━━━━ story structure is a majorly essential element to books. it's the way authors create a path with their narrative — it's what makes stories much more memorable. it's the twists and turns within the chapters.

story structure aids with the guidance of readers in getting them from the beginning to the end of your book, all the while introducing characters, settings, conflict, plot development, and resolving conflict. it also helps create a sense of tension and suspense, as well as surprise, which can all be stated as key components for stories.

as the backbone of your book, it's the order in which you present your narrative. it shapes the flow of events: rising action, climax, resolution.

elements of a story structure:

━━ introduction ,
━━ rising action ,
━━ climax ,
━━ falling action ,
━━ resolution / ending ,

there are seven important story structures that are popular amongst writers:

━━ freytag's pyramid ,
━━ the hero's journey ,
━━ three act structure ,
━━ dan harmons story circle ,
━━ fichtean curve ,
━━ save the cat ,
━━ seven—point structure ,

story structure and outline are often confused with one another. they seem similar, but are in fact very different.

━━ story structure dictates the baseline events. it includes the rise and the fall.

━━ story outline decides the specifics of structure.

once you have a handle on the basics of structure, it can then be used to create something that works. it's beneficial to explore the different methods to then decide which one best suits your story. templates are readily available for those unsure about where to begin, and are recommended for new authors.

━━━━ every story has four elements to it: the world itself, the character(s), the event and the idea. all good stories have these, but it's common for one of the points to be more predominant: the element that the author cares most about, the piece in which the story focuses on.

   ━ a milieu story, 'the world itself', is just the world that the story takes place in — the planet it's on, all the way to smaller details like weather. in these stories, the world becomes the character. it of course has a protagonist, but they aren't the focus. the author wants readers to be consumed by the world in which they've made, rather than them liking or disliking the protagonist.

these stories don't focus on anything of importance in relation to the character, such as their history, or any memories. each and every milieu story follows the same basic structure: the story begins when the character finds or enters the world, and ends when they leave.

   ━ an idea story is a simple structure, and the main focus is finding and looking for new information through a character l driven to make discoveries, and these stories start with a question, and end with the question having been answered.

this is a common structure for mysteries or thrillers, with the question being a combination of who, why, why and how. twists can be added to this structure by playing with dramatic irony.

   ━ a character story focuses on the character, be it a human or not. it focused on their history, a series of events that made them who they are, and minute details about them as a whole. these points are all important and explored during a character story.

the plot of focuses less on what the character does, and more on how events and actions affect them. the story follows the character through a transformation in both personal character and their role in society. 

the story begins at the moment a character becomes unhappy in their present state or situation. they begin the process of change and the story ends when they either settle into a new role and accept changes, or they give up their struggle and go back to how things were.

a good example of a character story is 'the hunger games'. the trilogy follows katniss as she works to change the world she lives in, undergoes growth and development, and it ends when she is successful with overcoming the capitol — where the last thing we see is her and her family years down the road, enjoying life in the peaceful new world they all fought for.

   ━ an even story is where something wrong occurs in the world. something must be done, and the story follows a cast of characters who are working to restore order. event stories end when the darkness is conquered and the world is as it should be. in some cases, they end when the word descends fully, and all forces of possible good or evil are destroyed forever.

an event story will begin when the character whose actions will be essential to the resolution appears. a large amount of fantasy and sci—fi stories follow the event story structure, like 'the lord of the rings'. the story begins when frodo discovers that the ring is the key to overthrowing sauron, and the story is not over when sauron is destroyed, but when order has been restored.

━━━━ narrative structure deals with how the author handles time in their story. it's how writers bring it all together.

there are four narrative structure types:

━━ chronologically / linear structure ,
━━ flashbacks ,
━━ parallels ,
━━ frames / outside voice narration ,