Stephen Burrell

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The Universal Story Structure

Gustav Freytag was a 19th Century German novelist and playwright who developed a visual representation of the five-act structure common in classic plays and novels. This structure is known as Freytag’s Pyramid or triangle, or “the "dramatic arc," and  this a straightforward way of organising a tragic narrative into a beginning, middle, and ending, and is comprised of five distinct parts: introduction, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution.

 

I think stories are powerful because they transport us into other people’s world and in doing that, they change the way our brain works and potentially change our brain chemistry. This is what it means to be a social creature and connect with others, to care about others even complete strangers and its so interesting that dramatic stories cause us to do this. The same thing can happen when we watch movies or listen to music, we feel uplifted, we feel motivated, or we feel connected to others around us.