Story Structure Architect

FROM ORLANDO:

QUEEN ELIZABETH I:[conferring the family estate upon Orlando] For you and for your heirs, Orlando—the house.

ORLANDO: Your Majesty, I am forever …

QUEEN ELIZABETH I: But on one condition. Do not fade. Do not wither. Do not grow old.

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NARRATOR: She’s lived for 400 years and hardly aged a day but, because this is England, everyone pretends not to notice.

The Episodic plot structure is made up of a series of chapters or stories linked together by the same character, place, or theme but held apart by their individual plot, purpose, and subtext. In fact, the chapters or stories could be shuffled around and placed in a different order if desired because there is no overall beginning, middle, and end to the book or story as a whole.

In some cases there may be a sense of time passing throughout the episodes, as if the character is growing or changing through each successive chapter or story. Or perhaps the years are passing by for a character or place and we see the “seasons of change” in the background of the main plot.

The book also could be like the Chicken Soup for the Soul series. These books have an overall theme to them, yet each chapter has a different story to illustrate that theme.

There is only a clear three-act beginning, middle, and end in each of the individual chapters or stories of an Episodic piece:

This structure can be either plot driven or character driven. Keep in mind that a “place” can be considered a character if it is the central figure in each episode.

If the story is character driven, you will most likely have at least one character showing up in every episode, using this character as the driving force in each story.

If the story is plot driven, you will see a similar character, place, or theme in each chapter or story, but the driving force will be the events within each.

Television sitcoms have an Episodic structure, and although they are comedic and may lack a coherent theme or message, each sitcom episode stands on its own. Some of the jokes require you to know a lot about the characters from previous episodes and the Main Character’s goal is often developed over time, but overall each episode can stand alone as an individual story.

Comic books fall into this category. Think of the Wonder Woman and Spider-Man comics. There are numerous episodes for each that stand on their own as individual stories.

While each episode is a mini story of its own, it is usually shorter in length than most stories or novels. For this reason several traditional steps may be missing: Serious Problem and/or Goal, Villain, and Turning Point. You can have all of these if you wish, but decide beforehand how long you want each episode to be. All together the episodes should make up the page count of one traditional novel.

The Villain can also be more abstract here due to the shorter length of story. For example, society as a whole can be the Villain, and the sexist or racist problem the hero faces is his obstacle.

In the case of writing a comic book, the Villain can also be carried over from episode to episode.

The theme can drive the story forward as in an exploration or observational story.

• Will your stories be character or plot driven? Will place or theme take a significant role?

Just as there may not be room for the Serious Problem and/or Goal, the Villain, and Turning Point in Act I, there may not be room for a Temporary Triumph and Reversal in Act II. The story itself should be so interesting on its own that these steps won’t enhance it much and may even come across as being contrived if there is not enough page space to set them up properly.

Subplots are not typically explored in this structure, but there may be a scene sequence which is a series of scenes, one right after the other, with their own mini beginning, middle, and end. For example, Spider-Man goes home to talk to his family and faces tragedy. We don’t cut back and forth between his family tragedy and the main storyline; instead, we see the tragic mini storyline in its entirety.

• Will you use a scene sequence to possibly develop the Main Character’s backstory or advance the plot?

Many times with dramatic episodic pieces, the Resolution is open-ended. The story may continue on, a question is left unanswered for the reader to ponder, or the theme requires it, as is the case with a theme that deals with racism. There is just no way to completely resolve such a huge problem or societal conflict.

Act III may be quick, requiring the least amount of page space. For example, in sitcoms the audience isn’t as concerned with how the Main Character will fix things after he is caught doing something wrong or after he messes everything up. The audience wants to see how far the Main Character will go to cover his tracks or how the other characters will react to what he has done when they find out.

When Jerry Seinfeld is caught digging up his neighbor’s dead bird to find the key to Kramer’s strongbox, that’s all we need to see and the episode ends with a one-page resolution that really doesn’t resolve anything. Jerry says he’ll have to use the fire escape to get in and out of the building to avoid the neighbor, and that’s it. We don’t care if he makes up with his neighbor or if he feels bad about what happened. We just want to see Jerry get into trouble and then get caught red-handed.

In comics or short horror trilogies (see Trilogy of Terror), there may be a false ending where the reader thinks everything is over but the Villain comes back for one more confrontation.

Young nobleman Orlando is commanded by Queen Elizabeth I to stay forever young. Miraculously, he does just that. The story follows him as he moves through several centuries of British history, experiencing different ways of living and even changing sex.

Set in East Los Angeles, this novel shows the daily life of an extended Mexican-American family in a series of vignettes.

This television series has Episodic plots that show character development throughout the seasons. Buffy grows and changes as the overall Episodic story continues each week.