Alana explores the Freytag Pyramid

Michael Strong.

Good morning, Lana. How are you?

I'm good. How are you?

I'm well. I'm well. No tournaments this weekend?

No tournaments this weekend.

Okay, good. And you are starting with the Socratic Experience tomorrow, is that correct?

Yes, I am.

Cool. Well, I look forward to hearing how it goes. Let me know. Today, it seems like we've talked about story structure. First, are you, are you working on another book or where are you in your novels?

I'm working on my third one. It's going by kind of slowly because I'm still— or we have some things. Oh yeah, we're— I'm pretty busy just with homeschool. But when I get free time today, I'm definitely going to work on it.

Got it. Got it. Well, does it make sense that stories have some structure?

Yes, it does.

Um, and one way to think about it is we're going to look at story structure today. Um, some— most stories have some kind of something happens, and usually something big. You know, there's a war. I think in yours there's a war and the protagonist wins. Is that accurate? And is there some kind of battle in both of your stories?

There is some kind of battle in both of my stories. Definitely.

And, and then the— in both cases, does the protagonist win?

Um, yes, I think so.

Okay, um, well, I'm going to look at something called Freytag's. I'm going to do a share screen, and this is called Freytag's Pyramid. Can you see it?

Yes, I can.

So this is, this is a way to outline the structure of stories. And just to kind of walk you through it, you know, the exposition, that's where you're kind of introducing characters and the scene and the situation. You know, here we are. You know, often stories or movies start with introducing the characters in the scene. Does that make sense?

Yes.

And then at some point, there's an inciting incident. You know, something happens to get things going. I'm trying to think of examples, but do you know what I mean? At some point we go from just introducing to boom, something's going on. You feel the plot begin to get going. Does that make sense?

Yeah, I do.

Can you think of any examples, like from Star Wars or Harry Potter or your own book or anywhere where things really get going at some point?

Um, well, as you said, in Harry Potter, There's that beginning where they introduce, uh, the Dursleys and Harry, and then when they first start to get the letters, and then when they start moving out of their home and more letters arrive. I think that's an inciting incident. Okay, Harry Potter, the first book anyways.

And then according to the diagram, then there's rising action, kind of more and more and more and more action for a while, um, until you get to a climax. Does that make sense?

Yes, it does.

And then at some point, there's a kind of big battle, or, you know, good versus evil wins, or, you know, something happens, or maybe they fall in love, or, you know, in love stories, sometimes they fall in love, something like that. And then there's kind of falling action, you know, things kind of quiet down and settle down. Usually stories don't end when, okay, they won the battle, the end. You know, usually there's a little bit after that where, you know, kind of unwinds things a little bit. and at the end of the story it says kind of, this is where things are, or this is what happened. Does that make sense?

Yes, it does.

So do you think— and they call this a pyramid because it's kind of a triangular sort of shape— but do you think that, um, does this seem like the structure of a lot of stories?

Yeah, it does.

Um, and why do you think it is? Why do you think stories have similar structures?

Well, just to— I guess when it— the rising action, I always get super interested in the book during that time. So maybe that could be a reason, getting the reader hooked in. Um, I think that if I love books that are lined like this, like it kind of starts out neutral, kind of boring, and then it gets exciting and more and more eventful. That's usually what happens when I read.

Yeah, I totally agree. The rising action, that's when it's a suspense. You want to know what happens next, what's going to happen. Um, but you know, you could imagine, or what if books were just rising action and climax with no exposition, no falling action, no resolution? Would a book be just as good if you got rid of those other parts?

Well, if you got rid of the exposition, then you wouldn't really know who the characters are. You wouldn't know, like, the beginning of the rising action, really. You wouldn't— or you wouldn't understand what was happening. And if you just had a climax and nothing else, or like no falling action and no resolution, then wouldn't— then wouldn't the book just stop? At the height of the excitement and then the story ends and that's not very exciting. Like, what's going to happen?

That makes a lot of sense. And so just to kind of go back with when you were talking about the exposition, why that piece is important, what I was getting, you didn't put it this way, but what I was getting is we need to kind of care about the characters a little bit. We need to know a little bit about them and we need to kind of know what's going on. That Some stories do more exposition and some do less. Would you say your stories do a lot of exposition or not a lot, or where do your stories fall in that realm?

I think the first one, there's— I think in the first one there's more exposition than the second one. I feel like in the second one, I just kind of get right into the point or the main part of the book.

And I bet— my guess is in part that's because you have the same characters mostly, and if you already introduced the characters in the first book, you don't need to spend as much time introducing them in the second book.

Yeah, that makes sense.

Just, I don't remember, you know Harry Potter way better than I do, but in Harry Potter, do they spend more time on exposition in the first book and less time in the other books?

Um, I think they do spend a chapter or two. It depends when you really— it depends on when you think the— or how long the expo— or when the exposition ends, because there is a point where something really exciting happens, but then I think there's some more exposition for another character or more character introductions. So it kind of goes up and down in the first book. That's just what I'm referring to.

Got it. And actually, you're absolutely right. I've seen much more complicated versions of these diagrams, all kinds of jagged things and ups and downs and so forth. This is sort of a super simplified version, but you're right. I can imagine, um, there's one character or an additional character. There could be subplots and so forth. So you need to add another character and you need to introduce them a little bit. And then once they're introduced, then you can go on with rising action. Um, do— would you say in some ways all of this reflects the, what I'm tempted to call the emotional momentum of reading a story?

Or like how the pyramid is supposed to match the emotional—

yeah, do you know what I mean? Kind of by emotional momentum?

Yeah, I think I do. There was this book that I was reading, and I really liked it. And I think it did definitely have a structure like that. And I definitely do think that my emotional momentum was going along with it.

So maybe during the exposition, we're relatively calm. Then we get excited by the first incident. And then there's the action, and we're kind of excited. And then the climax, and voilà. And then we kind of calm down in the later part of the story?

I think so, though I think that that story, there was way more excitement. Like, actually, like the last few chapters, there was a falling action and then a resolution, but the climax was very near to the end, in my opinion.

No, and sometimes we can do that, and we ask sometimes, why, why do we have the exposition And why is it sometimes short and sometimes long? Why, why do we think the resolution at the end is sometimes short and sometimes long? What's either an advantage or disadvantage of a short or long resolution?

Well, I guess the advantage of a long resolution is that you keep your reader reading for a longer time, and if your resolution is good, then they'll get even more interested and not want the book to end. And— but a resolution kind of calms— yeah, it does calm things down, but it ends things. And I think that that's really important. You want to— in most cases, you want to have a good ending. You could have a tragic ending.

Do you know Lord of the Rings? Have you read Lord of the Rings?

I have not read Lord of the Rings, but I am currently reading The Hobbit.

Okay. How far into The Hobbit are you?

Um, I think I'm on page 126-something, but I don't know.

Are you in the— in which phase are you in? The action phase?

I think I'm definitely in the action phase.

Okay. Um, does— has he found the dragon Smaug?

No, not yet.

Okay. Is he going towards the mountain? I forgot what the mountain's called.

Uh, the Lonely Mountain, I think.

Yeah, yeah.

I think he just arrived at the base. Like, he was floating down the river with the dwarves, and then the two rivermen found him and they brought him to the village.

Got it. Yeah, I mean, especially I think with both Tolkien, you know, I won't be a spoiler, so I won't tell you what happened, but, you know, I think he does resolutions in an interesting way. The other kind of complication is, do you know what a cliffhanger is in stories?

I love cliffhangers.

So, how does a cliffhanger fit into this structure?

Well, a cliffhanger kind of obviously leaves you hanging. You want to know what's going to happen. You're desperately waiting for the next book or movie or something.

Yeah, I think instead of resolution at the end, there's a sort of a new— I guess in some ways I think it's a new inciting incident because, you know, In order to work as a cliffhanger, you have to wonder, okay, what's going to happen now? And, or maybe it's not the inciting incident itself, but it lets you know that there's something unresolved. And one of the reasons you want to go read more is they've given you a hint at the end that there's something else for the protagonist to do. Does that sound right?

Yeah, it does, definitely.

Well, you know, I'm fascinated with story structure. And I think as you, both as you read and watch, would you say you mostly read or do you also watch stories quite a bit?

Stories as in like TV shows or movies? Yeah, yeah. I only get to do that on weekends, so I think I do read more.

Good. I think reading's better. So you're, as you read, you might kind of watch out for this structure and just sort of see how the story is structured. And then you as a writer, I know you don't have a lot of time right now, But as you develop more bandwidth as a writer, you might think about, and you might even go back and look at your first two stories and think, you know, when was I in the exposition? When was I doing the inciting incident? What's the action? What's the climax? What's the resolution? Does it seem like you've got all of those elements in both of your first two stories?

I think I should put more thought into that because I didn't have that in my mind. When I first started writing. I think I was like 7 or 8 when I was starting my first book. Exactly.

No, exactly. And, you know, you could make the case that it doesn't improve your writing, but I think it might make your writing a little bit better if you're more conscious about these sorts of things. You know, in some ways we like to think of writing as a creative process, which it is, But also I think people who are like professional writers, people write screenplays for movies, or people who are really good at books, writing books, I think they're aware of these and their, their mind is thinking, okay, how do I capture the reader's attention and how do I keep the reader's attention? And I think this thing, this Freytag's Triangle, Freytag's Pyramid, was designed by somebody who was a professional writer. And he was thinking through what are the patterns I'm seeing over and over again in the stories? That I'm writing. Make sense?

Yeah, it does.

Okay, well, um, have a great week this week, and I look forward to seeing you become an ever more sophisticated writer as you have the bandwidth to do so and awareness of these things.

Okay, all right, thank you.

You're welcome. Bye-bye.

Bye.