hello readers i'm going to draw you a map right now and it's going to look like i've drawn a mountain but it's not a map of a mountain it's a map of a story what you're saying how do you map a story what makes a story pointy these are great questions and to answer them i'll say this today we're going to talk about the elements of a story or the parts that make it up like ingredients in a recipe many stories follow a similar pattern good readers know what these patterns are and can talk about them using the right terms and this helps everyone be on the same page so to speak when you discuss or write about the stories you read i'm about to drop a lot of vocabulary on you so brace yourselves the story begins with exposition where we learn about the characters and the setting then we introduce a conflict or a big problem as the characters begin to interact with the conflict or try to solve the problem we enter rising action this upward slope of the story mountain when the conflict comes to a head we hit the most exciting part of the story the climax here the conflict can't go any further we're at the top of the mountain there's nowhere else to go except down after the climax after this most exciting part of the story we enter falling action the climax will happen much closer to the end of the story than to the middle it's not a symmetrical mountain the action slows down the problem has been solved or maybe the problem has changed and the characters prepare for the last phase of story the resolution this is where we tie up loose ends characters reflect on what they learned maybe you set up a sequel now look that was a lot of information all at once in order to make sense of it let's apply all of those terms to a story now our go-to has been the three little pigs and while that's a story everyone knows i'm starting to think it needs to be freshened up a little bit really working its franchise potential you know so let's go through the elements of story by looking at my new project a reboot of three little pigs that i'm calling tlp starbound see it's three little pigs but it's in space that's that's that's a space helmet so i'm gonna put a little story map here in the corner okay so the exposition it's the future pigs have expanded to every corner of the galaxy three brave little pigs decide to strike out on their own exploring a new exciting region of space one builds a spaceship out of straw go with me here one builds a spaceship out of twigs and one builds a spaceship out of a flexible hyper alloy they developed in a laboratory she's the brainy pig so we've got the setting it's the future they're in space we've got our characters the pigs now the conflict along comes the notorious space pirate captain wolf he's big he's bad he wants to blow up the spaceships and eat the pigs he begins hunting down the pig ships one at a time i think captain wolf has an eye patch no he has a cyber eye he's part robot and now we enter our rising action phase captain wolf engages the straw ship they have an exciting space battle and straw pig escapes in the little escape pod to the twig ship but captain wolf follows he is undaunted the tension continues to rise he destroys the twig ship the two pigs escape again this time to the brick house i mean the the hot flexible hyper alloy spaceship piloted by the science pig and now we come to the climax captain wolf comes to the advanced ship he tries to blow it up but he can't it's too powerful he decides to board the ship because that's the only way he'll get to eat the pigs but the pigs trap him in a space barrel while he's still in the airlock they did it they solved the problem captain wolfe is trapped in a space barrel and he can't eat them now the climax is passed and now we enter the falling action phase of the story in the version of the story that i know the three little pigs roll the barrel into the river so i think maybe in this version they they punt the space barrel out the airlock into the cold void of space or maybe they strand him on a deserted planet but in any case they never have to deal with the wolf again the threat is now gone and that means that the conflict has been resolved we're in the resolution part of the story now the first two little pigs the straw ship pig and the twig ship pig learned that they need to put more work into their spaceships if they want to survive in space and they build fancy spaceships just like the science pig and that's an introduction to story elements now that you're familiar with the ideas start applying them to your favorite stories you can do this with any form of media books comics tv shows movies games what's the conflict how is it resolved once you start looking for story structure and entertainment you will find it everywhere let us know what you see you can learn anything dave it out