By Frameworks for storytelling
Much work has gone into building a storytelling formula. At the end of the day, telling stories is more art than science.
Not everything can be boiled down to a formulaic template, however, frameworks can certainly help.
Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey (pdf)
Other Storytelling Frameworks
Instead of 17, some break it down into 12, or 5, or even 3.
- 17-stage Hero’s Journey – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hero%27s_journey
- 12-stage Writer’s Journey – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Writer%27s_Journey:_Mythic_Structure_for_Writers
- 8-Act Structure: https://boords.com/blog/storytelling-101-the-dan-harmon-story-circle
- The 7 Basic Plots – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seven_Basic_Plots
- 5-Act Structure: https://www.amazon.com/Into-Woods-Five-Act-Journey-Story/dp/1468310941
- 3-Act Structure: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-act_structure
- Fichtean Curve: https://blog.reedsy.com/guide/story-structure/fichtean-curve/
- Save the Cat: https://kindlepreneur.com/save-the-cat-beat-sheet/
Global Narrative Frameworks
As someone who was born in the Western Hemisphere, much of the popular culture that I have been exposed to tend to be specific to this part of the world.
However, there is much to learn from other parts of the globe on storytelling and narrative structures that work well. Perhaps, once you understand western-centric storytelling frameworks, the monotony of predictable story / plot structures will lead writers to seek new and exciting ways of telling stories.
Perhaps this represents the future of storytelling… the next frontier.
- Dramatic Structure: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dramatic_structure
- Narrative Structure: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narrative_structure
Framework to Evaluate a Narrative (roughly 9 components)
- Narrative Criticism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narrative_criticism
Resources
- TV Tropes – https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheHerosJourney – a website on tropes, essentially, meta-analysis of stories and fiction.
Espresso Insight 