Structure and treatment Dramatic structure is the philosophy by which the story is split and how the story is thought of. This can vary by ethnicity, region and time period. This can be applied to books, plays, and films. Philosophers/critics who have discussed story structure include Aristotle, Horace, Aelius Donatus, Gustav Freytag, Kenneth Thorpe Rowe, Lajos Egri, Syd Field, and others. Some story structures are so old that the originator cannot be found, such as
ta'ziyeh. Often in order to sell a script, the
plot structure is made into what is called a
treatment. This can vary based on locality, but for Europe and European Diaspora, the
three-act structure is often used. The components of this structure are the
set-up, the
confrontation and the
resolution. Acts are connected by two
plot points or turning points, with the first turning point connecting Act I to Act II, and the second connecting Act II to Act III. The conception of the three-act structure has been attributed to American screenwriter
Syd Field who described plot structure in this tripartite way for film analysis. Furthermore, in order to sell a book within the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia, often the plot structure is split into a synopsis. Again the plot structure may vary by genre or drama structure used.
Aristotle Many scholars have analyzed dramatic structure, beginning with
Aristotle in his
Poetics (c. 335 BC). In his
Poetics, a theory about tragedies, the
Greek philosopher Aristotle put forth the idea the play should imitate a single whole action. "A whole is what has a beginning and middle and end" (1450b27). The
German playwright and novelist
Gustav Freytag wrote
Die Technik des Dramas, or "rising and sinking". Freytag is indifferent as to which of the contending parties justice favors; in both groups, good and evil, power and weakness, are mingled. A drama is then divided into five parts, or acts, which some refer to as a '''''': exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and
catastrophe. Freytag extends the five parts with three moments or crises: the exciting force, the tragic force, and the force of the final suspense. The exciting force leads to the rising action, the tragic force leads to the falling action, and the force of the final suspense leads to the catastrophe. Freytag considers the exciting force to be necessary but the tragic force and the force of the final suspense are optional. Together, they make the eight component parts of the drama. He argued for tension created through contrasting emotions, but did not actively argue for
conflict. He argued that character comes first in plays. He also set up the groundwork for what would later be called the inciting incident. Overall, Freytag argued the center of a play is emotionality and the best way to get that emotionality is to put contrasting emotions back to back. He laid some of the foundations for centering the hero, unlike Aristotle. He is popularly attributed to have stated conflict at the center of his plays, but he argues actively against continuing conflict. Freytag defines the parts as: ;Introduction: The setting is fixed in a particular place and time, the mood is set, and characters are introduced. A backstory may be alluded to.
Exposition can be conveyed through dialogues, flashbacks, characters' asides, background details, in-universe media, or the narrator telling a back-story. ;Rise: An exciting force begins immediately after the exposition (introduction), building the rising action in one or several stages toward the point of greatest interest. These events are generally the most important parts of the story since the entire plot depends on them to set up the climax and ultimately the satisfactory resolution of the story itself. ;Climax: The
climax is the turning point, which changes the protagonist's fate. If things were going well for the protagonist, the plot will turn against them, often revealing the protagonist's hidden weaknesses. If the story is a comedy, the opposite state of affairs will ensue, with things going from bad to good for the protagonist, often requiring the protagonist to draw on hidden inner strengths. A plot with an exciting climax is said to be
climactic. A disappointing scene is instead called
anticlimactic. ;Return or Fall: During the Return, the hostility of the counter-party beats upon the soul of the hero. Freytag lays out two rules for this stage: the number of characters be limited as much as possible, and the number of scenes through which the hero falls should be fewer than in the rising movement. The falling action may contain a moment of final suspense: Although the catastrophe must be
foreshadowed so as not to appear as a
non sequitur, there could be for the doomed hero a prospect of relief, where the final outcome is in doubt. ;Catastrophe: The
catastrophe (
Katastrophe in the original) is where the hero meets his logical destruction. Freytag warns the writer not to spare the life of the hero. More generally, the final result of a work's main plot has been known in English since 1705 as the
denouement (, ;). It comprises events from the end of the falling action to the actual ending scene of the drama or narrative. Conflicts are resolved, creating normality for the characters and a sense of
catharsis, or release of tension and anxiety, for the reader.
Etymologically, the French word () is derived from the word , "to untie", from , Latin for "knot." It is the unraveling or untying of the complexities of a plot.
Plot devices A
plot device is a means of advancing the plot in a story. It is often used to motivate characters, create urgency, or resolve a difficulty. This can be contrasted with moving a story forward with dramatic technique; that is, by making things happen because characters take action for well-developed reasons. An example of a plot device would be when the cavalry shows up at the last moment and saves the day in a battle. In contrast, an adversarial character who has been struggling with himself and saves the day due to a change of heart would be considered dramatic technique. Familiar types of plot devices include the
deus ex machina, the
MacGuffin, the
red herring, and
Chekhov's gun.
Plot outline A
plot outline is a prose telling of a story which can be turned into a screenplay. Sometimes it is called a "one page" because of its length. In comics, the roughs refer to a stage in the development where the story has been broken down very loosely in a style similar to storyboarding in film development. This stage is also referred to as storyboarding or layouts. In Japanese manga, this stage is called the
nēmu (
ネーム, pronounced like the English word "name"). The roughs are quick sketches arranged within a suggested page layout. The main goals of roughs are to: • lay out the flow of panels across a page • ensure the story successfully builds suspense • work out points of view, camera angles, and character positions within panels • serve as a basis for the next stage of development, the "pencil" stage, where detailed drawings are produced in a more polished layout which will, in turn, serve as the basis for the inked drawings. In fiction writing, a plot outline gives a list of scenes. Scenes include events, character(s) and setting. Plot, therefore, shows the cause and effect of these things put together. The plot outline is a rough sketch of this cause and effect made by the scenes to lay out a "solid backbone and structure" to show why and how things happened as they did.
Plot summary A
plot summary is a brief description of a piece of literature that explains what happens. In a plot summary, the author and title of the book should be referred to and it is usually no more than a paragraph long while summarizing the main points of the story.
A-Plot An
A-Plot is a
cinema and
television term referring to the plotline that drives the story. This does not necessarily mean it is the most important, but rather the one that forces most of the action. == Notes ==