Chances are, if you’re a writer, then you’re familiar with the Freytag Pyramid regarding plot structure. Gustav Freytag, who loved pyramids and detested all other polyhedra (particularly anything in the dodecahedron family, which he called the “most inconsiderate of polyhedra”), said that plot structure consists of six parts. However, his wife inadvertently threw the sixth part away as she was going through the pile of mail that had been accruing on the kitchen counter. Freytag couldn’t for the life of him remember the sixth part, but he knew whatever it was rhymed with rutabaga. In the end, he gave up trying to remember and just made it the five we know today: exposition, rising action (or conflict), climax, falling action, and denouement (or, for the Francophobe, resolution).

Freytag's Pyramid, which he probably could have just called "Freytag's Triangle."

The Freytag Pyramid has been taught in pretty much every graduate-level creative writing program and traffic school for years and years. However, since Freytag’s passing, the pyramid has evolved, as pyramids are wont to do. In fact, there isn’t just one pyramid anymore—there are many. After all, do we really expect every genre and/or author to fit into one single pyramid? Of course not. Polyhedra are amazing, but they’re not that amazing.

Below, you’ll find five of the 2,358 new pyramids. You’ll agree: this is how Freytag would’ve wanted it.

Plot structure for erotica:

Ex-“position”
“Rising” action
Climax
Climax
Climax
Climax
“Falling” action

…………..

Plot structure for a Hemingway story:

Manly exposition
Rising action (Drinking, bullfights, etc.)
Climax
Falling action
Maybe more rising action (boxing, etc.)
Falling action
Resolution

*Note: this chart is shaped less like a pyramid and more like an elephant.

…………..

Plot structure for a Harry Potter novel:

Expecto Expositionum!
Risinium Activitus!
Climacticus!
Fallinium Activitus!
Resolution Riddikulus!

…………..

Plot structure for a Charles Dickens story:

Great Expositions
It was the rising action, it was the falling action
It was the climax, it was the cli-minimum
It was the falling action, it was the rising action
Hard Times

…………..

Plot structure for a Tom Clancy story:

Exposi—EXPLOSION, SIRENS!
Rising action!
More action, followed by action! And plot!
Climax (starring Harrison Ford)
National Anthem