Kishōtenketsu, Asian Four Act no-conflict Structure -- What's that about?

[Cthulhu.Science]

In the discussion on Three act structure @HareBrain contrbuted

In the west, yes, but the below Tumblr post contrasts the conflict-based approach with the Chinese/Japanese story structure called Kishotenketsu, in which obstacles are unnecessary, the "drama" being provided by a "twist".

And so I dutifully did a google search for Kishōtenketsu and read a dozen articles or so. From one of the articles:

Say hello to kishōtenketsu, a four-act narrative structure rooted in East Asian traditions. Originating from China and found in classical Japanese and Korean
tales alike, kishōtenketsu comprises four parts:
1. An introduction (ki).
2. Development (sho).
3. Pivotal twist (ten).
4. Harmonious conclusion (ketsu).

As mentioned in the articles much of Asian storytelling, including what works that certainly fit within fantasy and science fiction, follow this format. Does anyone have experience with this? This writing style might be worthy of discussion or are we all set on the Three Act Structure?

As an experiment I have created an outline for a story. Does this fit the format?

The Legend of Madoc in four parts

• King Owain Gwynedd of Wales is dead. War ensues between Owain's heir Hywel, the Poet-Prince, and Dafydd the cruel usurper. Madoc takes up arms in support of the rightful heir Hywel.
• As Hywel's and Dafydd’s armies march toward each other for what all believe will be the battle to end the war, Madoc engages in a daring plan. He leaves the main army two days early with thirty knights on horse to make a wide circle and attack the enemy from behind. Madoc approaches the battlefield at the appointed day and time ready for battle. He stops. Bodies are strewn everywhere. The battle is already over.
• An ally approaches. It's his brother Rhirid. Madoc’s men cheer. Rhirid tells them the war is lost. Hywel is dead. The knights must accept Dafydd as king.
• Madoc refuses and convinces Rhirid to join him instead. Together Madoc and Rhirid rush away from the site of the battle to collect their families and followers. They board a ship and sail off into the Western Sea.

 

[paranoid marvin]

For a story with no conflict, that's an awful lot of conflict!

 

[Cthulhu.Science]

For a story with no conflict, that's an awful lot of conflict!

True. So I misunderstand the form?

I don't think that my outline fits a typical Three Act Structure -- Since the protagonist doesn't actually overcome anything or change.

Also, the protagonist lives in a world with a lot of conflict but doesn't actually engage in any himself.

 

[paranoid marvin]

True. So I misunderstand the form?

I don't think that my outline fits a typical Three Act Structure -- Since the protagonist doesn't actually overcome anything or change.

Also, the protagonist lives in a world with a lot of conflict but doesn't actually engage in any himself.

Honestly? I'm not sure. My understanding was that it was more about changes in perception and self discovery.

Perhaps the country is at war, Madoc dons armour preparing to join his brothers in batyle, then discovers that he has a love of life not death.

He returns home, uncaring of who won or lost, and concentrates on living a life of peace and tranquility.

I may have this entirely wrong of course

 

[Cthulhu.Science]

Honestly? I'm not sure. My understanding was that it was more about changes in perception and self discovery.

Perhaps the country is at war, Madoc dons armour preparing to join his brothers in batyle, then discovers that he has a love of life not death.

He returns home, uncaring of who won or lost, and concentrates on living a life of peace and tranquility.

I may have this entirely wrong of course

I'm starting from a legend that has been repeated in many forms since the 1500s describing Madoc's departure on a journey to the Gulf of Mexico to start a Welsh colony near the current location of Mobile Alabama in CE 1170.

The legend of the departure of Madoc really only has two elements.
1. King Owain Gwynedd of Wales is dead. War ensues between Owain's heir Hywel, the Poet-Prince, and Dafydd (younger brother) the cruel usurper.
2. Madoc and Rhirid board a ship and sail off into the Western Sea.

Notes: In the legend, Dafydd wins within a couple weeks

There are a couple items that are not explicitly stated in the legend:
1. did Madoc set sail before or after the defeat of Hywel?
2. Why did Madoc set sail. did he simply run from the civil war? Did he leave because after victory Dafydd was too cruel to endure? Or another reason? The legend does suggest that the motivation starts with the death of King Owain Gwynedd (Madoc's father). Gwynedd had a lot of children.
2a. in an earlier outline I had more words emphasizing the penalty of being on the losing side. -- losing land and titles and possibly more.

 

[Cthulhu.Science]

One of my favorite Sci-Fi movies is Sleep Dealer 2008.
And now I understand why a bit more. - kishōtenketsu

The protagonist doesn't save the planet. One might summarize the plot as the son of a farmer goes to the city to seek work to send money back to the family. It's more than that, certainly.

But the real joy of the film is that the writer and director have hit the nail on the head. Now, nearly 20 years later, we can see that this film has a lot more hits than misses. In fact there are certain items that have not yet come to pass, but there really isn't much that we might suggest are unlikely to be coming down the highway.

 

[THX1138]

Here is another article on kishōtenketsu:
KishÅtenketsu Structure Explained [With Example]

And I also found a list of books too that follow the kishōtenketsu structure.

• Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata
• Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
• The Hole by Hye-Young Pyun
• The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

 

[Cthulhu.Science]

Here is another article on kishōtenketsu:
KishÅtenketsu Structure Explained [With Example]

And I also found a list of books too that follow the kishōtenketsu structure.

• Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata
• Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
• The Hole by Hye-Young Pyun
• The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

I've found that I have some stories that I want to tell, but none of them fit the typical dramatic 3-act structure. But I believe that the stories may be better if I am more conscious about the story structure.


I found several articles about kishōtenketsu structure.as well. Like this one:

Kishōtenketsu for Beginners – An Introduction to Four Act Story Structure

Discover Kishōtenketsu, which is a four-act story structure that's used in classical Chinese, Korean, and Japanese narratives.

mythicscribes.com

They have included this example:

Example 1 – A Made Up Story​

This is the story of a fisherman and his family.

• Ki: In act one we see the fisherman in his boat out to sea. He’s sitting around fishing and waiting for a catch. It’s a long day and he hasn’t had much of a catch.
• Shō: In the second act the fisherman decides it’s time for him to return home. It’s late and he longs to be reunited with his wife and children. He loves the sea, but he loves his family more.
• Ten: The third act is about a woman hiding in the forest with two crying children. She’s the fisherman’s wife, and she’s hiding because their village got attacked by brigands.
• Ketsu: The fourth act is about how the fisherman reunites with his family in the ruins of the burned-down village. Then they all set off in his boat to find another village.

The introduction is where we first meet the fisherman. In the second act we get to know him a little better. We learn about his relation to the sea, and to his family, and we learn about his life and struggles. Perhaps it’s been a bad year and food supplies are low.

In the third act, we have no idea what happened with the fisherman. We see his wife hiding, and perhaps we don’t even know it’s his wife at first. We don’t know if she’ll make it, and we don’t know if the fisherman will come home while the brigands are still ransacking the town. What will happen?

This is the complication.

It’s not a conflict though. The woman and her children are hiding. Perhaps the kids are crying and the woman is struggling to keep them quiet, but then again, there may not even be any brigands nearby. The woman and her children may be perfectly safe.

But even then there is still tension, and it comes from the contrast between what we’ve seen in the past (the fisherman on his way home after a day on the sea), and what we’re seeing at the moment (the village being ransacked).

Finally, the first two acts are reconciled with the third one. The fisherman reunites with his family, but as their village is no more they have to find somewhere else to live.

 

[Cthulhu.Science]

Another article I read summarizes the idea like this:
But does no conflict mean no tension? Well, not exactly. Here’s a breakdown of kishōōtenketsu's four acts:
Ki (Kikku - Introduction): As with almost every story, ki establishes the setting and introduces us to the main characters—no change from the three-act structure, in other words.
Shōō (Shōōku - Development): Shōō builds upon the foundations laid in the introduction, further developing the setting and characters and deepening our understanding of the story world.
Ten (Tenku - Twist): This is where things get interesting. Ten introduces an unexpected turn of events which fundamentally alters the direction of the story. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a huge “I am your father”-esque reveal—it could be more of a “change” like a character gaining anew power, an ex-partner coming back onto the scene, or a time jump.
Ketsu (Kekku - Conclusion): The fourth and final part, ketsu,reconciles the twist with the story's beginning, creating a harmonious conclusion that ties all the elements together. Unlike traditional Western narratives, this doesn’t always look like rescuing the princess or saving world; it simply brings the story to a close in a way that feels complete.

Kishōtenketsu Story Structure: Writing Without Conflict

A thorough overview of the kishōtenketsu story structure, its history, the stories it works for, and how you can use it to plot your novel!

www.campfirewriting.com

In my outline of the Madoc myth I was trying to form the story like this:
Ki: introduce the story - the king is dead. rivalry for the crown. Protagonist supports the "good" contender.
Shoo: Madoc is set up to save the day. His mission will surprise the enemy. Madoc will be the hero
Ten: Surprise -- Madoc did everything right and yet the battle is already over. And the hero's side has already lost.
Ketsu: Madoc finds a solution to save his family despite losing the war.

 

[Yozh]

@Cthulhu.Science , I think you are on the right path that Kishotenketsu structure is a good fit for the story as you have described it. I admire how you have thought this through.

It struck me in the previous thread on Three-Act structure that really any of these plot structures are just framing devices to apply to the expanse of story in your mind in order to better present it to the reader. The full story in your mind is like a landscape which you (the author) know intimately, yet to share this with the reader you must write it in words, but those words can never truly convey the complete story, any more than a photograph can truly convey the experience of being outdoors in a wild landscape to one who has never visited it. At best, your written story is a photograph of the landscape. And just as a photographer carefully considers what elements to include in the frame, where to focus, what aperture to use, the writer also considers what elements to include and which to drop, and where the focus should be in in the written work.

There is no more one single plot structure to apply to every story than there is one single photo to take in any landscape. But there are conventions learned through collective experience that can make the finished product more pleasing or more recognizable to the audience. Knowing about these conventional plot structures can help us better present our stories to readers.

 

[Swank]

I just lifted these example poems off the Wiki article. Maybe the help clarify what this form is about:

Hwangjo (Yellow Tide)
By King Yuri of Goguryeo
Gi
Fluttering Yellow Birds

Seung
male and female depend on each other

Jeon
Lonesome self

Gyeol
Who will go home with me?


By Sanyō Rai
Ki
Daughters of Itoya, in the Honmachi of Osaka.

Shō
The elder daughter is sixteen and the younger one is fourteen.

Ten
Throughout history, daimyō killed the enemy with bows and arrows.

Ketsu
The daughters of Itoya kill with their eyes.

 

[sknox]

Here's a somewhat dissenting voice. Structures, whether Eastern or Western, are something observed ex post facto. I would argue it's a mistake to regard them as a form to which the author might try to fit a story. Rather, the author writes their story, and others (looking at you, literary critics) sagely discern in the completed work.

Or to put it another way, don' worry 'bout it.

 

[Swank]

Here's a somewhat dissenting voice. Structures, whether Eastern or Western, are something observed ex post facto. I would argue it's a mistake to regard them as a form to which the author might try to fit a story. Rather, the author writes their story, and others (looking at you, literary critics) sagely discern in the completed work.

Or to put it another way, don' worry 'bout it.

This style was discerned a long time ago, so most of the work in this form was probably written knowingly.

It isn't like people keep stumbling on iambic pentameter.

 

[Cthulhu.Science]

This style was discerned a long time ago, so most of the work in this form was probably written knowingly.

It isn't like people keep stumbling on iambic pentameter.

For example this site identifies eight plot diagrams, kishōtenketsu is not one of them.

1. Syd Field’s Paradigm​

2. Larry Brooks’ Four Parts​

3. James Scott Bell’s 14 Signposts​

4. Joseph Campbell’s The Hero’s Journey (featuring Christopher Vogler’s 12 Stages)​

5. Michael Hauge’s Six Stages​

6. Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat! 15 Beats (with an assist by Jessica Brody)​

7. Robert McKee’s Story​

8. Gustav Freytag’s Technique​

8 Plot Diagrams that Illustrate the Storytelling Power of Dramatic Structure

Get a visual guide of 8 plot diagrams that illustrate the power of dramatic structure. Improve your writing and captivate your audience.

davidvillalva.com

 

[Swank]

For example this site identifies eight plot diagrams, kishōtenketsu is not one of them.

1. Syd Field’s Paradigm​

2. Larry Brooks’ Four Parts​

3. James Scott Bell’s 14 Signposts​

4. Joseph Campbell’s The Hero’s Journey (featuring Christopher Vogler’s 12 Stages)​

5. Michael Hauge’s Six Stages​

6. Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat! 15 Beats (with an assist by Jessica Brody)​

7. Robert McKee’s Story​

8. Gustav Freytag’s Technique​

8 Plot Diagrams that Illustrate the Storytelling Power of Dramatic Structure

Get a visual guide of 8 plot diagrams that illustrate the power of dramatic structure. Improve your writing and captivate your audience.

davidvillalva.com

Without digging into these, I would bet they all apply to the same kinds of plots. They are just different ways of observing the sub-components of a typical "adventure" story. A problem comes up and is resolved.

Kishotenketsu is arguably not a "plot" at all, but a series of observations, the last of which is a twist on the prior. There is no internal problem, and the point of it is what your mind does with the juxtaposition in the end.


Just like you can have an illustration with three panels, but not all three panel illustrations is a cartoon.

 

[Stephen Palmer]

The key is "harmonious conclusion." Many Eastern societies - Japan especially - have an inbuilt horror of social fragmentation. I suppose we kinda have that over here too, but with a very different outlook.