Explore

Browse the complete reference by the question you want to ask.

Learn the vocabulary

Start here
Begin with a question about a story you know. This short route gives you enough vocabulary to read it more closely.
Structure
The shape of a story: follow a model, compare its assumptions, or examine a particular turning point.
Archetypes
The roles people play: guidance, opposition, uncertainty and support can move among characters.
The People
Meet the thinkers behind the vocabulary, and the different questions their models ask.

Suspense & Motivation
What keeps us turning pages: a consequential question, an understandable desire, and an arrangement of knowledge that makes the next choice matter.
Examples
Read a familiar story through a model, then notice what the model leaves out. These analyses contain spoilers.
Critiques & Limits
A useful pattern is not automatically a universal explanation. Test what a model selects, whose experience it centers, and what disappears in translation.
Read & Write with the Models
Use a model to diagnose a particular problem. Start with what the story does, then keep the questions that help and record the parts that do not fit.

Glossary
Plain-language definitions for the terms used throughout the reference. Follow a link for examples, context and limits.
Timeline
Place the vocabulary in its historical context, from the Poetics to modern craft models.
References
Trace a concept to its author, edition, and context. Primary works sit beside criticism and the stories discussed here.
Frequently Asked Questions
Short answers to common questions about models, gender, games and the limits of a journey reading.

About Plot & Persona
An English reference for curious viewers, readers and hobby writers who want to understand patterns without turning them into rules.