Let’s delve into its foundational elements and evolution ... drama and emphasized the importance of a well-structured plot, which he saw as having a beginning, middle, and end.

This is an updated writing workshop handout from one of the workshops I first presented in the 1990s, about using story elements. An earlier version of this handout was posted on the No Train, No Gain ...

Rising action is the piece of a story that leads up to the most exciting part—the climax. It consists of: Story organization usually follows this structure, but the way it looks can differ ...

Those story elements, Aristotle hypothesized, could plug into our imagination, our emotions, and other parts of our psyche, troubleshooting and even improving our mental function. Aristotle’s ...