The structure templates

Setup. Roughly the first quarter: the world, the want, and the event that ends the status quo.

Confrontation. The middle half, in which the protagonist tries and fails and the cost keeps rising.

Resolution. The last quarter: the final attempt, the outcome, and the world it leaves behind.

The world, the want, and the choice that makes going back impossible.

The protagonist responds to events rather than driving them.

After the midpoint, they take the offensive, and each move costs more than the last.

Climax and consequence.

Who these people are, where they stand, and what is unstable about it.

Complication upon complication, towards a commitment that cannot be withdrawn.

The turning point: the highest tension, and the moment the outcome is decided.

Consequences unfold; the outcome becomes inevitable.

Resolution — the knot untied, for better or worse.

Setup.

The world as it works before the story disturbs it, and what is already wrong with it.

The thing that happens. By the end of this sequence the old life is no longer available.

Confrontation.

The obvious solution, tried and failed. The failure is what makes the rest necessary.

The cost of losing becomes clear. Allies and opposition take their positions.

A reversal that changes what the story is about. Often a false victory, or a false defeat.

The plan collapses and the protagonist loses what they were relying on.

Resolution.

A new understanding, and one last attempt made on different terms.

The confrontation, its outcome, and the shape of the world it leaves behind.

Pages 1–25.

The before picture. The tone and the world in one shot.

Someone says what the film is about. The protagonist is not ready to hear it.

The world, the flaw, and what needs fixing.

Something arrives that the protagonist did not choose and cannot ignore. The world stops being the one they woke up in.

Should they go? The last chance to refuse.

They choose. The new world begins.

Pages 25–85.

The relationship that carries the theme.

The stretch that delivers what the poster sold: the premise played for everything it is worth, before the plot closes in again.

A false victory, or a false defeat. Stakes are raised.

External pressure and internal doubt converge.

The opposite of the midpoint. Something dies.

Wallowing in the loss, before the idea arrives.

Pages 85–110.

A and B stories meet, and the answer arrives with them.

The new plan executed; the old world dismantled and rebuilt.

The after picture, answering the opening.

Leaving the known world.

Home, and what is missing from it.

The invitation, or the demand.

Fear, duty, or plain good sense.

Someone who has been further along this road.

Committing, and leaving the familiar behind.

The unfamiliar world and its trials.

Learning the rules of the new world by breaking them.

Preparation for the ordeal, and the fear of it.

The confrontation with the thing most feared. Something dies here.

What is seized, learned, or survived.

Bringing it home.

Pursued, and pulled between two worlds.

The final test, in which the change is proved.

Home again, carrying something that changes it.

The opposite of the resolution. Wherever the character ends up, start them as far from it as you can.

The world changes and the story proper begins. The call, the crime, the arrival.

Pressure applied from outside. Something goes wrong; the opposition shows its face.

The turn from reaction to action. The character stops being moved and starts moving.

The hardest pressure. The mentor dies, the plan collapses, the help runs out.

The last piece arrives — the knowledge or resolve that makes the ending possible.

The change completed. Write this one first; everything else is built back from it.

The familiar half of the circle.

A character in a zone of comfort.

But they want something.

They enter an unfamiliar situation.

The unfamiliar half.

They adapt to it.

They get what they wanted.

And pay a heavy price for it.

Back across the threshold, changed.

They go back to where they started.

Having changed. The zone of comfort is not the same place.

Begins in medias res. Exposition arrives while the story is already moving, or not at all.

Trouble on arrival. The reader learns the world by watching someone fail in it.

Worse, and caused by the last one.

The stakes become personal.

The cost of continuing exceeds the cost of stopping — and they continue.

The last one before the top. Everything is in play.

The highest point of the curve, and the decision made there.

Brief. The curve drops fast, and the story stops soon after.

Who, where, and the one thing that matters. Establish it fast; there is no room for a second idea.

The single thing that goes wrong, and the question it raises.

The question answered — not necessarily happily, but answered.

The last image. Optional, and often the whole reason the film exists.

The world as it stands.

The routine — what makes this a pattern rather than a moment.

The break in the pattern.

The first consequence. Caused, not merely next.

The second consequence, escalating.

The climax the chain has been building to.

The new normal, and how it differs from the old one.

Establish. Who and where, without promising a fight.

Deepen what was introduced. Still no antagonist required.

The unexpected element. Not opposition — a shift that recontextualises everything before it.

Reconciliation. The turn and the opening are seen together, and the piece means something new.

The first two or three seconds. State the promise or pose the question; there is no patience to spend.

The minimum needed to make the payoff land. Every second here is one the viewer may not give you.

Raise it, or twist it. The middle is where retention is lost.

Deliver the promise from the hook. If it can loop back to the first frame, it will be watched twice.

The teller, the listener, and the occasion. Establish why this is being told now.

The tale itself, with its own shape.

The world of the told story.

Its complication. Return to the frame here if the telling is to be interrupted.

Its climax.

Back to the teller. What the telling has cost or revealed — often the real ending.

What is not in dispute: who was there, and that something occurred.

Told to be believed. Establish the version the audience will measure the others against.

Contradicts the first in a way that flatters its teller.

Contradicts both. By now the audience is watching the tellers, not the event.

No reconciliation. What survives all the accounts, and what the discrepancies say about the people.

Establish the thread — the person, place or question every episode will hang from.

Complete in itself. It must satisfy alone, or the form fails.

Complete in itself, and varying the first rather than repeating it.

Complete in itself. The accumulation, not the causation, is the argument.

What the episodes together have said that none of them said alone.

Yours to name. Add headings from the foot of the structure.