May 31, 2021
Narrative Arc: How to tell better stories
by Karla Silvas
Have you ever wonder why your favorite movie is your favorite movie? Or why some specific episode of your favorite show made you hallucinate? Well, here you would find the answer or at least some new knowledge that will allow you to understand why you like the stories you like.
Every well-written story follows something called “Narrative Arc” which is also known as Freytag’s Pyramid or Freytag’s Triangle. This is a chronological construction that consists of telling a story through five steps that we will see later on.
This model was developed by the German novelist and playwright Gustav Freytag in 1863. Nowadays we keep using this model in any field you could imagine, going from big screenplays and tv shows to marketing and social media content.
The Narrative Arc consists of telling a story in which we can identify chronological the following five parts:
Exposition: Here it’s set the scene in which the story will be developed. It can also include characters’ backgrounds and any other data that will help us to understand the way of thinking of the people involved in the story and the context of it.
Rising Action: Here is where the story begins. In some narratives, the story starts when a character has a problem that needs to be solved or a mission to fulfill.
Climax: This is the part where the story reaches the highest point of tension between the protagonist and antagonist or where the main character fights between its demons and needs to choose between light and darkness. Any decision made on this point will define how the story is going to end.
Falling Action: After the highest moment of tension, we have the cool-down time, where we can see the consequences of the decisions made on the climax and we can even see personal growth in the main characters. Everyone is getting prepare for the closure of the story.
Denouement: Also known as The End, usually ends with a deep reflection of what happened that evokes on the spectator/reader a feeling of happiness if everything came out as expected, or sadness if something went wrong.
In some places around the Internet, you will find that Narrative Arc has seven phases instead of five, but after analyzed and read (a lot) we can conclude that those two extra steps added in some Internet articles can be part of Raising Action and Denouement.
In longer and more complex stories, we can see this model through all the narrative, having breakpoints where instead of going from climax to falling action, we go from climax to a new exposition, taking us to the highest tension point of the story and after we reached it, we start to having multiples falling downs and denouements, closing all the open problems and reaching all the goals.
To visualize and understand a little bit better Narrative Arc, let’s see the model applied to the firsts episodes of my favorite 2020 show, The Mandalorian.
(Note: I recommend you zoom the image to read it better)
Have you ever wonder why your favorite movie is your favorite movie? Or why some specific episode of your favorite show made you hallucinate? Well, here you would find the answer or at least some new knowledge that will allow you to understand why you like the stories you like.
Every well-written story follows something called “Narrative Arc” which is also known as Freytag’s Pyramid or Freytag’s Triangle. This is a chronological construction that consists of telling a story through five steps that we will see later on.
This model was developed by the German novelist and playwright Gustav Freytag in 1863. Nowadays we keep using this model in any field you could imagine, going from big screenplays and tv shows to marketing and social media content.
The Narrative Arc consists of telling a story in which we can identify chronological the following five parts:
Exposition: Here it’s set the scene in which the story will be developed. It can also include characters’ backgrounds and any other data that will help us to understand the way of thinking of the people involved in the story and the context of it.
Rising Action: Here is where the story begins. In some narratives, the story starts when a character has a problem that needs to be solved or a mission to fulfill.
Climax: This is the part where the story reaches the highest point of tension between the protagonist and antagonist or where the main character fights between its demons and needs to choose between light and darkness. Any decision made on this point will define how the story is going to end.
Falling Action: After the highest moment of tension, we have the cool-down time, where we can see the consequences of the decisions made on the climax and we can even see personal growth in the main characters. Everyone is getting prepare for the closure of the story.
Denouement: Also known as The End, usually ends with a deep reflection of what happened that evokes on the spectator/reader a feeling of happiness if everything came out as expected, or sadness if something went wrong.
In some places around the Internet, you will find that Narrative Arc has seven phases instead of five, but after analyzed and read (a lot) we can conclude that those two extra steps added in some Internet articles can be part of Raising Action and Denouement.
In longer and more complex stories, we can see this model through all the narrative, having breakpoints where instead of going from climax to falling action, we go from climax to a new exposition, taking us to the highest tension point of the story and after we reached it, we start to having multiples falling downs and denouements, closing all the open problems and reaching all the goals.
To visualize and understand a little bit better Narrative Arc, let’s see the model applied to the firsts episodes of my favorite 2020 show, The Mandalorian.
(Note: I recommend you zoom the image to read it better)
Have you ever wonder why your favorite movie is your favorite movie? Or why some specific episode of your favorite show made you hallucinate? Well, here you would find the answer or at least some new knowledge that will allow you to understand why you like the stories you like.
Every well-written story follows something called “Narrative Arc” which is also known as Freytag’s Pyramid or Freytag’s Triangle. This is a chronological construction that consists of telling a story through five steps that we will see later on.
This model was developed by the German novelist and playwright Gustav Freytag in 1863. Nowadays we keep using this model in any field you could imagine, going from big screenplays and tv shows to marketing and social media content.
The Narrative Arc consists of telling a story in which we can identify chronological the following five parts:
Exposition: Here it’s set the scene in which the story will be developed. It can also include characters’ backgrounds and any other data that will help us to understand the way of thinking of the people involved in the story and the context of it.
Rising Action: Here is where the story begins. In some narratives, the story starts when a character has a problem that needs to be solved or a mission to fulfill.
Climax: This is the part where the story reaches the highest point of tension between the protagonist and antagonist or where the main character fights between its demons and needs to choose between light and darkness. Any decision made on this point will define how the story is going to end.
Falling Action: After the highest moment of tension, we have the cool-down time, where we can see the consequences of the decisions made on the climax and we can even see personal growth in the main characters. Everyone is getting prepare for the closure of the story.
Denouement: Also known as The End, usually ends with a deep reflection of what happened that evokes on the spectator/reader a feeling of happiness if everything came out as expected, or sadness if something went wrong.
In some places around the Internet, you will find that Narrative Arc has seven phases instead of five, but after analyzed and read (a lot) we can conclude that those two extra steps added in some Internet articles can be part of Raising Action and Denouement.
In longer and more complex stories, we can see this model through all the narrative, having breakpoints where instead of going from climax to falling action, we go from climax to a new exposition, taking us to the highest tension point of the story and after we reached it, we start to having multiples falling downs and denouements, closing all the open problems and reaching all the goals.
To visualize and understand a little bit better Narrative Arc, let’s see the model applied to the firsts episodes of my favorite 2020 show, The Mandalorian.
(Note: I recommend you zoom the image to read it better)
As we can see and as mentioned above, the first part of the story (developed in the first 3 to 4 episodes) is a huge Freytag’ Pyramid, where you can see that after each Climax, you have a new Exposition instead of a Falling Action but once you get into the highest climax, everything starts to cool down, and the problems start to solve until the goal of the Mandalorian is completed.
This is just a small example of how the Narrative Arc is used to tell a story, however, this technique can be used anytime you need to tell a story, doesn’t matter if it’s going to be written or presented in a visual way, you’ll keep you users attentive to your narrative until the end of it.
Now that you know what is about the Narrative Arc, pay attention to what you like and what you see and analyzed if it uses this technique to tell a story.
Do your favorite movie or show uses this model to tell out the story? Have you ever noticed it? Let me know in the comments!!
As we can see and as mentioned above, the first part of the story (developed in the first 3 to 4 episodes) is a huge Freytag’ Pyramid, where you can see that after each Climax, you have a new Exposition instead of a Falling Action but once you get into the highest climax, everything starts to cool down, and the problems start to solve until the goal of the Mandalorian is completed.
This is just a small example of how the Narrative Arc is used to tell a story, however, this technique can be used anytime you need to tell a story, doesn’t matter if it’s going to be written or presented in a visual way, you’ll keep you users attentive to your narrative until the end of it.
Now that you know what is about the Narrative Arc, pay attention to what you like and what you see and analyzed if it uses this technique to tell a story.
Do your favorite movie or show uses this model to tell out the story? Have you ever noticed it? Let me know in the comments!!
As we can see and as mentioned above, the first part of the story (developed in the first 3 to 4 episodes) is a huge Freytag’ Pyramid, where you can see that after each Climax, you have a new Exposition instead of a Falling Action but once you get into the highest climax, everything starts to cool down, and the problems start to solve until the goal of the Mandalorian is completed.
This is just a small example of how the Narrative Arc is used to tell a story, however, this technique can be used anytime you need to tell a story, doesn’t matter if it’s going to be written or presented in a visual way, you’ll keep you users attentive to your narrative until the end of it.
Now that you know what is about the Narrative Arc, pay attention to what you like and what you see and analyzed if it uses this technique to tell a story.
Do your favorite movie or show uses this model to tell out the story? Have you ever noticed it? Let me know in the comments!!
References
Chey, E., 2021. Freytag’s Pyramid: 7 Elements, 5 Cool Examples of Dramatic Structure. [online] ClearVoice. Available at: <https://www.clearvoice.com/blog/what-is-freytags-pyramid-dramatic-structure/> [Accessed May 2021]
Encyclopedia Britannica. 2021. Gustav Freytag | German writer. [online] Available at: <https://www.britannica.com/biography/Gustav-Freytag> [Accessed May 2021]
Lupton, E., 2017. Design is storytelling. 1st ed. New York: Smithsonian Design Museum
Es.wikipedia.org. 2021. The Mandalorian — Wikipedia, la enciclopedia libre. [online] Available at: <https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mandalorian#Temporada_2> [Accessed 31 May 2021]
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© 2024 Soda Studio. All rights reserved.
© 2024 Soda Studio. All rights reserved.
© 2024 Soda Studio. All rights reserved.