These each correspond to a major juncture in the story, from the rising movement of the plot, to the final catastrophe, to the story’s ultimate resolution. The five dramatic elements of Freytag’s pyramidįreytag’s pyramid consists of five acts. The five-act structure common in classic plays and novels of the time led Freytag to write The Technique of Drama ( Die Technik des Dramas), where he published his visual representation of the shapes of stories that we now know as Freytag’s Pyramid. His work was originally based on some of the dramatic structures he saw in popular work of the day. He was an admirer of Shakespearean drama and 19th-century French dramatists. Gustav Freytag was a hugely popular German novelist and playwright active from 1840 to 1870. We’ll show you a helpful plot diagram below. Understanding Freytag’s pyramid will help you nail your story’s major plot points and draw readers deeper into your writing. Once you learn to identify the dramatic structure of Freytag’s pyramid, you’ll recognize it in many of our most beloved literary works.Īlthough the pyramid is not a one-size-fits-all solution for narrative fiction, a story missing one or more of the elements in Freytag’s pyramid can feel incomplete, or can fail to engage. It’s sometimes called “Freytag’s Triangle.” Closely related to the five-act story structure, Freytag’s Pyramid has been a favorite of writers across all storytelling genres for centuries because it reflects the way we tell stories instinctually. Freytag’s Pyramid is a framework for telling stories made up of five sections: Exposition, Rising Action, Climax, Falling Action, and Denouement.

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