I've been talking about story structure for years (at least I have with my in-person groups). I've spent years studying the topic, devouring everything that I could find about it. And in all my years of studying story structure, I've noticed something interesting.

Regular consumers of story, either written or film, learn to recognize the patterns that come with the rise and fall of action. They develop this innate instinct about when things should happen. If something is off with the pacing of a story, the readers know. They can feel it. They may not be able to explain why the pacing is off, but they still know that it's off.

Story structure models help to provide reasoning and some mathematics to what the readers know by instinct. This is why story structure is more important than what some writers give it credit for.

However, in all my years of studying story structure, I've also noticed that emphasis is often given to the protagonist of the story, focusing on their actions and decisions. The antagonist is often treated as an afterthought or ignored completely. As such, the dynamic interplay between the protagonist and the antagonist is not leveraged to its full potential.

When I noticed this pattern, I started to develop my own story structure model that leans into the interplay between the protagonist and the antagonist. As I write this blog post, I'm currently writing a full book about the topic, defining the antagonist and looking at story structure in detail, incorporating the antagonist into the model. That book is slated for publication come February 2026, but it's time to start sharing with the world the base structure that I'm calling the Black Wolf Story Structure model.

The Black Wolf Story Structure model is an amalgamation of a lot of different models, but adds the antagonistic beats that are commonly missed or misunderstood. I employ a four-act structure.