b2KIT

Story Structure Planner

Plan stories using three-act, Hero Journey, Save the Cat, or Freytag pyramid structures.

Tested tool guide Tested browser tools Checked August 16, 2026

What Story Structure Planner does, with a checked example

A story outline becomes a skeleton the moment its events are sorted into named stages, and that is this tool's whole job. You pick one of four structures - three-act, Hero's Journey, Save the Cat, or Freytag's pyramid - and place your plot beats into that structure's slots, so the result reads as a complete arc. The surprise is that the structures disagree: Freytag puts the climax at the pyramid's peak, roughly halfway through, while three-act puts it near the end, and Save the Cat's beats carry page percentages built for screenplays. Treat the mapping as diagnosis, not a verdict, and nothing you type is uploaded.

Worked example

A concrete input and expected output from the current implementation.

Input

Structure: Freytag's pyramid. Story: The Three Little Pigs - three pig brothers leave home and build houses of straw, sticks, and bricks. A wolf blows down the straw house and the stick house; the two pigs escape to the brick house. The wolf fails to blow it down, so he climbs to the roof and comes down the chimney, landing in a pot of boiling water. He flees, and the pigs live safely.

Expected output

Exposition: The pigs leave home; each builds a house; the wolf arrives. Rising action: The wolf blows down the straw house, then the stick house; each pig escapes to the brick house. Climax: The wolf cannot blow down the brick house and commits to entering through the chimney. Falling action: The wolf climbs to the roof and lowers himself down the chimney. Denouement: He lands in the boiling pot, flees, and the pigs live safely.

Freytag's pyramid has exactly five stages, and each event of the fable falls into its natural slot: the wolf's decision to use the chimney is the turning point, so it holds the peak position, with two escalating losses before it and the descent and escape after it.

How the result is produced

1

Fixed stage counts per structure

Each structure arrives with a set number of slots: Freytag's pyramid has five parts (exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, denouement), three-act has setup, confrontation, and resolution, the Hero's Journey has twelve stages, and Save the Cat has fifteen named beats. Your story's events are sorted into these slots in order, and the finished plan is the full arc from first page to last.

2

Each slot has a dramatic job

Slots are not empty boxes: the catalyst starts the conflict, the midpoint reverses it, the all-is-lost moment strips the hero of what they just gained. Assigning an event to a slot is therefore a claim about what that event does in the story, not just where it falls. The same event reads as a setup step under Freytag or a midpoint turn under three-act, and the meaning shifts with the slot.

Good uses

  • Outlining a novel or screenplay when you know the story but not where its turns belong.
  • Checking a finished draft for missing classic beats, such as a late or absent catalyst, midpoint, or all-is-lost moment.
  • Running the same premise through two structures to see how moving the climax changes the story's emphasis.

Limits and checks

  • Climax placement differs by structure: Freytag peaks near the middle, three-act near the end, so a plan that looks misaligned in one structure can be correct in another.
  • Beat names are not interchangeable: the hero's low point is not the same slot as the Dark Night of the Soul or the Abyss, and carrying a beat between structures drags its original function along.
  • These structures describe common patterns, not requirements. An empty slot usually flags a missing turn, but some stories deliberately skip or reorder stages and work fine without fitting a template.

Common questions

Will planning this way make my story formulaic?

Only if you let the slots write the story. The structures describe patterns found across many published stories; they do not compel any specific content. Use the plan to spot where a turn is missing or misplaced, then fill it with your own events. If your story deliberately refuses a stage, that can work - the final call is yours, not the tool's.

What is the difference between the three-act structure and Freytag's pyramid?

Mainly where the climax sits. Three-act divides the story into setup, confrontation, and resolution, with the climax near the end. Freytag spreads the same material over five parts - exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, denouement - and places the peak about halfway, with a long falling action after it. Same events, different emphasis.

References and verification

The example and behavioral notes were checked against the browser implementation. Standards and primary references below define the relevant format, formula, or platform behavior.

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