Plot Diagram
THE PLOT DIAGRAM
The plot diagram: most people learn about it somewhere in elementary school, and indeed, it is the most elementary of tools a writer and reader can use in summarizing and outlining a story. It is so basic and flexible that pretty much every story written in existence can be outlined via the plot diagram. And yet, there are stories that, when outlined, twist the plot diagram into interesting shapes, which leads me to suspect that there is a missing step in the plot diagram: the elusive and mysterious Tea-Time.
But I am getting ahead of myself. First things first. And first, let us examine this so-called plot diagram in detail, starting with its origins at the hands of Gustav Freytag.
Gustav Freytag was a German writer of the nineteenth century. One of his better-known contributions to literature was the Freytag pyramid, which divided up the dramatic structure into five parts: the exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and denouement.
Freytag’s pyramid was intended for analysis of ancient Greek and Shakespearean dramatic structures, but that hasn’t stopped other writers from realizing how it can be applied and altered to fit conventional written story structures. And that is how, through various modifications and minor alterations of Freytag’s pyramid, the modern plot diagram was born (below is an example of one of the many similar-minded variations of the plot diagram).
One of the useful things about the plot diagram is that parts can be added or subtracted to fully represent a story’s plot without any harm to the diagram. In essence, the only aspects that are often considered universal among all stories is the rising action and the climax. Every other aspect can be present in a story as well, but it is not considered necessary. And of course this flexibility is what enables the diagram to apply to stories as varied as Poe’s The Cask of Amontillado (set-up; rising action; climax; falling action) to Connell’s The Most Dangerous Game
The plot diagram: most people learn about it somewhere in elementary school, and indeed, it is the most elementary of tools a writer and reader can use in summarizing and outlining a story. It is so basic and flexible that pretty much every story written in existence can be outlined via the plot diagram. And yet, there are stories that, when outlined, twist the plot diagram into interesting shapes, which leads me to suspect that there is a missing step in the plot diagram: the elusive and mysterious Tea-Time.
But I am getting ahead of myself. First things first. And first, let us examine this so-called plot diagram in detail, starting with its origins at the hands of Gustav Freytag.
Gustav Freytag was a German writer of the nineteenth century. One of his better-known contributions to literature was the Freytag pyramid, which divided up the dramatic structure into five parts: the exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and denouement.
Freytag’s pyramid was intended for analysis of ancient Greek and Shakespearean dramatic structures, but that hasn’t stopped other writers from realizing how it can be applied and altered to fit conventional written story structures. And that is how, through various modifications and minor alterations of Freytag’s pyramid, the modern plot diagram was born (below is an example of one of the many similar-minded variations of the plot diagram).
One of the useful things about the plot diagram is that parts can be added or subtracted to fully represent a story’s plot without any harm to the diagram. In essence, the only aspects that are often considered universal among all stories is the rising action and the climax. Every other aspect can be present in a story as well, but it is not considered necessary. And of course this flexibility is what enables the diagram to apply to stories as varied as Poe’s The Cask of Amontillado (set-up; rising action; climax; falling action) to Connell’s The Most Dangerous Game