Story Engineering
Four parts, and each one has a job.
As the story develops, the protagonist’s relationship to the problem changes. Brooks’s model follows that movement from setup through response and more deliberate action toward resolution. Its milestones help you examine how the middle develops instead of repeating itself.
How it works
Larry Brooks set out this model in Story Engineering (2011). He divides a story into four parts of roughly equal length and defines each by what the hero is doing: getting established, responding to a threat, attacking it, resolving it. Plot points and pinch points mark the transitions and keep the antagonist in view.
Part 1 · Setup (0–25%) introduces the hero and what they stand to lose. A Hook near 2% grabs the reader, and the Inciting Incident around 12% starts the change; sometimes it doubles as the First Plot Point at 23%, where the real story begins. In Part 2 · Response (25–50%) the hero reacts, and the First Pinch Point at 37.5% shows the antagonist’s power. New information at the Midpoint (50%) changes the context. Part 3 · Attack (50–75%) puts the hero on the offensive, with a Second Pinch Point at 62.5%, often tied to a loss. At 75% the Second Plot Point supplies the last new information, and Part 4 · Resolution makes the hero the driver of the ending.
It sits close to Syd Field’s Paradigm, with pinches at 37.5% and 62.5% and plot points near the quarter marks, and it shares Dan Wells’s switch from reaction to action at 50%. What Brooks adds is a job for each quarter: the midpoint flips the hero from defense to offense, and the pinches keep the opposition onstage. No beat is set aside for a lowest point; any loss tends to ride on the second pinch.
The milestones are easiest to use before drafting. Settling the First Plot Point, Midpoint and Second Plot Point early frames the manuscript; in a 90,000-word novel they fall near 21,000, 45,000 and 67,500 words. Each pinch should show the antagonist’s power, in a scene from their side or through damage the hero can see. The quarter marks are aims, and a first plot point near 30% can hold if the setup builds stakes all the way.
The framework, part by part
Positions are illustrative comparison references, not universal timing rules.
- Part 1 · Setup (0%–25%, Ordinary world): Introduce the hero, the stakes and what they stand to lose.
- Hook (2%, Ordinary world): An early moment that makes the reader lean in.
- Inciting Incident (12%, Inciting incident): An event that starts the change; sometimes it’s the first plot point itself.
- First Plot Point (23%, Commitment): The real story starts: a new need, quest or danger arrives.
- Part 2 · Response (25%–50%, New world): The hero reacts, runs, regroups and searches.
- First Pinch Point (37.5%, New world): A direct look at the antagonist’s power.
- Midpoint (50%, Midpoint): New information changes the context for hero and reader alike.
- Part 3 · Attack (50%–75%, Pressure mounts): With new understanding, the hero goes on the offensive.
- Second Pinch Point (62.5%, Pressure mounts): Another reminder of the antagonist, often tied to a lull or a loss.
- Second Plot Point (75%, Final push): The last new information enters the story; the hero has what they need.
- Part 4 · Resolution (75%–100%, Climax): The hero becomes the primary catalyst of the ending.
Use it for
Planning a novel’s milestones before drafting.
Watch for
The quarter marks are targets; a late first plot point can work when the setup earns it.
See how your story works.
Explore 30 approaches to story structure through short films and illustrated guides. Bring an idea or a draft, build your outline, and compare how different frameworks organize its events.
Free to use. No account needed to write. Save a backup to keep your work.
A short film on every structure
Each of the 30 structures has a 90-second animation that draws its shape beat by beat, and a page with every beat, how its parts work, questions to try, and when it can help. Start with one you’ve heard of.
All 30 structures on one timeline
Each row is one structure. The story runs left to right, from the first page (0%) to the last (100%). Bars are beats that last a while; diamonds are single moments. Drag the red line to any point, and the list below shows the nearby beats in each structure.
- Bar: a beat that lasts a while
- Diamond: a beat at one moment
- Red line: the point you’re reading
- A blank stretch: that structure names no beat there
- Act II-A and II-B are the two halves of Act Two, split at the midpoint.
Rows 1 to 13 follow Robert Carlson’s Ultimate Story Structure Chart (2015). Rows 14 to 21 are the structures readers of that thread asked him to add, and rows 22 to 30 are nine more we added. Positions combine source conventions and editorial estimates. Use them to compare approaches; they are not universal timing rules.
† Credited on Carlson’s chart. We found no primary source; the tree line is also credited to George Abbott and George M. Cohan.
Outline your story in any structure
Choose a framework and give its prompts a few sentences. Compare suggested placements in other frameworks to find a useful question or a different way to develop an event.
Pick a structure you know
Not sure? Try one of these, or any of the 30.
Write a sentence for each beat
A beat is one turn in the story, like the Catalyst that knocks your hero’s life off course. Each beat comes with a question to help you answer it.
Compare another framework
The comparison suggests where your notes could fit. Review each match. You decide which prompts matter to your story.
We wrote The Wonderful Wizard of Oz as a Save the Cat! outline. These excerpts from our outline of Baum’s 1900 novel show how suggested placements change between frameworks. Unmapped prompts describe this partial outline, not a flaw in Oz. Pick any structure you know and try it with your own story.
Sketch your story’s ups and downs
Kurt Vonnegut drew stories as a line that rises when things go well for the main character and falls when they go badly. Draw yours from left to right and we’ll name the classic shape it’s closest to.
Take it to the page
The free 91-page guide has the full chart, a chapter on each structure, printable worksheets and beat calculators for films, episodes and novels.