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Magical Realism Plot Structure!!<3
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Me, infodumping about all the characters, plot points and intricate plot twists to my friends: *writing at 10000 words per second* Me, actually trying to write the story: *staring at a blank word document for 3 hours* Do you have a cure for such a condition?
It gets a lot of flack (not unjustified), but the Save the Cat Beat Sheet is truly great for figuring out how to get a plot on paper. You do not have to follow it to the letter, but it does give you definite goals to meet when trying to figure out where to go next.
Other popular plot outline structure's include:
Dan Harmon's Story Circle
The Snowflake Method
The Hero's Journey
Dan Wells' 7-Point Structure
And many mooooooore. Any plot structure that works for you is great, but keep in mind, you might have to try out more than one.
Save the Cat worked great for me and that's what I recommend the most, but my final draft isn't rigidly structured to its beat sheet. What I really needed was a starting point, and once I got a first draft down, I was able to figure out where to go.
Let's talk about story structure.
Fabricating the narrative structure of your story can be difficult, and it can be helpful to use already known and well-established story structures as a sort of blueprint to guide you along the way. Before we delve into a few of the more popular ones, however, what exactly does this term entail?
Story structure refers to the framework or organization of a narrative. It is typically divided into key elements such as exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution, and serves as the skeleton upon which the plot, characters, and themes are built. It provides a roadmap of sorts for the progression of events and emotional arcs within a story.
Freytag's Pyramid:
Also known as a five-act structure, this is pretty much your standard story structure that you likely learned in English class at some point. It looks something like this:
Exposition: Introduces the characters, setting, and basic situation of the story.
Inciting incident: The event that sets the main conflict of the story in motion, often disrupting the status quo for the protagonist.
Rising action: Series of events that build tension and escalate the conflict, leading toward the story's climax.
Climax: The highest point of tension or the turning point in the story, where the conflict reaches its peak and the outcome is decided.
Falling action: Events that occur as a result of the climax, leading towards the resolution and tying up loose ends.
Resolution (or denouement): The final outcome of the story, where the conflict is resolved, and any remaining questions or conflicts are addressed, providing closure for the audience.
Though the overuse of this story structure may be seen as a downside, it's used so much for a reason. Its intuitive structure provides a reliable framework for writers to build upon, ensuring clear progression and emotional resonance in their stories and drawing everything to a resolution that is satisfactory for the readers.
The Fichtean Curve:
The Fichtean Curve is characterised by a gradual rise in tension and conflict, leading to a climactic peak, followed by a swift resolution. It emphasises the building of suspense and intensity throughout the narrative, following a pattern of escalating crises leading to a climax representing the peak of the protagonist's struggle, then a swift resolution.
Initial crisis: The story begins with a significant event or problem that immediately grabs the audience's attention, setting the plot in motion.
Escalating crises: Additional challenges or complications arise, intensifying the protagonist's struggles and increasing the stakes.
Climax: The tension reaches its peak as the protagonist confronts the central obstacle or makes a crucial decision.
Falling action: Following the climax, conflicts are rapidly resolved, often with a sudden shift or revelation, bringing closure to the narrative. Note that all loose ends may not be tied by the end, and that's completely fine as long as it works in your story—leaving some room for speculation or suspense can be intriguing.
The Hero’s Journey:
The Hero's Journey follows a protagonist through a transformative adventure. It outlines their journey from ordinary life into the unknown, encountering challenges, allies, and adversaries along the way, ultimately leading to personal growth and a return to the familiar world with newfound wisdom or treasures.
Call of adventure: The hero receives a summons or challenge that disrupts their ordinary life.
Refusal of the call: Initially, the hero may resist or hesitate in accepting the adventure.
Meeting the mentor: The hero encounters a wise mentor who provides guidance and assistance.
Crossing the threshold: The hero leaves their familiar world and enters the unknown, facing the challenges of the journey.
Tests, allies, enemies: Along the journey, the hero faces various obstacles and adversaries that test their skills and resolve.
The approach: The hero approaches the central conflict or their deepest fears.
The ordeal: The hero faces their greatest challenge, often confronting the main antagonist or undergoing a significant transformation.
Reward: After overcoming the ordeal, the hero receives a reward, such as treasure, knowledge, or inner growth.
The road back: The hero begins the journey back to their ordinary world, encountering final obstacles or confrontations.
Resurrection: The hero faces one final test or ordeal that solidifies their transformation.
Return with the elixir: The hero returns to the ordinary world, bringing back the lessons learned or treasures gained to benefit themselves or others.
Exploring these different story structures reveals the intricate paths characters traverse in their journeys. Each framework provides a blueprint for crafting engaging narratives that captivate audiences. Understanding these underlying structures can help gain an array of tools to create unforgettable tales that resonate with audiences of all kind.
Happy writing! Hope this was helpful ❤
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Parallels between Tanwa/Trin and Krailert/Naran - Shine The Series (Episode 2)
Some viewers dismissed the love scene between Krailert and Naran as a detour from the main romance, but in truth this moment is not filler at all. It is a vital thread in the series’ emotional throughline, deepening its themes and sharpening the contrast with Tanwa and Trin’s luminous love story.
Krailert and Naran’s connection unfolds in hidden spaces, underlined passages, and fleeting glances exchanged through letters and books. The setting, a dimly lit library, reflects the nature of their love: suppressed, coded, and weighed down by unspoken truths. Krailert, a man weathered by years of repression and bound to duty, reveals himself in this stolen intimacy. Their secret love-making is both a triumph and a tragedy, a release of long-buried desire that carries the bitter knowledge of impermanence. The intimacy is tender yet urgent, reminding us that queer longing in repressive contexts often survives only in exchanged objects, hidden rooms, and borrowed time.
The way they communicate through marked lines in novels transforms literature into emotional code. Each underlined phrase becomes a confession of longing and a plea to be seen. This is not just flirtation but survival.
Placed alongside this fraught intimacy, the main couple’s story feels radically different. Tanwa and Trin’s romance is slower, deliberate, and bathed in light. Their connection grows in open spaces, among trees and flowers, amid laughter, and the honest warmth of shared conversation. If Krailert and Naran show us what it means to hide love, Tanwa and Trin show us what it means to begin to claim it. Their love may still be fragile, haunted by class expectations and social pressures, but it carries an optimism that Krailert’s story lacks. Where one romance bends under repression, the other stretches toward possibility.
The tonal contrast is also striking. Krailert and Naran’s relationship is confined, secretive, and bittersweet. Tanwa and Trin’s is expansive, hopeful, and glowing with the possibility of something more.
By placing these two love stories side by side, Shine underscores the spectrum of queer experience. Not every love can thrive under the same conditions. Some romances, like Krailert and Naran’s, are doomed to secrecy. Others, like Tanwa and Trin’s, bloom slowly toward the light. This contrast makes Tanwa and Trin’s journey feel all the more urgent. We root for them because we have already seen the cost of repression. And in Krailert and Naran, we glimpse the haunting reminder of what happens when desire is never allowed to live fully.
Far from diluting the story, the secondary couple’s scene deepens it by adding pathos, emotional stakes, and a mirror that reflects both tragedy and hope. Krailert and Naran give us the ache of hidden flames. Tanwa and Trin give us the promise of open skies. Together they remind us why Shine the Series is one of the most layered, emotionally intelligent dramas of the year.
Originally published on X
There's a viewpoint I've seen people express repeatedly about Wicked: For Good within the last few days, which I also once read about the two acts of the stage version of Wicked too:
"The first act/first movie is Elphaba's story, while the second act/second movie is Glinda's."
In other words, Elphaba is the protagonist up until "Defying Gravity," but at that point, she essentially completes her journey. For the rest of the story, the main focus is on Glinda's journey and growth.
I think this belongs on my none-too-short list of "weird things people say about Wicked."
Elphaba's character development is nowhere near finished at the end of the first act and first movie! Arguably, at that point the real meat of her journey is just beginning. Or at least it would be, if the second act and second movie were better written.
In the second act/second movie, Elphaba...
...has been living in exile, evading the Wizard's soldiers, honing her magic, and fighting to save the Animals for years.
...in the movie, tries to rally the Animals to join her fight, only to find that they either believe the propaganda against her too or just want to flee from Oz instead.
...reunites with her beloved sister Nessarose, who is now governor of Munchkinland, and thinks she'll finally have a powerful ally in her. Only to find (a) that Nessarose is unwilling to help her, and (b) that she's become a tyrannical leader almost as bad as the Wizard. Then Elphaba tries to help her by magically making her able to walk (stage) or fly (movie), but the Boq/Tin Man disaster results and Nessa blames Elphaba for it, shattering the sisters' relationship.
...by this point has become so discouraged in her futile fight, and so desperate for acceptance and love, that the Wizard (and in the movie, Glinda) successfully manipulates her into giving it up and rejoining him, until she makes the horrifying discovery of the imprisoned, mute Dr. Dillamond (and in the movie, other Animals too).
...is joined by Fiyero, leading to their romance. This is the ultimate shining light in the darkness for her: after she's spent a lifetime thinking no one could ever fall in love with her, the man she's spent years secretly pining for returns her feelings and sacrifices everything to be with her and join her fight. Yet this happiness comes at a cost, as it means breaking Glinda's heart and possibly losing her friendship, after having just reunited with her too.
...suddenly loses her sister, whom she still loves in spite of everything, in a horrific way. And she quickly realizes that Nessa was murdered to bring her, Elphaba, out of hiding.
...is betrayed by her beloved Glinda, leading to their brutal fight. (Which I seem to be the only person who finds heartbreaking, even if parts of it are played for laughs.)
...loses Fiyero, after having just gained him, when he sacrifices himself to save her.
...is so broken at this point, so beside herself with grief, guilt, and rage, that she decides there's no more point in trying to do good... decides that maybe real goodness doesn't exist at all, or can only lead to misery... and resolves to really be the wicked witch everyone thinks she is and give back as good as she's gotten.
(If we view Wicked as being first and foremost a story of "why wickedness happens," then this should be the crux of it all. Allegedly, this was the main theme Gregory Maguire wanted to explore in the first place when he wrote the novel: how a person's being labeled evil can eventually cause them to internalize it and become the villain others think they are. Based on this reading, "No Good Deed" should definitely be seen as the climax of Elphaba's journey, not "Defying Gravity." Why do so many fans not see it that way?)
...indulges her new "wickedness" by kidnapping an innocent child (and her little dog too) to get her sister's shoes back. An appalling turn of events from a heroine who until now has sacrificed everything to help others, which isn't really given its due weight because it's mostly kept offstage/offscreen and played slightly for laughs.
...is pulled out of her downward spiral by the reveal that Fiyero is still alive after all and that Glinda forgives her and wants to save her.
...realizes that the only way left for her to do good is to fake her own death, let all of Oz go on thinking she was a villain, and entrust her cause to Glinda.
...comes to the ultimate bittersweet ending. On the one hand, she's forced to leave Oz forever, accept that she'll always be remembered as evil, never see Glinda again, and know that poor Glinda is mourning her as dead. But on the other hand, she's with her beloved Fiyero, her idealism and better self are restored, she has faith that Glinda can make Oz a better place, and hopefully she can start a new and better life with Fiyero somewhere far away.
Is this a supporting character's journey?! Does this sound like a character who completed her arc earlier and is now just a catalyst for Glinda's journey, as some of these fans seem to imply?
I'm not saying Glinda's journey isn't effective too – of course it is. But it's most certainly not more powerful or more attention-worthy than all of the above!
I've written ad nauseum about how I've always felt that Wicked the musical seems to want to tell several different stories at once, which I think are sometimes in conflict with each other. Maybe I only feel this way because I'm autistic and prone to black and white thinking, when the "whole point" of Wicked is that nothing is black and white. (Although that's another area where I think the musical sometimes contradicts itself, but that's a different issue.) But one of those tensions in the musical is definitely the question of how much the story is about Elphaba and how much it's about Glinda. Is Elphaba the protagonist and Glinda the deuteragonist, as was originally intended, or are Elphaba and Glinda the co-protagonists, equal in every way? Or is Glinda even more important than Elphaba, since she's the one who liberates the land of Oz in the end thanks to her Elphaba-inspired personal growth, and since the whole plot is framed as a flashback from Glinda's point of view? I think part of the problem is that Maguire's novel is The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, not The Untold Story of the Witches of Oz: Elphaba is very much the protagonist while Glinda plays a supporting role. So the plot is fundamentally structured around Elphaba, even as the musical does its best to bring Glinda to the foreground.
But the claim that Elphaba's journey is basically complete with "Defying Gravity" and that the second half of the story belongs to Glinda just doesn't ring true for me.
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I think one of the biggest misconceptions I see from people who want to censor dark themes, or sexual themes, and especially dark sexual themes, is that they automatically assume the writer is describing horrible things they want to do to real people. That it's about wanting to hurt people and taking pleasure from the act.
And this is just me, because I'm really big on hurt/comfort, and on plot that drives character, and character that drives plot, but....
In my personal experience as a reader and as a writer, most of the time, it's more from a place of empathy and sympathetic curiosity. It's about wanting to see what going through something like this does to a person. I want to explore how they get through these difficult and dangerous circumstances, how they survive, how they heal, how they deal in the moment. How does it change them? I want to work through feelings like horror and despair and hurt in a safe, controlled space. Because those are real things that we experience in the real world, and telling stories is how we explain these difficult experiences to other people.
And I think if you're trying to silence people from being able to talk about these things, then you are not a safe person.
Three Act Structure: what's your favorite part?
Act one – Setup. This act lays the groundworks for the story and leads up to the inciting incident (the 'thing' that truly starts the gears of the story). Who are the characters? What world do they live in? What stakes are at play? For example, in the LOTR movies (poll is NOT about LOTR specifically): the introductory monologue all the way up to the Council of Elrond.
Act two – Rising Action & Confrontation. Tensions heighten as the characters are working to reach the goal as set out in act one. It ends with the climax, where the goal is either reached or not. In the LOTR movies: Council of Elrond up until the One Ring is cast into the fire.
Act three – Resolution. Everything that happens after the climax. In what kind of world/state are the main characters left? What happens next?
In the three act structure, which is your favorite part of a story?
Act one– setup
Act two– rising action & confrontation
Act three– resolution
As an example, consider the Lord of the Rings series:
Act I: Everything from the beginning monologue up until the Council of Elrond
Act II: The Council of Elrond up until the One Ring is cast into the fire.
Act III: Everything after the One Ring is cast into the fire.
–
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What is Plot? Can you eat it?
Something that I was recently asked about on my main blog was "How do you plot your stories?" and boy is that a long-winded answer!
In most of the creative writing spaces I've been involved in over the years, Plot has often been talked about with this air of almost mysticism. Plot, for many, is hard. Coming up with ideas? Simple enough. Fleshing them out into a story? Woof. Much more difficult. I've found this particular sentiment in fanfic-centric spaces, writing groups, all of the internet. The place where I've heard it the most has often been when hanging around fellow Fic Writers.
I think in some respect, there's this disconnect between what plot Is or Can Be, and what the colloquial term for plot has become in a lot of these spaces. We think of plot as Events That Happen in a story and while that's part of it, that's not entirely how I view it.
The best way I can put it, is that I view Plot as its own living, breathing character. It behaves in certain ways, has a mind of its own at times, and everything important, characters, events, genre, tone-- Those are all there making up the whole of The Plot itself.
I told the asker that I could probably go on for ages about plot, it's my favorite part of writing. I do love a good character driven narrative, but I don't do a whole lot of work that could truly be constituted as Character Study. I have always been Plot Focused, ever since I wrote my first book when I was 9 years old. It was for a school project and during that project, I realized it was all I ever wanted to do with my life ever again.
The deep desire to tell stories is part of me. I developed a general sense for plot very early on. Going back to look at that book I wrote in the 3rd grade, I knew what plot ought to look like. I was such an avid reader, and I read books for adults as soon as anyone would let me have them. I had to teach myself to enjoy reading and focus on it (hello undetected and undiagnosed ADHD) but once I did, I was all in.
The first step to learning Plot for me, was consuming as much of it as possible, and coming to love it. To the point that now, when I read a plot I really love I find myself saying "Why doesn't this plot exist with more queer characters!? I want this plot but gayer!!" which is how I wound up working on my current book, which aims to be the first in a series of... at least 9?
My first book was a 20 page hand written and hand illustrated urban fantasy story. It was about three girls who find magical rings in the parking lot of a Hardee's that transport them to different fantastical places. It's also about the narrator in his sound booth who's telling you this story, and how he keeps getting interrupted by smurfs climbing on his audio equipment.
Those are plots. But that's not all that plot is.
When I think of Plot as its own character, and abstract it to a structure, I see it as a body. It is comprised of bones, meat, and gristle, supported by a skeleton of concepts. It's with this kind of structure in mind that I build my plot. There are lots of great plot structure devices out there (Heroes Journey, The Story Circle, etc.) and depending on the kind of story you want to write and how much outlining you like to do, you might find more success with one than the other. But those also look at Plot as Events in a way that just doesn't fully vibe with how my brain works and feel far too rigid for me. Too specific. Too timeline focused. Plot can follow those structures like a roadmap.
But I have to know who my Plot Is before I can even consider structure and story beats.
Over the years, and after analyzing my own works a lot, I've come to view my own plot structure like this: The Spine, The Legs, The Hands, The Heart, and The Head. Once the character that is The Plot is built, then I put it into the 3 Act structure to help me with pacing. I think about the events the Plot will experience and plan them out, because by that point, I know who my Plot is and what they're likely to do. The point of the structure beyond that is to make sure I hit the right beats at the right time.
Generally speaking, what I'll call The Plot Character might work better for people who lean more heavily into Discovery Writing than Heavy Outlining. I do a lot of Outlining. It's extremely helpful. But once I'm in the process of working toward the things in that outline, the story begins to move. The Plot is its own being, just like the characters that fit inside it, and it might take me in a different, but similar direction.
Beneath this cut, I'll walk you through my entire process. At the end, there's also an exercise you can try that might help you build up your Plotting Skills. Strap in! It's gonna be a long one!
