The Tree
Up a tree, on fire, back down.
A character gets into a difficult position. The pressure grows until staying there becomes impossible. The image of a burning tree is a memorable way to ask whether the middle of your story changes the character’s options and whether the ending answers that pressure.
How it works
The Tree is Hollywood’s most quoted three-act joke, a whole structure in one image of a character stuck up a burning tree. It is usually credited to Billy Wilder, though versions are also credited to George Abbott and George M. Cohan, and the attribution varies. Whoever said it first, the point is that Act Two exists to escalate and Act Three to get out.
In the first quarter, 0–25%, Put a character up a tree gets the hero into a situation they can’t easily leave. Set the tree on fire takes the whole middle, 25–75%, and asks only that things get worse, then worse again. Get them down fills the last quarter, 75–100%: the hero finds the way out and pays something for it.
Its proportions match the usual three-act split, the same blocks as Characters, Problem, Solution and Proposition, Argument, Resolution on the timeline. The difference lies in Act Two. Characters, Problem, Solution spends it on a growing problem, while in the Tree it is all heat, mapped in full to pressure mounting. That brings it close in spirit to Gardner’s Fichtean Curve, which climbs through crises, each bigger than the last. What it skips is motive, since the joke puts the hero in the tree with no reason given.
The Tree is most useful in the long middle of a draft. Going through Act Two scene by scene, a writer can test whether each one adds fuel, and a scene that holds the temperature steady can often go. The third line is a reminder that the escape should cost something. Before drafting, it pays to settle what got the character into the tree, because the formula leaves that to the writer.
The framework, part by part
Positions are illustrative comparison references, not universal timing rules.
- Put a character up a tree (0%–25%, Ordinary world): Get your hero into a situation they can’t easily leave.
- Set the tree on fire (25%–75%, Pressure mounts): Make the situation worse, then worse again.
- Get them down (75%–100%, Climax): Find the way out, and make it cost something.
Use it for
Checking that each scene in the middle raises the heat.
Watch for
It never asks why the character climbed up.
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.