

Examples:

Torah/Bible- as explained here: https://thebroadcastnetwork.org/lessons/studying-the-bible-from-middle-eastern-perspective/ (This link actually made me think pretty hard about how the Bible stories are interpreted. There is another link that explained the internal structure of the stories in terms of Jonah, but I lost it, but also stated that it was important that Jonah tell someone else at the end of the story and this is part of the structure.)

1001 Nights/1001 Arabian Nights- The quintessential form of this. Scheherazade makes up the frame. The individual stories often include 4-5+ characters that make up the individual stories. The stories can range in emotion, but usually shoot for a morality question plus a singular emotion per individual story. When packed and framed together, they create a semi morality arc.

The Qu’ran- per the link above.

Avesta- (per other sources, but it takes some work to come to this conclusion… so investigate it.)

Shahnameh- also cross into this territory since it’s upheld by storytellers.

The Bastard of Istanbul by Elif Shafak- for a more contemporary interpretation, though the frame is buried in the story more.

The Blood of Flowers by Anita Amirrezvani also uses elements of this and breeds it with the European 5-act.

It is both a form, an art, a structure, and a morality and a job. This is somewhat similar to the ideas of (Griot), though has more attached to it. If you want to understand it, it’s probably best to try to procure tickets to see a performance of it to understand the reason why it is done this way and look at other similar artforms worldwide, including (griot), rakugo, etc.

Hero’s Journey AKA Monomyth

Some diagrams I found mixed up the order of the stages, skipped/deleted stages, tried to make it less sexist, substituted stages, or tried to breed it with Propp’s work on fairytales. I opted for the one that Campbell argued for (Though I’m not thrilled with all the stages–some being straight up sexist.) If you want to delete stages, that’s up to you, not me, so I tried to be as literal as possible. You should be able to click to make this larger. or size up by cmd/cntrl+1 on your screen.

Country/Ethnicity:

Mostly European ideology, though said to be a universal Story type.

Number of Acts:

3, with 17 stages.

What is it?:

Departure/Separation

0. Ordinary World.

1. Call to Adventure

2. Refusal of Call

3. Meeting a Mentor

4. Cross First Threshold

5. Belly of the Whale

Initiation

6. Trials and Failures/Road of Trials

7. Meeting with the Goddess.

8. Woman as Temptress

9. Atonement with Father/Parent

10. Death and Rebirth/Apothesis

11. Ultimate Reward

12. Refusal of Return

Return

13. Magical Flight

14. Rescue from Without

15. Crossing of Return Threshold

16. Master of 2 Worlds

17. Freedom to Live

Story Driver(s)?: Conflict and Transformation

Notes:

Joseph Campbell extensively talked about it, but was first traced to Anthropologist Edward Burnette Tylor’s Work.

It’s often used loosely in Coming-of-Age stories as the Coming of age ceremonies often follow a similar proposed format: Separation, liminality and incorporation as described by Arnold van Gennep [If you look up his work: Rites of Passage, note that he was a Eurocentric a-hole and believed in “cultural superiority” where civilizations go from “primitive” to “advanced”]. It is more heavily used in specific Hero’s Quests, such as Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien. (Note that Frodo Fails the Hero’s Journey, but that Samwise doesn’t.)

It’s still conflict-centric, and in typical white European style, declaring a universal that centers around conflict when Europeans themselves have story telling styles that are not this way, tells you a lot. Be wary that this might not apply well universally. This also is plotted around an ideology, more than a philosophy. It might be more interesting to purely plot around Arnold van Gennep‘s work on Coming-of-Age ceremonies.

This is also highly sexist, which is why some of the more contemporary versions have cut #7 and #8 as necessary. Some versions also cut Atonement with the Parent and make it general atonement. And some versions cut the stages down to 12–meaning they cut out 5. (Usually Belly of Whale, Atonement, Meeting with the Goddess, Woman as Temptress and Crossing the first threshold (as separate).)

See also Heroine’s Journey. (though it often repeats similar mistakes.)

Examples:

Lilith by George MacDonald (The Great Grandfather of Modern Fantasy)

Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien

Most Sword and Sorcery stories.

Heroine’s Journey

Country/Ethnicity: Mostly European ideology, though said to be a universal Story type. Described by Maureen Murdock

Number of Acts: 3, with 10 stages.

What is it?:

Departure/Separation

• Heroine separates from the feminine.
• Identification with the masculine & gathering of allies.

Initiation

• Road/trials and meeting ogres & dragons.
• Experiencing the boon of success.
• Heroine awakens to feelings of spiritual aridity/death. initiation & descent to the goddess.

Return

• Heroine urgently yearns to reconnect with the feminine.
• Heroine heals the mother/daughter split.
• Heroine heals the wounded masculine within.
• Heroine integrates the masculine & feminine. 
  

Story Driver(s)?: Conflict and Transformation

Notes:

Joseph Campbell being somewhat misogynistic has a student that disagreed that women could not be the center of the story, since women were the “goal” or the story.
https://heroinejourneys.com/heroines-journey/

I’m still, personally, wary of anyone that declares a “universal” story type that’s centered around conflict given the rest of the list and the list kind of seems more like white woman’s struggles within a certain time period (I also covered this in the origin of prejudice post) rather than an integrated look at intersectionality and the whole of women’s experience through story.

Also, not quite thrilled that the whole story arc, as defined, is still about women in relationship to men and buys into the binary model. It doesn’t quite pass 3rd or 4th wave feminism’s standards.

Tip off from Erin Grey. There’s a book about it from Gail Carriger.

Examples:

Gail Carriger argues for Gothic Literature, and some specific tales from Egyptian, Sumerian/Assyrian and Greek culture

Indigenous North, Central and South Americans

Country/Ethnicity: Thousands of tribes, yes. But I did double check the work from own voices. Generally, braided is prevalent in North, Central and South Americas. It was also described by Selden Whitcomb (Not own voices) as “Braided”, though he did not cite the source for his idea.

Number of Acts: Undefined for all types.

What is it?:

There are four major types as defined by Elissa Washuta, Theresa Warburton’s Shapes of Native Nonfiction.

Technique “is for craft essays. ‘Basket makers attain control of technique to the degree that a basket is perceived as a harmonious whole. Such harmony can be achieved only by careful preparation of materials and technical perfection in construction.”

Coiling “Is for essays that appear seamless.” (Washuta and Warburton) This feels like it buolding, piece by piece and then pivoting word by selected word usually around a theme or tone and it doesn’t look like it’s going anywhere, until the end, where you finally see the whole entire shape before you–and suddenly you *get* it.

Plaiting- fragmented essays with multiple threads. You can feel this in Disney’s Encanto and it also shows up in Inuit tales and down in Colombia as well as modern Magic realism. The introduction to the book defines it as, "for fragmented essays with a single source. ‘In plaiting or checkerwork, two elements are woven over and under each other at right angle.’ Because the weft and warp are often identical in appearance and material, weft and warp can be indistinguishable in a flat piece, though the weaving itself is visible.”

Twining “Is for essays that bring together materials from different sources.”

These roughly cover folktales as well. Very, very roughly. How they are treated differs by nation, tribe and origin.

Story Driver(s)?: Varies by region, but seems to be Better Ways to Live and Morality, sometimes repetition. See Robleto. Note that these do not occupy the “plot” part of the story. They rope in the entirety of the story, from words, tone, etc to create the overall effect.

Notes: A lot of colonizers believe that these stories were ONLY oral, but there was long since writing systems in place. This means transmission was a mix of oral and written. There is also evidence of late contact with Polynesians who beat out Leif Erickson on the West Coast, which includes North and South America. Some ideas might have been shaed in that time period.

Because of shared transmission and transmission routes, this is why the story of the Three Sisters might be pretty much consistent, though there are major differences between tribes about certain details, the ideas are similar.

The second mistake colonizers make is to think that people who lived in the Americas for thousands of years didn’t change. Don’t be that donkey. Stories get reorganized and change over time as people grow and change.

As with the overview of Aboriginal, each tribe or Nation might have their own attitude or take on each of these, or have new ones not accounted for, such as Robleto. I’m doing this overview, because ownvoices said this was true. But read this cautiously, and don’t expect it to be “universally” true for all nations or tribes. You have literally hundreds of thousands. There is no such thing as universal application. Shared ideas, yes. Worldwide, yes. Universal, no.

Again, awareness, not for you to copy-paste if you aren’t ownvoices.

Jo-Ha-Kyu

Country/Ethnicity:

Japan

Number of Acts:

3

What is it?:

Beginning-Break-Rapid

Story Driver(s)?: Climbing Action

Notes:

This is usually included as a sub act structure type of Noh and Kabuki plays, which have 5 acts, however, it often shows up in film and television as part of the larger act structure.

In this format there is no denouement, because that’s not the point of the story–the climbing action is the point of the story.  It is often seen in Kabuki and Noh theater internally to the acts and also to the overall pitch of the story. It is said to imitate martial arts moves such as kendo. It follows Buddhist philosophy around the idea that the birth/rebirth cycle doesn’t have an end and there is no real resolution. Often a new conflict might arise at the end of this structure which never gets resolved or revisited. This structure might be combined with Kishotenketsu for the very end of a drama, leading a lot of Eurocentric types to unending frustration. It is more common in shounen and male-marketed media. Despite this, the point isn’t the conflict. It’s what the rising action reveals about the characters/setting as a part of the realization trope (better seen in Kurosawa movies which are heavily character-centric). The plot is more likely to see a rising action of character-event cause-effect chain than it is about how much anxiety one can get out of the audience. And the central theme is often, but not always friendship.

The "false climax” in many American movies follows a lot of this format and is likely stolen/appropriated from it. Joss Whedon, for example, often used this format in many of his superhero movies around the climax, but in doing so and adding a denouement it really misses why this format was created. (plus as been highlighted, Joss Whedon isn’t that great on race nor women… so might not be the role model you want to look at.) I would strongly suggest looking at Japanese-native media rather than poor adaptations of it, but mention Joss Whedon as an example (maybe of what to do wrong).

The story format doesn’t seem to be found elsewhere in East Asia.

Examples:

Kurosawa Akira movies (Yojimbo and Seven Samurai)
Urusei Yatsura by Takahashi Rumiko
Borrowed by The Mandalorian (drama series) for several episodes, though not that competently always.
Kabuki
Noh
Joss Whedon couches it in the 5 act structure as the “False Climax”

Karagöz

Country/Ethnicity:

Turkey

Number of Acts:

4

What is it?:

Mukaddime: Introduction. Hacivat sings a semai (different at each performance), recites a prayer, and indicates that he is looking for his friend Karagöz, whom he beckons to the scene with a speech that always ends “Yar bana bir eğlence” (“Oh, for some amusement”). Karagöz enters from the opposite side.

Muhavere: dialogue between Karagöz and Hacivat

Fasil: main plot

Bitiş: Conclusion, always a short argument between Karagöz and Hacivat, always ending with Hacivat yelling at Karagöz that he has “ruined” whatever matter was at hand and has “brought the curtain down,” and Karagöz replying “May my transgressions be forgiven.”

Story Driver(s)?: Morality and also comedy?

Examples:

Used exclusively in Karagöz genre puppetry.

Kerouac

Country/Ethnicity: United States, Jack Kerouac

Number of Acts:

Uhhh… you’re not supposed to count the acts according to his thoughts.

https://www.openculture.com/2013/10/jack-kerouac-explains-the-nine-essentials-of-writing-spontaneous-prose.html

What is it?

Jack Kerouac called spontaneous writing the purest form, so whatever went on the page, went on the page.

Story Driver(s)?: Whatever he felt like. It’s whatever the beat tells you, man.

Notes: This goes to show if you don’t like what exists, you can make up your own and you’re more likely to be able to get away with it if you are a white straight cis het man (In UK and US).

Examples:

On the Road by Jack Kerouac (not that you’re surprised)

(European) Musical

Country/Ethnicity: Somewhat Greece?

Number of Acts:

2, 7 parts

What is it?

Act 1:
Normal World
Inciting Incident
The Point of No return

Act 2:

 4a Intermission
4b. Midpoint continues
The Big Gloom
Climax into Resolution
New Normal

https://www.musicalwriters.com/getting-started-writing-a-musical/story-design-the-7-plot-points/

Note that the songs are also divides into plot functions that’s worth also investigating.

https://larryavisbrown.com/dramatic-function-of-songs-in-musicals/

Story Driver(s)?: Mostly conflict, but in a shorter form than operas.

Notes: Devin Overman asked me to check out the Sound of Music for plot structure, but after looking at it, it looks a lot more like the typical Musical structure, which isn’t always conflict-dependent. Sound of Music hits the time beats exactly. Normal world–Singing in the hills and the convent. Inciting incident–she’s told to be a governess. The I Want song hits exactly 15 minutes in. The point of no return is when the Captain returns and she knows all the children, and he asks her to stay. The Intermission is a little bit before the break. Frauline Maria leaves. The Midpoint continues after the break. This leads almost right into the gloom where the children don’t want to perform. Climax is the Nazis coming and chaos. And the new normal is when Maria decides to stay. It perfectly aligns with the Music plot structure. But it doesn’t work with Kishotenketsu because there is very little self-discovery journey within these specific plot points. Maria doesn’t discover a new love of singing. She spreads it to others or a new ability. It’s also still conflict-dependent.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3aK-EK5V2k&ab_channel=Sideways

This channel also goes over musicals and their plot and song structure quite a bit. This particular one is about Cats and runs about 1:12:00 analyzing what went wrong, etc. The other videos also analyze similar elements.

History of Musical theater and its links to Opera are here (well sourced article. Read the sources.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Development_of_musical_theatre

Examples:

Sound of Music

My Fair Lady

Most Rogers and Hammerstein Musicals

Omnibus

Both these styles are Slightly more common in the setting of an Canadian/American/British TV show, where the beginning story has a set up,  then the stories between overlap a bit, and might hint at the tone the story is going for, and thenthe final story is done by the producer if there is no arc.

Occasionally done by an individual where the next story is seeded by introducing characters in the previous story, and then the next story picks up on those characters but there isn’t a larger story that the stories are working towards. (Romance novels as a series sometimes do this.)

Country/Ethnicity: Unclear origin. Used worldwide, but not universally.

Number of Acts:

Usually by count of episodes/chapters.

What is it?

Separate stories form a singular point, rather than an arc. Either interlocking, or completely separate. If interlocking, it’s more than likely a pass-hook, than hook pass, though hook-pass in omnibus do exist. (see Epics for an explanation of the difference)

The singular point is usually thematic or tone and in an omnibus is can be and often is multiple authors. So there are multiple takes on that singular theme, but the theme itself isn’t an event arc.

Story Driver(s)?: Varies by region

Notes:

It’s popular to use in Science Fiction, which can get heavily thematic. Usually collections send out for writers to write on a particular theme, and then compile around that idea on the best takes. Sometimes editors do pay attention to emotionally arcing the stories together, but there are no set event structure.

It’s particularly useful for if one wants to explore a philosophy or an idea with the audience.

Examples:
Crash (2004 US film) kinda is omnibus-ish.

Reset (Japanese drama)

If You Were Me (a series of Korean films that deal with different kind of prejudices from the people who lived it. After the first series, which is hard to watch, they’ve more tightly themed it.)

Rites of Passage

Note that for funerals and ancestor rites, the reincorpoartion phase is only for the attendees, and often not the initiate, who is seen as staying on a separate plane, or leaving to their own new plane.

Country/Ethnicity: Said to be worldwide. Some say universal.

Number of Acts: Three

What is it?:
Separation

Liminal(ity)

Reincorporation

Note that each may differ a bit based on culture and type of ritual being imitated.

Story Driver(s)?: Transformation.

Notes:

Technically, this isn’t really a story telling type, but it is something that anthropologists noticed, and if you line it up, you can see how this influenced Bildungsroman, Heroine’s Journey and Hero’s Journey, so it is useful to know. The three act structure may also be heavily influenced by white view of the Greek and Roman plays, so take that, too, with some careful consideration.

The Rites of Passage by Arnold van Gennep is the first extensive book on this, but it’s a pain in the butt to read because it’s so racist and uses a lot of unacceptable language with high academia, it’s hard to get through. (The words asshole and fucker came up in my mind as I was reading this). First published in 1960 in English. But first published 1909. (Don’t say I didn’t warn you that I often have issues with French Philosophers.)

So to make it easier on you, I have gathered some references much easier to process:

The video isn’t as detailed, but it does go over basics.

https://www.schooloflostborders.org/content/rites-passage-van-gennep-and-beyond-merri-lee-hanson

This is more detailed, with specific examples, but not exactly perfect.

This can work as a story telling structure, though if one were to base it on a particular ritual and structure it purposefully around that type of ritual.

Examples:
Any rituals you’ve attended?

http://teacherlink.ed.usu.edu/tlresources/units/Byrnes-celebrations/Rites%20of%20Passage.html

Robleto

Country/Ethnicity:

Nicaragua. It’s named after Robert Robleto, though the structure is much older than him and discovered by Cheryl Diermyer, and outsider in 2010. It’s mostly under in the farming community.

Number of Acts:

5

What is it?:

Line of Repetition

Introduction

Climax

Journeys

Close

Story Driver(s)?: Repetition

Notes: Tip from Vida Cruz

The point is repetition as a point to make the reader remember what the story is about. (You can also see this in African and African Diaspora tales. See Yale link.) It contains no conflict.

Examples:
The original story collected: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuKgH3p7Hx0&feature=emb_logo

http://narrativestructures.wisc.edu/home/robleto

Taʿziyyah (Note there are spelling variations of this)

Country/Ethnicity:

Generally West Asia, but more specifically Saudia Arabia?

Number of Acts:

Similar to epics, they string together stories, sometimes with a frame. Some of them can be related and have a common thread, but sometimes they work towards a singular frame.

What is it?:

A chain of accounts which usually skip the introduction to the characters since the audience are already familiar with them. They all talk about suffering injustice and oppression.

Means condolence theater.

Passion plays from Islamic lore. There is a subset of this called Hakawati, which then contains the 1001 Arabian Nights. (This is kinda like all rectangles are parallelograms situation.)

Story Driver(s)?: Morality, injustice, and oppression.

Notes: Also spelled: Ta'zieh or Ta'zïye or Ta'zīya or Tazīa or Ta'ziyeh, (Arabic: تعزية‎, Persian: تعزیه‎, Urdu: تعزیہ‎)

Though it is strongly used in many Islamic and West Asian texts (such as the Bible’s story about Jonah and the whale), it predates Islam and is surmised to maybe have originated in Iran.

I’m a bit shakier on the internal v. external structure. So some parts may be a bit off. I’m open to corrections. I do not advocate using this guide to write stories in these structures without research.

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Islamic-arts/Passion-plays-taziyyah

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ta%27zieh

http://www.iranreview.org/content/Documents/Ta%E2%80%99zieh_Performance_In_Iranian_Islamic_Culture.htm

http://jls.qom.ac.ir/article_1319_en.html

(PDF): https://etd.ohiolink.edu/apexprod/rws_etd/send_file/send?accession=osu1321977419&disposition=attachment

https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/a63a/36061694c6c6e1046ee26387b02b5570065c.pdf

Examples:

Shannemeh by Ferdowsi

Mithraism
Sug-e-Siavush (Mourning for Siavush)
Yadegar-e-Zariran
Memorial of Zarir
(In the subset, Hakawati: 1001 Arabian Nights. Also in this doc.)

Theater of the Absurd (aka Absurdist)

Country/Ethnicity:

UK (Victorian mostly by attribution, but may have places earlier in history)

Number of Acts:

1 overarching act, sometimes with interlocking set stories, but no given direction.

What is it?:

There is very little dramatic action. No matter how frantic the protagonist is, it makes it makes no difference.

Story Driver(s)?: Subverting conflict and the usual for comedic effect.

Notes:

https://www.britannica.com/art/Theatre-of-the-Absurd

Examples:

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

Gulliver’s Travels (could be argued in)

Topsyturveydom by W.S. Gilbert (opera)

Monty Python’s Flying Circus (Drama, if you can all it that) often fell into this structure. Monty Python and the Holy grail is a marriage between Theater of the Absurd and epic.

Stories that invent their own structures:

Hitchhiker Guide to the Galaxy- Douglas took the feel of the epic, promised a Bildungsroman, but didn’t deliver it for most of the way through, mashed in some absurdist and farce, and then let the jokes dictate the majority of the story’s plot which led to something that didn’t feel like any plot structure anyone ever knew. And if one were to try to sell a book like that in today’s market with a nonsensical plot, and no internal structure, it probably would get struck down.

Diana Gabaldon While she does use a conflict narrative for a lot of her story arcs, when she describes the shape of the plot, she describes them in specific shapes. Like a conch shell. In this way, she doesn’t really 100% adhere to the 5-act but still tries to breed emotionality with event to create the final plot shape. (As noted before in another blog post about how writers write, she writes nonlinearly, driven by research out of order and rather slowly by her own admission.)

Making up your own

After reading this list, you should get  sense that humans invented all of these types over time. They took them from all different sorts of places–oral traditions, music (I ching is also a type of music… the principles of the I ching as a musical form.), philosophy, martial arts, theater, calligraphy, argumentative discourse, poetry, etc. In a way, stories are and aren’t at the center of creativity and thought. Maybe if you go back far enough–say to the cave paintings that our ancestors did, that all of the art forms would run together. Who knows. But given that art and creativity and philosophy run together this way, one can use other things to create your own story structures.

If you notice, though, you need a few things to make a story structure:
- A philosophy of how time works. Is it linear? completely non-linear? circular? branching? etc.

- A central philosophy that will drive forwards the plot structure

- Figure out the number of acts with a reason why.

- a Y-axis philosophy: Emotionality? tension? Emotional engagement?

- A desired effect that the story structure should create: Anxiety? Thoughfulness, self discovery?, etc.

Uncanny Valley- I was staring at this on Korean websites and wondering if it could be made into a story structure to heighten psychological horror.

In theory, it could work, start out cut and normal and then it gets weirder and weirder and gradually not normal, until suddenly it’s not cute anymore.

Favorite music structure not made into a story?- You can see Musicals have a story structure. So what would that look like as a text? Could you make it work? For example.

A personal philosophy?

A martial arts form not set to story?

Plot structures noted by others and ones I haven’t gotten to research yet, but would like to properly add.

Etiological Oral Narratives

Kikyuu Tribe (East Africa) Limba tribe Sierra Leone
Also found in Greek and Roman myths
Iroquois

Open
Event
Rise
Resolution
Justification

Ovid’s Metamorphoses

Fable?

Bollywood structure?

Ganga Comics

Sira Narratives

Epiphanic
6 acts

Spain story structure as a variation of the 5 act?

Troubadour and Occitan lyric poetry?

Pinoy Movies (5, act but follows more the Spanish type)

Turkey Girl?? (also all of Indigenous Americas)

Russian narratives (I vaguely remember crime and punishment being categorized)

Aboriginal New Zealand and Australia (I remember one tribe’s religious belief about dreams).

The Pacific Islanders peoples are very diverse…

Mongolia?

Propp’s Morphology of the Folk Tale

Rromani? (From NW India and later wandered Europe.)

Central, Southern and East Africa?

Also, does Brazil have different sort of narratives being Portuguese colonize than the rest of South America?

What other structures besides Magical realism exist in Central and South America?

Greenland?

!Kung peoples.

Pixar Formula.

How do you categorize the Norse mythology since the way time is thought doesn’t quite sync up with the Christian idealisms?

I’d like to have central Asia too. They are super forgotten about, but often were centers for trade and gatekeepers. So it would be interesting to see what they came up with.

Also more nomadic ethnicities and sub ethnicities’ story structures. (China for example.)

Southern Indian?

Opera: History of Opera to Musicals: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXjK50kEgvo&ab_channel=Sideways

It’s almost like they saw my request the same day that I asked for a musical theater kid to explain the connection. lol Probably coincidence though. Also explains the musical history/theory very well.

Magical Realism

Peking Opera

hartford-hwp.com/archives/55/414.html

Warning: PDF https://tspace.library.utoronto.ca/bitstream/1807/13792/1/NQ49874.pdf

Kunqu Theater (China)

xiqu

“In all Chinese xiqu, the basic plot is generally based on some historical event or well known story that has particular cultural significance to the Chinese people. However, the plots of Kunqu theater tend to focus more on human relationships and the inner life of individual, while Beijing opera tends to focus more on public moral conduct.“ https://wtrgreenkunqu.org/what-is-kunqu-theatre/#Musical

The structure is described like to be epic structure. (single thread with pearls strung on it.) 

Example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Peony_Pavilion

European 4-act play: http://www.philological.bham.ac.uk/fortuna/intro.html

Su'ifefiloi- Samoa. Found by Vida Cruz.

Conclusions

Stories often protect us by simplifying reality, making it easier to process the world. Culture lies to you that your way is the only and best way to do everything. It’s a way to keep order in the chaos you live, but if you stick your head outside of those narrow confines, sometimes you find better ways to think and to be. But in the space between very different and only us, you will find that they are trying to solve similar problems in a different way that works for them and their environment.

This means as we try to process the world into the limits of speech and writing, we will structure our narrative differently. Often we process it through things like religion, philosophies, time, older stories, and personal belief systems. So in order to understand the stories above, we have to be willing to backtrack and understand where and why these types of story structures came to be, so we can respect and appreciate what they’ve done for the people who created them.

Or shorter and less elegant: Don’t be an ass and appropriate without doing further research and understanding and then call it cultural appreciation. I have a post for that too.) I do not advocate using this guide to write stories in these structures without research or experiencing them yourself.

The purpose of this guide is to show they exist for mostly agents, editors and own voices, not give you the discourse on how to exactly use them as outsiders. You are on your own for that.

The only universal with story is that it must make you think and feel something.

Often you will find these structures in their folktales, explanations in their religious beliefs, and woven into their present-day tales.

Note that I did favor story examples that were either free or easy-to-access over ones people would have to pay for. ‘cause it’s easier to make the point for the average beginner over ones that people have to pay for. But this does not mean I have not consumed other media with the structure mentioned. And media snobbery is mind-numbing to me, considering how much this list emphasizes the cross over from one media to another these structures have. (Also, you should pay for creators’ works as a general rule.)

References

The History of Korean Literature: From Ancient Times to the Late Nineteenth Century by Ko Mi Sook, Jung Min, Jung Byung Sul (Covers Dream Record among other narratives).

https://www.nationalgeographic.org/article/storytelling-and-cultural-traditions/

Covers more how these stories are used and told, than the specific structures, but still useful to know.

https://typoistd.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/wk1_narrative_structures.pdf

https://www.stabroeknews.com/2009/08/16/sunday/arts-on-sunday/the-african-story-telling-tradition-in-the-caribbean/

“Keeping the Tradition of African Storytelling Alive” https://teachers.yale.edu/curriculum/viewer/initiative_09.01.08_u

https://www.openculture.com/2014/02/kurt-vonnegut-masters-thesis-rejected-by-u-chicago.html

http://narrativestructures.wisc.edu/home/robleto

https://allgoodtales.com/storytelling-traditions-across-world-west-africa/

http://theatrestyles.blogspot.com/2014/04/taziyah-and-hakawati-arabic-passion.html

Hartmut Koenitz, Andrea Di Pastena, Dennis Jansen, Brian de Lint, “Myth of ‘Universal’ Narrative Models” https://www.researchgate.net/publication/329064597_The_Myth_of_%27Universal%27_Narrative_Models

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Islamic-arts/Passion-plays-taziyyah

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ta%27zieh

http://www.iranreview.org/content/Documents/Ta%E2%80%99zieh_Performance_In_Iranian_Islamic_Culture.htm

http://jls.qom.ac.ir/article_1319_en.html

“Struve, Lynn A.. The Dreaming Mind and the End of the Ming World. University of Hawaii Press. Kindle Edition”

(PDF): https://etd.ohiolink.edu/apexprod/rws_etd/send_file/send?accession=osu1321977419&disposition=attachment

“A Zuni Raconteur Dons the Junco Shirt: Gender and Narrative Style in the Story of Coyote and Junco” by Siobhan Senier https://www.jstor.org/stable/2927979?seq=1

Pixar Storytelling rules: http://www.pixartouchbook.com/blog/2011/5/15/pixar-story-rules-one-version.html

Bible read through “Middle Eastern” eyes. https://thebroadcastnetwork.org/lessons/studying-the-bible-from-middle-eastern-perspective/

“Lighting the stage: a history of early theater lighting technology” https://www.eaton.com/sg/en-us/company/news-insights/lighting-resource/trends/lighting-the-stage-a-history-of-early-theater-lighting-technology.html

“Popular Hindi Cinema by Sabrina Ciolfl“
https://www.ledonline.it/acme/allegati/Acme-12-I_16_Ciolfi.pdf

Benazir Manzar & Aju Aravind (2019) (Re) Thinking women in cinema: The changing narrative structure in Bollywood, South Asian Popular Culture, 17:1, 1-13, DOI: 10.1080/14746689.2018.1585601

Peking Opera hartford-hwp.com/archives/55/414.html