on Writers Helping Writers:

Most writers think of story structure as a dry, architectural plot blueprint. Inciting incidents and pinch points and turning points map out the road as the characters stumble through their world, making impossible choices and forging ahead under pressure. These plot concerns are where many writers spend most of their creative energy.

But story structure actually encompasses not only what’s happening outside a character but the internal weave of their lived experience—and this is the layer that keeps readers up late turning pages. Beneath the terminology of plot, you’ll spot a larger pattern created as the character works their way from one side of the story problem to the other.

This is the trajectory not of plot, not of character arc, but of the narrative form we call Story.

This is how it unfolds.