references/story_structures.md.) Each entry gives a short pitch, what it suits, its beats
in order with roughly how much of the runtime each takes, an example, and the mistakes to
watch for. The menu near the top can be shown to someone choosing a structure, and
From beats to shots says how an outline becomes a seriesmith script.
The beat percentages are guides for timing, not rules. Multiply them by the episode’s
runtime to estimate each beat’s screen time, and so how many shots it gets.
Quick selector
Asking the user (menu)
When someone starts an episode from scratch and hasn’t named a structure, offer a short menu like this one, in the same message as the questions in AUTHORING’s Starting a series (when the series is new). Describe the shape of each option and give one familiar example. Then ask the two follow-ups at the end.What kind of story shape do you want for this episode?If they aren’t sure, suggest a structure from the tone and length they want (see Choosing by need at the end). If they’d rather you just start, pick one, say which and why in a line, and go on.Follow-ups: About how long should the episode be? and Is this a standalone story, or part of a longer arc?
- Big transformation (Hero’s Journey): someone leaves their normal life, faces a huge trial and comes back changed. Star Wars, The Lion King.
- Finding yourself (Virgin’s Promise): someone secretly becomes who they really are, and everyone around them is better for it. Billy Elliot, Frozen.
- Classic three-act: a goal, rising obstacles, a darkest moment and a hard-won climax. Most films.
- Reset comedy (Sitcom): a small problem snowballs into chaos, gets fixed and everything goes back to normal. Seinfeld, Friends.
- Story Circle: someone wants something, gets it, pays for it and comes home a little different. Rick and Morty, Community.
- Quiet twist (Kishōtenketsu): no villain; a calm setup, then an unexpected turn that changes how you see it. My Neighbor Totoro.
- Fable: a character’s flaw leads straight to its consequence, and there’s a lesson at the end. The Tortoise and the Hare.
- Parable: an everyday human situation that carries a deeper moral meaning. The Good Samaritan.
- Cautionary tale: someone ignores a warning, enjoys it for a while, then pays. The Boy Who Cried Wolf, Gremlins.
- Five-act drama (Freytag): rising action, a central turning point, then the fall. Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet.
- Nonstop escalation (Fichtean Curve): start straight in trouble, with each crisis bigger than the last. Mad Max: Fury Road.
- Start at the end (In Medias Res): open on the crisis, then jump back to show how we got there. Breaking Bad pilot, Sunset Boulevard.
- Story Spine: “Once upon a time… every day… until one day…” A simple chain of cause and effect. Most Pixar shorts.
From beats to shots
An outline is beats; a script is shots. A structure not listed here (one the person names) works the same way: outline its beats, give each a share of the runtime, and the rules below turn them into shots. Going from one to the other:- Count the shots. A beat’s share of the runtime, divided by the length of a typical shot (3 to 4 s; dialogue shots run longer, inserts shorter), is roughly how many shots it gets. A 3-minute episode is around 50 shots: a 10% beat is about 18 s, five shots or so.
- Merge beats that come out under a shot or two. A 12-stage Hero’s Journey in a 2-minute episode leaves several stages one shot each: combine them (the notes under each structure say which), or pick a shorter structure. For 1 to 3 minutes, the Fable, the Story Spine, Kishōtenketsu, the Story Circle and the Cautionary Tale fit best.
-
Mark the beats in the script with a comment above each beat’s first shot, so the
outline survives into the script and the next edit can see it. The build ignores them:
-
A beat is not a sequence. A
#sequence is a place; a beat can run across several of them, or share one with the next beat. -
Every beat has to be on screen. Each shot is rendered by a model with no memory of the
others (AUTHORING’s The one thing that shapes every decision), and an audience sees
only what’s in the picture and the sound. Inner beats (the Debate, the Dark Night of the
Soul, Recognition, Power Within) need an action, a look held long enough to read, or a
line: write “Mara puts the letter face down and stares at the wall”, not “Mara realizes
she was wrong”. A narrator (
NAME (V.O.): line) suits the Fable’s moral and the Story Spine’s “once upon a time”. -
Mirrored images are a framing choice. The Three-Act’s final image and the Story
Circle’s return mirror the opening: put them in the same location with the same
size:and a matchingcamera:, so the plate and the framing do the rhyming. -
Time jumps need a marker. For In Medias Res or a flashback, put a card on screen
(
target: holdwith a picture of “Three days earlier”) or change the look unmistakably, so the viewer doesn’t get lost. -
A season arc lives outside the scripts. When a long structure (Hero’s Journey,
Virgin’s Promise, the 27 beats) runs across a season, keep the arc in the outline. Each
episode still has its own shape, and the people and places it shares with the others come
from
series.json.
1. Mythic & transformational
These structures follow a deep change in one protagonist, who is forced out of their comfort zone and grows.1.1 The Hero’s Journey (Monomyth)
Origin: Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949), condensed into 12 stages by Christopher Vogler, The Writer’s Journey. Pitch: A hero leaves the ordinary world, enters an unfamiliar (often supernatural) realm, survives a supreme ordeal, wins a reward and comes home changed, bringing back something that helps others. Best for: Epic adventures, coming-of-age stories, fantasy and sci-fi, and season-long or multi-episode arcs. Beats (Vogler’s 12 stages):
Example: Star Wars: A New Hope: Tatooine → Leia’s message → Luke refuses → Obi-Wan →
leaving Tatooine → the cantina and the Falcon → the Death Star → the trash compactor and
Obi-Wan’s death → rescuing Leia → escape and pursuit → the trench run → the medal ceremony.
Pitfalls:
- Running all 12 stages in a short episode makes every beat thin. For shorts, merge stages (1+2, 3+4, 9+10) or use the Story Circle instead.
- A mentor who solves the problem for the hero. The hero has to win the Ordeal and the Resurrection themselves.
- A Return that skips the “elixir”. The change should be visible back in the ordinary world.
The 27 beats: the journey at length
For a season, or an episode long enough to need finer steps, the journey can be outlined as 27 beats: three acts of nine, each act three blocks of three (a setup, a conflict and a resolution). Each beat is about 3.7% of the runtime; across a season of nine episodes, each episode can take one block. Vogler’s stages are in brackets.
The two Pinches (8 and 20) and the Midpoint (14) are what keep a long middle from sagging:
plan them first, then fill the beats between.
1.2 The Virgin’s Promise
Origin: Kim Hudson, The Virgin’s Promise (2009). “Virgin” is meant in the archetypal sense of someone self-possessed and not defined by others. It isn’t about gender or sexuality, and the protagonist can be anyone. Pitch: Where the hero goes outward to conquer, this protagonist goes inward to become who they truly are. They find their gift, nurture it in secret, are found out, choose themselves anyway, and the community that resisted is better for it. Best for: Character-driven drama, artist or identity stories, family stories, and quiet protagonists in a restrictive world. Beats (Hudson’s 13):
Example: Billy Elliot: a mining-town boy (Dependent World) is expected to box (Price of
Conformity), stumbles into a ballet class (Opportunity to Shine), trains in secret (Secret
World), is caught by his father (Caught Shining), goes through the strike-torn family crisis
(Kingdom in Chaos), commits to the audition (Chooses Her Light) and is backed by the town
(Re-ordering).
Pitfalls:
- Making the dependent world a cartoon villain. It should be loving but limiting, so the choice actually hurts.
- Skipping the community payoff. The defining feature is that the world changes, not just the protagonist.
- Turning it into a Hero’s Journey by adding a big external enemy. The opposition is the pressure to conform.
- Dresses the Part (4) is a wardrobe change: a variant of the character in
series.json(AUTHORING’s A wardrobe change is a new subject), so plan it with the cast.
1.3 The Change Arc (Three-Act Structure)
Origin: It goes back to Aristotle’s beginning, middle and end. Syd Field formalized it for screenwriting in Screenplay (1979), and Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat! refines it. Pitch: A status quo is broken by an inciting incident. The protagonist pursues a goal through rising complications, the stakes rise at the midpoint, everything collapses at the low point (“dark night of the soul”), and the protagonist uses what they’ve learned to win the climax. Best for: Almost anything. It’s the default for standalone episodes, films and most drama. Beats:
Example: Toy Story: Woody is the top toy → Buzz arrives → rivalry → Woody knocks Buzz
out the window and both are lost → the gas station and Pizza Planet → Buzz learns he’s a toy
(low point for Buzz) → trapped at Sid’s (low point for Woody) → they work together → the
chase after the moving truck → Woody and Buzz as co-leaders.
Pitfalls:
- A saggy Act II. Use the midpoint to turn the story, not just to add more obstacles.
- A climax won by luck or by someone else. Win it through the change.
- Not planting the flaw in Act I, so the growth feels unearned.
2. Situational, episodic & media
These structures suit recurring formats, ensembles and fast pacing, where returning to the status quo, or a small and repeatable change, matters.2.1 The Sitcom Formula (Circular Structure)
Origin: Radio and TV situation comedy. It’s built so a series can keep going indefinitely. Pitch: It works like a rubber band. A character makes a problem (usually by a lapse in judgment, a lie or a scheme), the chaos snowballs, a misunderstanding peaks, and by the end the mistake is undone. Everyone is back exactly where they started, ready for next week. Best for: Comedy, ensembles, half-hour episodes and any series where the characters shouldn’t change much between episodes. Beats:
Example: A typical Seinfeld episode: four separate small problems escalate in parallel
and collide in one absurd climax, and nobody grows.
Pitfalls:
- Letting the reset erase emotional moments the audience cared about. Keep a sliver of warmth, or lean fully into “no lessons”.
- A-, B- and C-plots that never connect. The payoff comes from them colliding.
- Characters who are dumb rather than flawed. Their bad decisions should come from consistent traits.
- Peak Chaos with the whole cast in one shot can run past a model’s picture slots: check how many people the shot’s model takes (AUTHORING’s Choosing a video target), or cover the collision in several shots.
2.2 Dan Harmon’s Story Circle
Origin: Dan Harmon (Community, Rick and Morty), a streamlined 8-step version of the Monomyth for episodic TV. Pitch: A circle split into a top half (the ordinary world, order) and a bottom half (the unfamiliar world, chaos). The character goes down into chaos to get what they want, pays for it, and comes back up changed. The change can be small, which is what makes it repeatable. Best for: Episodic TV, short films, and any story under about 30 minutes that still needs a real arc. It also works at scene level. Beats:
Example: A typical Rick and Morty episode: Morty wants something → an adventure in
another dimension → he gets it → it goes horribly wrong → he’s back home, a little more
jaded or a little wiser.
Pitfalls:
- Making “Find” the end. The price (step 6) is where the meaning is.
- A change that’s purely external. Step 8 should be a shift in the character’s understanding.
- Forgetting that steps 1 and 8 should visibly mirror each other.
2.3 Kishōtenketsu (Four-Act Structure)
Origin: Classical Chinese poetry (起承轉合, qǐ chéng zhuǎn hé), adopted in Japanese (起承転結) and Korean narrative. It’s the basis of four-panel yonkoma comics. Pitch: A structure that doesn’t need conflict. Rather than a protagonist beating an opponent, it builds on contrast and revelation. The story is set up and developed, then something unexpected (and seemingly unrelated) appears, and the ending reconciles the two to give a new understanding. Best for: Slice-of-life, quiet or contemplative pieces, children’s stories without villains, poetry-like shorts and gentle twists. Beats:
Example: My Neighbor Totoro: a family moves to the countryside (Ki) → everyday life,
exploring and settling in (Shō) → the forest spirits appear, and later Mei goes missing
(Ten) → the spirits help, the family reunites, and the world is seen with new wonder
(Ketsu). In four comic panels: a girl waits at a bus stop in the rain → she waits longer and
gets soaked → a stranger walks by holding two umbrellas → he hands her one, and he’s her
father, who came to meet her.
Pitfalls:
- Sneaking in a villain to manufacture tension. Trust the contrast.
- A twist that’s just random. It has to recontextualize the setup.
- A long Shō with no texture. The development should still be interesting to watch: vary the sizes and the camera from shot to shot.
3. Moral, allegorical & folk
These are historical structures for delivering a lesson, a thematic truth or a cultural warning through tight, symbolic plotting.3.1 The Fable (Aesop’s Formula)
Origin: Aesop (ancient Greece), later La Fontaine and the Panchatantra. Pitch: A tightly compressed structure. Its characters are usually animals or objects, each embodying one human trait (pride, greed, laziness). The story moves straight from the flaw to an immediate, often ironic consequence and ends with an explicit moral. Best for: Bedtime and children’s stories, very short episodes, and any piece where a clear lesson is the point. Beats:
Example: The Tortoise and the Hare: the boastful Hare challenges the Tortoise → the
race → the Hare naps because he’s overconfident → the Tortoise wins → “Slow and steady wins
the race.”
Pitfalls:
- More than one flaw or theme. A fable makes one point.
- A consequence that doesn’t follow directly from the trait. It should feel inevitable and fitting.
- A moral that preaches beyond what the story actually showed.
3.2 The Parable
Origin: Religious and wisdom-literature traditions (the Gospels, Buddhist sutras, Sufi and Zen teaching stories). Pitch: Like a fable, but with human characters in realistic, everyday situations. The surface story is ordinary; the meaning underneath is spiritual, ethical or philosophical. The lesson is often left for the audience to recognize, and it usually overturns an expectation. Best for: Ethics-driven drama, anthology episodes, stories about kindness, judgment or moral courage, and grounded realism with a message. Beats:
Example: The Good Samaritan: a traveler is beaten and left by the road → a priest and
a Levite (the expected helpers) pass by → a Samaritan (the despised outsider) stops and
cares for him → “Which of these was a neighbor?”
Pitfalls:
- Spelling out the meaning. A parable trusts the audience.
- Characters who are just symbols. Keep them human and plausible.
- No reversal. Without a subverted expectation, it’s just an anecdote.
3.3 The Cautionary Tale
Origin: Folk tradition: European folktales, Struwwelpeter (1845), Hilaire Belloc’s Cautionary Tales for Children, and modern horror and urban legends. Pitch: A plain story designed as a warning. A character breaks a clear rule, taboo or warning, enjoys a short stretch of success or thrills, and is then met with swift and often severe punishment that serves as an example. Best for: Horror, dark comedy, children’s warnings, anthology episodes (Twilight Zone, Black Mirror style) and morality plays. Beats:
Example: Gremlins: three rules (no bright light, no water, never feed after midnight)
→ a cute pet → the rules are broken → chaos → a town in ruins and the pet taken back. The
Boy Who Cried Wolf is the children’s version.
Pitfalls:
- Not establishing the rule clearly up front. The audience must know it was broken: say it in a line, or show it (a sign in an insert).
- A punishment that doesn’t fit the crime thematically. Poetic justice is what makes it satisfying.
- Too much sympathy without a payoff. Decide whether the tone is grim, darkly comic or tragic.
4. Structural geometry & plot-driven shapes
These structures are defined by the shape of the tension curve or by rearranging the timeline.4.1 Freytag’s Pyramid (Five-Act Structure)
Origin: Gustav Freytag, Die Technik des Dramas (1863), based on classical Greek and Shakespearean drama. Pitch: A strict, symmetrical shape. The action rises to a climax in the middle, the turning point where the protagonist’s fortunes reverse, then falls to a denouement that ends in either catastrophe (tragedy) or resolution. Best for: Tragedy, prestige drama, rise-and-fall stories (crime, ambition, hubris) and stories where the second half shows the fallout. Beats:
Example: Macbeth: the witches’ prophecy (exposition) → the murder of Duncan and the
rise to power (rising action) → Banquo’s murder and Fleance’s escape (the turning point) →
the descent into paranoia and the gathering opposition (falling action) → Birnam Wood,
Macduff and Macbeth’s death (catastrophe).
How it differs from three-act: In three-act the climax comes near the end. In Freytag
it’s in the middle, and the second half is about the consequences.
Pitfalls:
- A flat second half. The falling action still needs tension (the “moment of final suspense”).
- A climax that’s just a big event. It must reverse the protagonist’s direction.
4.2 The Fichtean Curve
Origin: Described by John Gardner in The Art of Fiction (1983), and named after the philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte. It’s common in thrillers, pulp and short fiction. Pitch: A high-intensity shape that skips the long setup. It drops characters straight into the inciting crisis, then delivers a rapid series of crises, each bigger than the last, separated by brief breathers, until a final, explosive climax. Exposition is woven in during the action, and the falling action is short. Best for: Thrillers, action, horror, survival stories, cliffhanger serials and short episodes that need to hook immediately. Beats:
Example: Mad Max: Fury Road: Max is captured in the first minutes, followed by one
escalating chase after another with short quiet stretches (the night in the bog, the Many
Mothers), ending in the final chase back to the Citadel.
Pitfalls:
- Crises that are bigger but not different. Each one should change the situation or reveal something new.
- No breathers. Without contrast, the intensity goes numb. Pace them in the shots too: short, moving shots for a crisis, longer and stiller ones for a breather.
- Characters who are only reacting. Use the breathers to show who they are.
4.3 In Medias Res (Flashback Structure)
Origin: Latin for “into the middle of things” (Horace). It goes back to Homer, since The Odyssey opens late in the journey. The modern TV form opens with a flash-forward (“72 hours earlier…”). Pitch: The story opens in the thick of the action or at a late-stage crisis. Once the hook is set, it jumps back to explain how the characters got there, catches up to the opening scene (now understood differently) and carries on to the finale. Best for: Hooking an audience fast, mysteries, crime, dramatic irony (we know where it’s heading, but not how), and cold opens. Beats:
Example: Breaking Bad pilot: a man in his underwear and a gas mask crashes an RV and
records a goodbye video with a gun in hand (the hook) → “three weeks earlier” he’s a mild
chemistry teacher → the build-up → the RV scene again, now understood → the sirens turn out
to be fire trucks, not police.
Pitfalls:
- A hook that’s just random action. It should raise a specific question (“How did he end up here?”).
- A convergence that adds nothing. The replayed scene should land differently the second time. It can reuse the hook’s shots: the same take placed twice in the cut, or new shots with the same location, size and camera so the two match.
- Using it to disguise a slow start instead of fixing one.
- An unclear time jump. Make it unmistakable (a card, a change of light or look) so viewers don’t get lost.
5. Also worth knowing
5.1 The Pixar Story Spine
Origin: Kenn Adams, an improv teacher, popularized by Pixar storyboard artist Emma Coats. Pitch: A fill-in-the-blanks chain of cause and effect. It’s very fast to outline with, and its natural rhythm (“because of that…”) suits narration. It pairs well with a Fable ending. Beats:
Example: Finding Nemo: once upon a time there was a widowed fish, Marlin, who was very
protective of his only son, Nemo. Every day, Marlin warned Nemo about the ocean’s dangers.
One day, Nemo swam out to sea in defiance. Because of that, he was caught by a diver.
Because of that, Marlin set out across the ocean to find him… Until finally, Marlin and Nemo
found each other and learned that love depends on trust. And ever since then, Marlin has
let Nemo live his own life.
Pitfalls: Every “because of that” must actually be caused by the previous one. If the
honest link is “and then”, the chain is broken.
Combining structures
Structures can be stacked at different levels:- Season arc + episode shape: A season can follow the Hero’s Journey (or its 27 beats) or the Virgin’s Promise while each episode uses the Story Circle, Sitcom or three-act structure. Each episode can then map to one or two stages of the season arc.
- A-plot / B-plot: Use different structures in parallel. For example, a three-act A-plot can carry a Kishōtenketsu B-plot that delivers the thematic twist.
- Frame + core: In Medias Res is a frame. The section after the jump back still needs its own structure (usually three-act or Fichtean).
- Spine + fable: The Story Spine gives the cause-and-effect chain, and the Fable gives the flaw → consequence → moral.
- Scene level: The Story Circle and Kishōtenketsu both scale down to a single scene or sequence.