Unique Story Structures: 5 Unconventional Story Structures

In creative writing, unique story structures are plot structures that deviate from reader expectations or typical series of events. Structures that offer different perspectives may exist in short stories, novels, screenwriting, playwriting, and even scripted podcast episodes. Uncommon narrative structures might feature nonlinear timelines, various genres, or multiple protagonists.

Traditional structures may include the hero’s journey (in which a protagonist leaves home, goes on an adventure, and returns home changed) or the three-act structure (exposition, conflict, and resolution).

In a typical narrative structure, a writer will often lay out plot points according to Freytag’s Pyramid: exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and finally, a denouement. Authors have employed this technique in everything from Greek tragedies (such as Sophocles’s Oedipus Rex) to J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series. While such plotlines represent the status quo, a unique character arc or skewed point of view can result in a more experimental take that challenges the reader.

Plot structure informs the kind of story writers tell. Consider the following ways to experiment with story structure:

1. 1. Buck character conventions. Some stories may feature multiple protagonists, like C.S. Lewis’s children’s fantasy book The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1950). Protagonists may also not grow or change throughout the book, showing no arc and thus defying expectations of how characters behave in stories.
   
2. 2. Combine different genres. Writers can create unconventional story structures by combining various genres. For example, Neil Gaiman’s American Gods (2001) is a winding novel that melds fantasy, mythology, and Americana—three genres with their own understood story structures.
3. 3. Experiment with perspective. Traditional storytelling follows the main character’s perspective, but a unique narrative might follow multiple perspectives with various characters. For example, the psychological thriller The Girl on the Train (2015) by Paula Hawkins features multiple perspectives from three characters.
4. 4. Include a cliffhanger. Books may also end with cliffhangers—with mystery or without resolve. Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale (1985) ends with its protagonist Offred getting into a van, unsure of her future or fate.
5. 5. Play with time. Some authors choose to tell stories in reverse chronology, like Jeffery Deaver’s The October List (2013), about a kidnapping that begins with the dramatic climax and works backward. Stories may also employ flashbacks, making for a unique story structure. Flashbacks can help flesh out character backstory and reveal information to the reader that enriches the present plot points.

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