
The Ancient Story Structure Hollywood Keeps Ignoring \\ Kishōtenketsu
About this episode
What if I told you that you have been deprived of one of the best forms of storytelling for most of your life?
The "The Three-Act" story structure has dominated Western storytelling for centuries. Hero has desires, Hero encounters conflict, Hero overcomes conflict in order to achieve desires. Easy Peasy.
But the Four-Act structure, aka Kishōtenketsu proposes an entirely different take on why we tell stories. Once in a while, a Four-Act breaks out into western culture like Bong Joon Ho's Parasite. But what felt like a complete curveball to our Western minds is simply a perfectly executed Four-Act story to those in the know.
Let's learn how it works, see how it differs from Three-Act, we'll see it in action as I retell the ancient Japanese myth of Urashima Taro, and we'll discuss where it's valuable in your life.
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