Scott at 2012-02-28 18:56:28:

I understand story structure to be not just about plot, but both the External World of the story universe and the Internal World. So a story's throughline is comprised of a Plotline (Ext) and a Themeline (Int). There's been way too much focus in my view on plot, not enough on the emotional and psychological journey that interweaves with what transpires in the External World. So per Narrative Throughline, most movies will have at least these 10 Plotline Points: ACT I: The Opening, The Hook, The Lock. ACT II: Deconstruction Test, Transition, Reconstruction Test, All Is Lost. ACT III: On The Offensive, Final Struggle, Denouement. If you are into the sequence approach, they slot right into this approach with the Denouement as the tag on scene. But to understand the story structure properly, we have to include what goes on in the Themeline (Internal World). In most mainstream movies, the Protagonist goes through a metamorphosis, and most often a positive one. That arc can be expressed this way: ACT I: Disunity ACT II: Deconstruction ACT II: Reconstruction ACT III: Unity So the events that occur in the Plotline impact the Protagonist and their Themeline which causes them to change which in turns affects what they do in the Plotline, and on and on, what should feel like an organic metamorphosis. I don't consider this a paradigm per se. And stories certainly don't have to fit into it as I don't believe there is one way to write a story, one formula, etc. Rather stories are organic and multivaried. However if one were looking for an approach that would safely fall into what a Hollywood reader might expect when reading a script, I feel confident Narrative Throughline works on that score having written over 20+ scripts with it as the lens through which I approached story structure.