Freytag's Pyramid
1. Exposition: This is where you set the scene. Introduce the characters and setting, provide description and background.
2. Inciting Incident: Something happens here to begin the Action. This event usually signals the beginning of the main conflict. Sometimes called 'the complication'.
3. Rising Action: Your story builds and gets more exciting.
4. Climax: This is the moment of greatest tension in your story. The most exciting event. The rising action builds up to this and then the falling action follows.
5. Falling Action: Events happen as a logical (not always expected) result of the climax. Reader knows that the end of the story is near.
6. Resolution: The main problem/conflict is solved by the Main Character or someone solves it for them. Should be cathartic for the reader.
7. Dénouement: (a French term, pronounced: day-noo-moh) the ending. This is where readers will feel that you truly had an ending or if you left them 'hanging'. Any remaining secrets or questions are resolved or explained.
Think of the dénouement as the fulfillment of the exposition: promises made are kept, questions asked are answered. Instead of preparing to tell them a story by establishing a setting and characters, you end it with an explanation of what happened, the why and the how of it, especially the way your characters think or feel about it. This can be the most difficult part of the plot to write, as it is so closely tied to the resolution.
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