XKCD Movie Narrative Charts.

[mckitterick]

This is one of my favorite things ever:

Click the image to see the comic (and to blow it up to GINORMOUS full size).

I want a wall-sized poster. WANT. But he does not have.

Chris

Comments

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

Explains a lot about LOTR's success, doesn't it? I think I'd expect to feel something lacking in any story that didn't have that knot somewhere at the climax, when almost everyone comes together. (And I'd have a "what then?" feeling without the denouement, where they all go off again.)

It occurs to me that one exception would be Peg Kerr's Wild Swans, where the two threads reflect each other rather than coming together - but I'd still expect to see the same knot pattern in each story in that case, and I'd expect the two to have similar graphs.

[mckitterick.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's interesting to see that compelling stories tend to have complex story, at least as far as character-interaction goes.