Plot

Most storytelling advice tells you to start slow: establish the ordinary world, introduce your characters, build context before introducing conflict. The Fichtean Curve says: screw that. Start with a crisis. Then another crisis. And another. And another. Keep escalating until you reach a climax, deliver a brief resolution, and you’re done. No leisurely setup. No patient worldbuilding. No gentle easing the audience into the story. Just: Crisis. Crisis. Crisis. Boom. ...

Western storytelling has a formula: introduce a hero, give them a problem, make it worse, then resolve it through struggle. Conflict is everything. Heroes need villains. Protagonists need obstacles. Stories need tension. But what if there’s another way? What if you could tell a compelling story with zero conflict, no antagonist, and no struggle—and still keep your audience completely engaged? Welcome to kishotenketsu (起承転結), the East Asian narrative structure that’s been creating beautiful stories for over a thousand years without relying on conflict at all. ...

Every screenwriting book tells you the same thing: stories have three acts. Act 1: Setup (establish character, world, conflict) Act 2: Confrontation (escalating obstacles, rising stakes) Act 3: Resolution (climax, falling action, denouement) There’s a problem though. Most of your favorite movies don’t actually follow this structure. Or rather, they follow it so loosely that calling it “three acts” is misleading at best and creatively limiting at worst. Let’s be clear: the three-act structure isn’t wrong. But it’s not a rule—it’s a retrospective description, not a prescription. And treating it as gospel might be why your story feels forced. ...