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Learn what plot is, how it relates to story structure and the classic seven story types, and 3 ways to plot powerful stories of your own.
- Freytag’s Pyramid. Named after a 19th-century German novelist and playwright, Freytag’s Pyramid is a five-point dramatic structure that’s based on the classical Greek tragedies of Sophocles, Aeschylus, and Euripedes.
- The Hero’s Journey. Inspired by Joseph Campbell’s concept of the monomyth — a storytelling pattern that recurs in mythology all over the world — The Hero’s Journey is today’s best-known story structure.
- Three Act Structure. Following the old adage that “every story has a beginning, middle, and end,” this popular structure splits a story’s components into three distinct acts: Setup, Confrontation, and Resolution.
- Dan Harmon's Story Circle. Another variation on Campbell’s monomyth structure, the Story Circle is an approach developed by Rick and Morty co-creator Dan Harmon.
- Adventure Story Type. Adventure Plot Type Definition: Adventure stories are primarily driven by a MacGuffin, the thing everyone is looking for, whether that is an ancient relic, a kidnapped character, or some other item, and often ends in a final showdown with an antagonist over who can control the MacGuffin.
- Action Story Type. Action Plot type definition: Action stories are primarily driven by an antagonist, whether that is a person or some kind of force, and often ends in a final showdown with the antagonist.
- Horror Story Type. Horror Plot type definition: Horror stories are primarily driven by some kind of monstrous antagonist. The antagonist sometimes chooses to target the main character(s) after they commit some kind of taboo, and the story often ends in a final showdown, during which the protagonist is, at some point, at the mercy of the antagonist.
- Mystery Story Type. Mystery Plot type definition: Mystery stories begin with some kind of crime and are driven by the investigation into that crime and the restoration of “justice.”
- The Fichtean Curve (Basic Story Structure) The Fichtean Curve is a classic story structure that make up almost every story. It is represented by a skewed triangle, and contains three basic parts: rising action, climax, and falling action.
- The Three Act Structure. In today's age, the three act structure has permeated our culture, largely thanks to Hollywood which uses a three act structure in almost every film they produce.
- The Hero's Journey. The hero's journey is one of the most popular forms of story structure, made popular by Joseph Campbell in his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces, which identified several unique steps used in almost any heroic story, common in mythology.
- Freytag's Pyramid. Freytag's Pyramid is one of the oldest story structures ever identified. It was invented by Gustav Freytag in the 1800s, and focuses primarily on the structure of classical literature and tragedies such as those written by Shakespeare, a.k.a.
Inciting Incident. Rising Action or Progressive Complications. Dilemma. Climax. Denouement. These elements are the major events in a story, and they're essential in all creative writing, whether you're writing a novel, screenplay, memoir, short story, or other form.
Plot is the sequence of interconnected events within the story of a play, novel, film, epic, or other narrative literary work. More than simply an account of what happened, plot reveals the cause-and-effect relationships between the events that occur. Some additional key details about plot:
Do you want to write a short story, but are unsure about how to develop a short story plot? Short stories rarely require extensive plotting. They’re short, after all. But a bit of an outline, just to get the basic idea down, can help you craft a strong plot.
