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Many writers find that mastering a genre of writing, such as the novel, requires that at some point they break down other writers' pieces of work in the genre in order to study their structure: to ...
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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/27968 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
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Many writers find that mastering a genre of writing, such as the novel, requires that at some point they break down other writers' pieces of work in the genre in order to study their structure: to understand the nature of the component parts and the way they are combined. I am not asking for a definition of "novel", which would require a careful consideration of edge cases. But what grammars have been developed that enable the plots of many novels to be summarised? I am looking for something a little more detailed than the three-act structure that is used in screenwriting and Freytag's five-act pyramid of rising and falling action that is used in stage drama. Something similar in its degree of complexity to Propp's morphology of wondertales is more what I am seeking.