Storytelling structures

Petal Structure

You tell the story one by one before turning back to the centre. You build a tapestry of evidence around your central theory or idea. The stories you weave around the centre can overlap, but each of these should have a separate narrative (perhaps a separate character).

Monomyth

The hero is called to set out and leave their home. The journey will be difficult, but a lot can be and will be learnt during that journey. Once that wisdom is found, the hero returns home, and the gained wisdom is shared amongst the community. The most famous hero's journey, or monomyth, is the Lion King.

The Mountain

Unlike the Monomyth, the mountain can be a real struggle and does not need to have a good ending. The plot develops when certain events occur, piling up on each other, moving the story upward and forwards. As such, no happy ending is required, and the story can end -- with a cliffhanger. Most often, there is a need to set the scene of the story, the challenge presented and explained, and a conclusion given, whether positive or not, whether solved or not, or whether another story is needed.

In Medias Res

The narrative usually starts somewhere in the middle of the story itself. A place where you are dropped in the heat of the action. When you've been introduced to this heated event, you are brought back to the beginning to explain how you got there (or how the character got there).

Sparklines

Sparklines is a technique which inspires hope. The story contrasts our ordinary world with an ideal improved world (or if you want to inspire a grim world, you do the opposite). Generally, sparklines are used to draw attention to problems we have in our society. We attempt to create hope and fuel a desire to change the reality we have for something else. Good examples are presidential speeches or very famous speeches that have left us feeling hope that we can change things. For example, Martin Luther King Jr.

False Start

The false start is a technique which is used to lure the audience into a false sense of security. Rather than providing the audience with a story which they can predict, you throw in a narrative which is unpredictable or, rather, not the narrative you choose to follow for the rest of your story. You tell a story, and then you disrupt it, and you begin again. Very useful when you want to grab the attention of the audience to a problem.