Story structure
Story structure is the arrangement of a narrative’s events and elements. It shapes progression, pacing, suspense, and how meaning emerges.
Plot: The sequence of events and causal relations that make up a narrative. Plot is the event pattern that story structure arranges.
Chronology: The order in which events occur in time. A story can follow chronology or rearrange it to shape progression.
Three-act structure: A dramatic framework that divides a story into setup, confrontation, and resolution. It is a widely used model for organizing a conventional progression.
In medias res: A narrative opening that begins in the middle of ongoing action. It starts after the story’s chronological beginning, making the opening itself a structural choice.
Freytag's pyramid: A dramatic model that traces exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and denouement. It maps a familiar arc into stages that critics and writers can compare.
Narrative arc: A pattern of change in which a character or situation develops through a story. Its rise, turning point, and resolution describe one familiar shape of progression.
Anachrony: A departure from chronological order through a shift to an earlier or later event. Flashbacks and flash-forwards use this structural break to change what is known and when.
Five-act structure: A dramatic framework that divides a story into five successive parts, often including a climax and falling action. It offers a more segmented alternative to the three-act model.
Frame story: A narrative in which an outer story contains one or more inner stories. Nested levels let a story control how and by whom its central events are told.
Narratology: The study of narrative form, structure, and the ways stories are told. It provides analytical concepts for describing how narrative arrangements produce effects.