Bestselling author David Farland has taught dozens of writers who have gone on to staggering literary success, including such #1 New York Times Bestsellers as Brandon Mull (Fablehaven), Brandon Sanderson (Wheel of Time), James Dashner (The Maze Runn...
Very often writers try to categorize stories into "types" in order to understand how they work. Thus, we might talk about "boy-meets-girl" romances or "revenge" plots. But some critics have pointed out that stories can also be defined by "shape."
Most authors don't visualize their stories as shapes, but I've learned to see stories as shapes over the years, and often I envision them in rather complex forms.
Here are a few common shapes.
The Serial or Episodic Plot - a zigzag line, a series of Feralt Triangles set end to end.
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This is used for stories that aren't meant to come to an end. Instead, the characters go from one adventure to the next, often without any real growth. This plot worked fine for novels at one time, and was used extensively in pulp fiction, in weekly serial novels for newspapers, and in early radio shows. It is now used mainly in television. An episode of Two and a Half Men is represented by a single triangle, while the series can be seen as the overall diagram—extending out over hundreds of episodes. Here, known characters are put in a known setting and given new problems to solve each week, usually without referencing past problems (though a series may have an overarching conflict that is sometimes addressed through two or three episodes).
The Journey Home, or Cyclic Plot - an arrow drawn in a circle shape, ending where it began.
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This plot takes us through a tale and returns the hero or heroine to his or her doorstep, with all of the adventures eventually meaning . . . not quite nothing. Perhaps the apprentice becomes a wizard, and in turn takes a new apprentice and initiates the cycle all over again, or the young girl has adventures, marries, and in time raises her own daughter. The cyclic journey is the point of the story. Examples include Ursula K. Leguin's Always Coming Home and Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises.
The Onion-Skin or Chinese Puzzle plot - an onion, with a kernel at the center and layers and layers encompassing it.
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