Story Arc Plotter
Enter your target length and pick a structure — the Three-Act Structure, Freytag’s Pyramid, or the Hero’s Journey — and get a stage-by-stage word budget for the whole story.
Stage-by-stage word budget
How the plotter works
Every narrative structure describes not just which beats a story hits, but roughly how much room each beat needs relative to the others. A Three-Act Structure spends about a quarter of its length setting up the world and the stakes, half its length complicating things, and a final quarter resolving them. Freytag’s Pyramid and the Hero’s Journey slice the same territory more finely, giving each stage its own share.
The plotter multiplies your total word count by each stage’s percentage, then distributes any rounding remainder to the stages with the largest fractional share first — so the numbers you see always add up exactly to the total you entered, whatever length you’re working toward.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which structure should I plot against?
The Three-Act Structure is the simplest and works for almost any story — a setup, a long confrontation, and a resolution. Freytag's Pyramid breaks the middle apart into rising action, a climax, and falling action, which suits a story built around one clear turning point. The Hero's Journey is the most granular, and fits quest-shaped stories with a call to adventure, an ordeal, and a return.
Why don't the percentages just divide evenly?
Real stories are lopsided on purpose. The middle of a Three-Act story (the confrontation) is deliberately the longest section because that's where obstacles, setbacks, and character change actually happen — the setup and resolution are comparatively brief bookends.
Do the stage word counts always add up to my total?
Yes. The plotter uses a largest-remainder apportionment (the same method used to allocate legislative seats fairly) so every stage gets a whole number of words and the stages always sum exactly to the total you entered, with no rounding drift.
Is this a strict outline I have to follow?
No — treat it as a planning budget, not a cage. Many writers find it useful precisely because it flags when a first act is ballooning past its share, or a climax is arriving too early. Adjust freely once you're drafting; the numbers are a starting compass, not a rulebook.
Writing aid only. The word budgets are a planning guide based on common structural proportions, not a formula for a good story — trust your judgment over the numbers.