Story Scale

Even if you're not a musician, you have probably played a C-major scale on a piano: C, D, E, F, G, A, B, ending on the next C. You have probably also played an A-minor scale: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, ending on the next A. C-major sounds happy. A-minor sounds sad.

Stories run on those same two scales. The ones with happy endings climb the major, starting on C. The tragedies track the minor, starting on A — the same labels, reordered, for a hero who has attained success and trades it all away. Toggle between the two below.

The seven beats of your physical plot spell that major scale — Character, Disturbance, Environment, Fight, Grasp, Attain, Become — on the white keys. The five beats of your psychological plot are the black keys, and they tend to follow the Five Stages of Grief: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance.

The word THEREFORE connects keys of the same color. White drives the next white, and black drives the next black. The story climbs the scale by weaving between them.

Read it two ways. Run your eye across the white keys alone and you get the heart of the story — the physical plot, beat to beat, clear and causal on its own. Then climb the scale one key at a time, white to black, and you add the soul of the story — what each beat costs your character inside.

The Story Scale is a great life lesson, too. When life gets you down, remember it's only tragic if that's the end. Persevere, and you're just two notes away from a happy ending.