Every story has a beginning, a middle and an end. But how do you make that middle part compelling? Enter Freytag’s pyramid: the story structure outlined by German writer Gustav Freytag in 1863. He created his plot pyramid as a five-act dramatic structure but you can use it to outline any kind of narrative, whether it’s a fairy tale or a memoir.
 
So what are the elements—or the five major plot points—of Freytag’s pyramid? 

1.Exposition

Freytag called this part the introduction. This is where you set the scene for your story. You introduce the setting, the main characters, the background that led to this point. For example, think of the story of Jack and the Beanstalk. (Warning: spoilers ahead!) During the exposition part of this classic fairy tale, we are introduced to Jack, living in poverty with his widowed mother. Their only source of income is a cow.

The exposition part of the plot is also where you introduce the inciting incident that will set the story in motion. For Jack, this is when, after his mother asks him to go to the market and sell their cow, he meets the old man who gives him the magic beans in return for the cow.

When you set the scene, be careful not to spend too much time on it. Your readers will quickly lose interest if you overwhelm them with endless background info and no indication that all this information is going somewhere. We don’t need to dwell too much on the circumstances that led Jack and his mother to live in poverty, for instance, since what’s important is that they do, and that Jack then trades their most valuable possession for some beans.

2. Rising action

You’ve set the story in motion through your inciting incident, now you need to start taking things somewhere. You do this by creating obstacles that the protagonist must overcome. You can also introduce new characters and even subplots at this stage or start uncovering clues that will lead to the big reveal. The rising action stage is usually the longest part of the story, as it gradually builds tension.

In Jack’s story, the rising tension phase starts with him going home and his mother, in her anger, throwing the beans out of the window. This phase also covers how he finds the giant beanstalk that has grown from the magic beans, and how he climbs up this beanstalk. We meet two new characters: the giant’s wife and the giant. The giant’s wife helps to hide Jack from her fee-fi-fo-fumming husband. Jack steals the bag of gold and then returns the next day, stealing the golden hen this time. We know that Jack can’t keep coming back, with the wife hiding him every time: sooner or later, the giant will catch Jack in the act. The question is, when? So, we wait with bated breath.

3.Climax

The climax is the moment of truth, the event that will change everything. It kicks off the series of events that will either lead to a happy ending or end in tragedy, and it has us wondering what the protagonist’s fate will be.

For Jack, the climax comes when he goes back up to the giant’s house for the third time and tries to steal the magic harp, only for the instrument to sing out and alert the giant to Jack’s presence. Jack flees down the beanstalk, with the giant hot on his heels. Will Jack escape or will the giant catch him?

This part of the story is typically quite brief. After all, it’s like being in a rollercoaster that has now reached its highest point: you’re exhilarated and your heart is pounding, but if the rollercoaster doesn’t start going down soon, you won’t feel like you’re having fun anymore.

4.Falling action

Once you’ve reached the climax—the top of Freitag’s pyramid—you need to come down again. In fact, Freitag called this phase the return or fall. This is a longer phase again, but not as long as the rising action. During the falling action, you work towards the conclusion of the story, so you show how the climax has changed the course of events. This is the phase where you start tying up subplots, resolving conflicts, and answering the reader’s questions.

In Jack’s story, the falling action has to do with literally coming down to earth: Jack chops down the beanstalk and the giant falls to his death. So, we get an answer to the question that arose during the climax, of what was going to happen to Jack now that the giant was chasing him. He makes it!

5.Denouement

Freitag called the final phase the catastrophe—but he was thinking in terms of tragic dramas. The denouement phase is where there is resolution and the tension dissipates. You use this phase to tie up loose ends and provides the reader with a conclusion that will leave them happy or sad, but mostly satisfied.

For Jack, denouement comes in the form of going back to his mother and them now being rich, thanks to the treasures Jack stole from the giant. They live happily ever after.
Of course, not all stories end with all the loose ends nicely tied up. We may still have questions but getting them answered isn’t integral to the story. For instance, what happened to the giant’s wife? A loose end or unanswered question can be a segue into a sequel or a spin-off.

What about the five major plot points in nonfiction?

Using the five major plot points to outline a work of fiction will make planning your book infinitely easier. But what about nonfiction? After all, real events happened in the order that they did, and you can’t fit them neatly into five phases. Or can you?

The trick is to find the climax in those events. Every series of events has a moment where everything changed. Once you’ve identified that, it won’t be too difficult to see how the events before that point led up to it, and how those after it led to a conclusion.

For example, let’s say you’re writing about a guided trek to climb Mount Kilimanjaro. The typical trek goes something like this:

1. Exposition: Certain events lead to you making the decision to go on this trip. You also get all your gear together and travel to Tanzania and to the starting point of your trek. You meet the people who will join you, but you don’t know much about them yet. And while your guide gives you a safety briefing, you wonder what the trip will be like.
2. Rising action: You set off on your journey up the mountain. Along the way, you find out more about the other people in your group. Maybe you notice a blooming romance or a developing conflict between certain group members. There are also some the challenges that you and your groupmates have to deal with along the way: blisters, altitude sickness, sunburn, dehydration, tummy troubles, injuries, and difficult parts of the route, such as the dreaded scramble up the Barranco wall. Who will make it to the top?
3. Climax: This is where your party reaches the top of the mountain. Uhuru Peak! You’ve reached your main goal and this is the highest you can go. You bask in the sunshine, enjoy the view, take pictures with the other climbers and rest your aching legs. And after half an hour or so, it’s time to start the descent because you need to make it down to base camp before dark.
4. Falling action: Now you make the descent. The exhilaration of reaching the summit has started to dissipate, and all you can think of is how you want to make it back to camp before your legs give out. The other people in the group have their own ways to deal with coming down after the high: maybe the blooming romance develops further, or the conflict that was building during the ascent is becoming more intense. You still have to deal with blisters and other challenges, but you can look forward to relief.
5. Denouement: And then you reach base camp. You can finally take off your shoes and put some ointment on those burning blisters. The romancing couple decide if they’re going to take things further or go their separate ways. The conflicting pair come to blows or they talk it out and shake hands. You go back home, and you now only need to decide if you’re going to leave your gear to gather dust in the attic or if you’re going to start training for Everest.

Your biggest challenge might be to decide where to end the story. To help you with this, ask yourself what you want your readers to take away from having read your book. Do you want to give them a neat ending with a bow nicely tied around it? Or do you want to channel Maggie Simpson saying her first word: “Sequel?”