Reading a structure's list of beats is fine. Seeing it laid over the book is better: at a glance you notice where the pieces bunch up, which stretches are long and how much room each one gives you.
These are the five structures in Sunday Plot, just as you see them on the Structure screen when you pick one.
How to read them
The book runs left to right, from 0 to 100%, and to scale: if a stretch takes up half the line, it takes up half the book.
- A diamond is a specific moment, like the event that changes everything. It usually fits in one scene. Its name sits above, joined by a thread.
- A card is a stretch that lasts a chunk of the story. The cards run one after another, with no gaps: every part of the book belongs to a stretch.
- In the background, in coloured bands, the parts of the book, with their names underneath.
Wake the Dragon
Sunday Plot's own structure, with fourteen pieces and four named parts. Look at the first third: between 10 and 35%, five moments come one after another. That's where most doubts tend to show up when you start, which is why it's so well signposted. Then comes the longest stretch, “Now for the Fun Part”, all the way to the middle of the book.
Three acts
Few pieces and lots of room: four long stretches and, between them, the turning points that separate them. Freedom if you already know what happens, and a little vertigo if you don't.
The Hero's Journey
Twelve stages, tightly packed at the start (the call, the refusal, the mentor and the threshold, all before 25%) and more spread out on the way home.
Seven points
Seven points, and each one opens the stretch that leads to the next. You design it from the end: the hook is the opposite of the resolution, and the midpoint is the hinge between reacting and acting.
Snowflake
The simplest one: a setup, two disasters that each open their own stretch, a third that leads into the ending, and the ending. It's the method's one-paragraph form, the first thing you write before expanding.
Which one looks like your novel?
None of them is the right one. If your story has a lot to tell at the start, structures with many pieces in the first third will suit you. If you already have it clear and just want to check it holds up, one with few pieces will get in your way less. And if you pick one and it doesn't convince you, you can change it from Settings: your scenes go with their beat and nothing is lost.
To choose calmly, Pick a structure covers what each one has and who it tends to suit.