Story Structure

Aristotle's Tragic Plot
The art of storytelling began with Aristotle and his Poetics. Aristotle’s structure for tragedy is the first analysis regarding story structure. Many of these terms will reoccur, such as the inciting incident, dénouement, change of fortune, and a certain purging. While there is much that can be discussed regarding Poetics, to note is the origin of the three-act structure.

Monomyth


Joseph Campbell compiled a loose formula which outlines many similar ideas that permeate ancient mythologies and folklore from all over the world in his book The Hero With A Thousand Faces. He writes of a hero’s journey, which can take up to seventeen stages. Though heroic cycle--or monomyth--is laid out in a circle, the process is still broken down into three main acts: Separation (Act 1), Initiation (Act 2), and Return (Act 3). Key ideas such as refusing the call (inciting incident), road of trials (disaster), and ultimate boon (climax) become primary concepts in the process of storytelling.

Mythic Structure
Christopher Vogler updated these stages to twelve with a focus towards writing for film in The Writer’s Journey: Mythic Structure For Writers. Vogler took the large map and applied it for a more modern age. The wheel is returned to a more linear layout, also broken down into the three-act structure. Some of Campbell’s mythological terms are used, but many have been identified with more common ideologies; the bottom row correlating to the top row.

Six Stages
Michael Hague takes the plot structure (on bottom) and mirrors it with the character arc structure that had been the focus of Campbell and Vogler. Again the three-act structure is present, and the terminology is broad enough to apply to modern and mythical stories alike. The most important feature of Hague’s plot structure is that it can be for long form story telling or short form. The six stages are perfect for storytelling in television shows, and has been successful--sometimes even with convenient commercial breaks between acts. Also, the plot of every episode can have little to no bearing on the characters or future episodes. This formula is perfect for syndication because watching shows out of order would cause little confusion to the casual viewer.