Creating a Clear Narrative Structure

Gustav Freytag proposed a narrative structure that divides a story into five parts, like the five acts of a play. These parts are: exposition (of the situation); rising action (through conflict); climax (or turning point); falling action; and resolution. Your audio story should include each of these parts.

Exposition

The exposition is the portion of a story that introduces important background information to the audience; for example, information about the setting, events occurring before the main plot, characters’ back stories, etc. Exposition can be conveyed through dialogues, flashbacks, character’s thoughts, background details, in-universe media or the narrator telling a back-story.

This phase ends, and the next begins, with the introduction of conflict.

Rising action leads to the Conflict.

Rising action

In the rising action, a series of related incidents build toward the point of greatest interest. The rising action of a story is the series of events that begin immediately after the exposition (introduction) of the story and builds up to the climax. These events are generally the most important parts of the story since the entire plot depends on them to set up the climax, and ultimately the satisfactory resolution of the story itself. Generally, in this phase the protagonist understands his or her goal and begins to work toward it. Smaller problems thwart their initial success and, in this phase, progress is directed primarily against these secondary obstacles. This phase shows us how the protagonist overcomes these obstacles.

Conflict

The climax is the turning point, which changes the protagonist’s fate. If the story is a comedy, things will have gone badly for the protagonist up to this point; now, the plot will begin to unfold in his or her favor, often requiring the protagonist to draw on hidden inner strengths. If the story is a tragedy, the opposite state of affairs will ensue, with things going from good to bad for the protagonist, often revealing the protagonist’s hidden weaknesses.

Climax

The point of climax is the turning point of the story, where the main character makes the single big decision that defines the outcome of the story and who he or she is as a person. The dramatic phase that Freytag called the “climax” is the third of the five phases and occupies the middle of the story. Thus “the climax” may refer to either the point of climax or to the third phase of the story.

The beginning of this phase is marked by the protagonist finally having cleared away the preliminary barriers and being ready to engage with the adversary. Usually, entering this phase, both the protagonist and the antagonist have a plan to win against the other. Now for the first time we see them going against one another in either direct or nearly direct conflict.

This struggle results with neither character completely winning, nor losing, against the other. Usually, each character’s plan is partially successful, and partially foiled by his adversary. What is unique about this central struggle between the two characters is that the protagonist makes a decision which shows us his moral quality, and ultimately determines his fate. In a tragedy, the protagonist here makes a “bad” decision, a miscalculation that demonstrates his tragic flaw.

The climax often contains much of the action in a story, for example, a defining battle. The climax is the highest point of the story.

Falling action

During the falling action, the conflict between the protagonist and the antagonist unravels, with the protagonist winning or losing against the antagonist. In this phase, the villain has the upper hand. It seems that evil will triumph. The protagonist has never been further from accomplishing the goal. For Freytag, this is true both in tragedies and comedies, because both of these types of plots classically show good winning over evil. The question is which side the protagonist has put himself on, and this may not be immediately clear to the audience. The falling action may contain a moment of final suspense, in which the final outcome of the conflict is in doubt.

Resolution

The resolution comprises events from the end of the falling action to the actual ending scene of the drama or narrative. Conflicts are resolved, creating normality for the characters and a sense of catharsis, or release of tension and anxiety, for the reader.

A comedy ends with a resolution in which the protagonist is better off than at the story’s outset. The tragedy ends with a catastrophe, in which the protagonist is worse off than at the beginning of the narrative. Exemplary of a comic resolution is the final scene of Shakespeare’s comedy As You Like It, in which couples marry, an evildoer repents, two disguised characters are revealed for all to see, and a ruler is restored to power. In Shakespeare’s tragedies, the resolution is usually the death of one or more characters.