Last week, maybe a week ago, maybe 82 years ago, who knows, we talked about alternative plot structures.

Much of American film and novels is built on what's considered to be the classic three-act structure, which basically goes beginning-middle-end, and there's this rising line of the plot.

It ends up looking like a bit of a triangle.

As readers, we can sort of anticipate and feel that structure happening. In a rom-com, we almost always know how far into the book or movie it will be when the couple breaks up and then someone has to chase down a car or airplane or something so they can get back together. There's a lovely familiarity in that, but us writers don't always want a lovely familiarity with beats in all the prescribed places and a structure that looks like a triangle.

In an earlier podcast, Shaun, was asking me about the different structures and plots. And this is a pretty big question that people write entire books about, but I'm going to start here.

First, a structure is sort of the diagram of rising and falling and action that links all of the plot points together

The plot is something that connects the moments of the novel in a way that gives a novel its meaning. .

Janet Burroway defines plot as a “series of events deliberately arranged so as to reveal their dramatic, thematic, and emotional significance …. Plot’s concern is ‘what, how, and why,’ with scenes ordered to highlight cause-and-effect.”

Plot, according to Ingrid Sundberg, is about patterns, rhythm, and energy. It’s about the movement and feeling your particular arrangement creates. The triangle (often called the Aristotelian story shape) is a visual metaphor for the escalating energy that is meant to come as a result of a classic design arrangement.”

This podcast, we're talking about all the different types of plots. Next time? We'll go all structure on you.

• Mini-plot

• Daisy chain plot,

• Cautionary tale plot

• Ensemble plot

• Along for the ride plot

• Symbolic juxtaposition plot

• Repeated event plot

• Repeated action plot

Explanations of the Possibilities

Mini Plot – This is the emotional plot. It’s minimalistic. It might even seem like it does not have a plot, but it does. It’s just that the cause-and-effect is about emotional evolution and growth.

Example: Tender Mercies

Daisy Chain Plot - We have no main protagonist, so we have no main goal. A bunch of characters and situations are here and they are linked via cause-and-effect like a physical object.

Examples: Thirteen Reasons Why (has a protagonist, but it kind of works). Lethal Passage.

Cautionary Tale Plot - Hero? There is no hero! Comfort? There is no comfort! Our main character sucks. And instead the reader is the protagonist.

Examples: Jumped by Rita Williams-Garcia. Inexcusable by Chris Lynch.

Ensemble Plot - According to Berg, this happens when you have protagonists grouped in the same place and it is “characterized by the interaction of several voices, consciousnesses, or world views, none of which unifies or is superior to the others.”

Example: Give a Boy a Gun.

Along For The Ride Plot - Ah. Where is our protagonist doing proactive things? Not here. Here we have the secondary character pushing the action and the protagonist is there, zooming along with them. The prot