- Classic Aristotelian 3-part structure
Beginning: We have best friends, Katie and Ashley and their children (Katie has two kids, Aiden and Addy, and Ashley has one child, Avery) and they have decided to spend the day hiking up Multnomah falls. However, when they get there it’s incredibly crowded, so they head to one of the smaller trail heads further down.
Middle: On the way back down the out-and-back trail, once they are nearing the end, the women lose sight of Addy. She’s only 5, and Ashley thought she was behind her with Katie, while Katie thought she was up ahead with Ashley. They all make it back to the car, but Addy isn’t there. Panic ensues, police are called, and everyone worries.
End: Katie gets a call from the police before they even arrive on the scene. Instead of heading back down the smaller trailhead, Addy continued walking towards Multnomah falls where she was found by a nice couple. They fed her some snacks while waiting for her mom and everyone went home in one piece.
- Kishotenketsu 4-part structure.
Introduction: A young girl living with a single mom gets a letter and a train ticket from her paternal grandmother so she can visit for the summer. She hasn’t seen her grandmother in years and is eager to go, hoping to see her dad while there.
Development: Upon arriving at her grandmother’s house, she finds the house in disarray and her grandmother is missing. After exploring the house and finding clues to her grandmother’s disappearance she is led into the woods behind the home.
Twist: In the woods, which the girl has explored throughout her younger years, she finds a hut she’s never seen before. Inside the hut is a woman claiming to be her grandmother’s sister. She tells the girl that her grandmother was taken to a different land by a mysterious force and that she has to choose to follow her and discover family secrets, or go home and continue living her life.
Conclusion: The girl unintentionally makes the decision to go home, ending the story.
- A story in an episodic structure.
Common theme: Addiction
Act 1: We see a mom of 3 who struggles with addiction. She ends up getting her children removed from her custody after leaving her daughter to sleep outside one night. The daughter goes to live with her dad while the 2 boys go to live with theirs. The daughter meets a cousin who becomes her best friend and they grow up together.
Act 2: This act focuses on the cousin from act 1. She’s an adult now, and doesn’t struggle with addiction in the normal sense. She does however use various drugs for recreational purposes occasionally. She doesn’t see an issue with this, even though her cousin tells her otherwise. One day, the cousin’s friend brings over some cocaine for her birthday. The cocaine has high traces of fentanyl, and it ends up killing the cousin.
Act 2: The daughter from act 1 is now an adult with kids of her own. She’s struggling with the loss of her cousin and questioning why it didn’t happen to her mother instead. In her grief, her doctor prescribes her some anxiety and depression meds however, they don’t seem to help her get through her days. A friend offers her an Adderall one day when she’s struggling to get out of bed for her kids and she takes it. This starts a cycle of addiction in her that she never thought would happen to her.
- A story in a surrealist or fantastic mode
There’s a young girl who lives with her single dad. Dad works a lot and the girl spends a lot of time in her bedroom alone after school. She draws fantastic pictures of strange worlds and lands and hangs them all over her walls. When she dreams, she’s transported to these places. She doesn’t know if the ideas for the pictures come to her in dreams before she draws them, or if her drawings are coming to life in her dreams. One morning, she wakes up to find a new picture on her wall that she doesn’t remember drawing. The picture is of her room, but it’s slightly different. The wallpaper is brighter, the bed looks cozier, and she has more toys in the picture. When she investigates the picture more closely, it seems alive, almost as if she could reach right through it and go inside, so that’s what she does.
- Personal Anecdote:
We start with a mom who is just waking up on a Monday morning. She suffers from some mental illness and struggles to keep a normal routine. She has to get her kids up and out the door for school. There are some unspoken hints of conflict between her and her teenage son. The morning routine is a bit chaotic, and she ends up fighting with her son, saying things she wishes she could take back, but ultimately, she gets them all to school on time. She spends the day dwelling on the fight with her son and wondering what she’s done so wrong to make him hate her. At the end of the night, her son cuddles up to her on the couch to watch a movie and tells her he loves her, making her realize she’s doing something right after all.