Kishōtenketsu
Four parts, with tension from a turn instead of a fight.
An opening establishes something for us to notice. Development gives it substance, a turn changes the angle, and the final part brings the pieces into a new relationship. Kishōtenketsu helps you explore the understanding that emerges when an audience connects what it has seen.
How it works
An opening establishes something for us to notice. Development gives it substance, a turn changes the angle, and the final part brings the pieces into a new relationship. Kishōtenketsu helps you explore the understanding that emerges when an audience connects what it has seen.
Ki introduces a subject. Shō develops it. Ten changes the angle, bringing an element that invites a new reading. Ketsu relates the parts so that their connection becomes clear.
Imagine a story that introduces a gardener tending an empty plot, develops her daily care, then reveals a packet of seeds addressed to someone who never returned. The final scene can connect the garden with that relationship. The turn changes our understanding of what we have watched.
Conflict can be present. The organizing movement here is the relationship between the parts and the perspective created by the turn. Applications vary across forms and traditions; the four equal spans on this chart are an illustration, not required lengths.
The framework, part by part
Positions are illustrative comparison references, not universal timing rules.
- Ki (0%–25%, Ordinary world): Introduce the characters and setting.
- Shō (25%–50%, New world): Develop what was introduced, with no major change yet.
- Ten (50%–75%, Midpoint): An unexpected element appears, apparently unrelated.
- Ketsu (75%–100%, New normal): The parts come together, and the twist changes how we see the beginning.
Use it for
Quiet stories, comics, essays and pieces that turn on surprise more than struggle.
Watch for
Readers raised on conflict will wait for a fight; make the twist land hard.
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.