Tools for Shaping Stories? Visual Plot Models in a Sample of Anglo-American Advice Handbooks

Abstract

This chapter examines the “storyology” in writing manuals, focusing on the verbal and the visual plot models in a corpus of sixteen mainstream creative writing handbooks on plot, novels, and screenplays, still in use today. We will focus on the prevalence of dramatic writing and the predominance of the “Mountain Model,” a model which combines earlier linear models, such as the “three-act structure,” “Field’s paradigm,” “Fichtean Curve,” “Freytag’s Pyramid,” and the polar model, built on the alternation of good and bad fortune, along with Joseph Campbell’s “Hero’s Journey.” The Mountain Model visualizes a concept of writing particularly suited for stories capable of being resolved within a limited time frame, combining the perspectives of protagonist and reader. While this model is usually presented as ideal and universal, changing the representation from a linear to a topographical model alters the kinds of plots which can be imagined.