Story Structure: How the 6 Elements of Story Work in How to Train Your Dragon

See the story structure that makes this brilliant movie work.

The six elements of story are the essentials of great story structure. And in the last few episodes of Your Next Draft, I’ve shared a lot of theory about them: what they are, how they work, and where to use them.

But theory only gets you so far. Story structure makes a lot more sense when you can see it at work.

So in this episode, I’m breaking down the movie How to Train Your Dragon so you can see the six elements in practice.

You’ll learn:

• How the inciting incident sets up the conflict of the entire story
• The difficult question Hiccup faces in the crisis—and why both his options have consequences
• Why the climax delivers so well that it gives me chills every time I see it
• And more!

See story structure at work in this masterful example. Then, put it to work in your own stories and craft your own masterpieces!

Links mentioned in the episode:

• Get the Scene Analysis Worksheet: alicesudlow.com/sceneworksheet
• Ep. 27: Value Shifts: How to Craft Compelling Change in Every Story
• Ep. 42: The 6 Essential Elements of Every Novel, Act, and Scene
• Ep. 43: Why the 6 Elements of Story Are the Key to All Great Stories
• Ep. 44: 3 Ways to Apply the 6 Elements of Story Structure to Your Novel

Transcript

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Vikings and dragons live together in peace. We start at Danger and we end at safety. We start in shame and we end in honor, we start in failure and end in success. It is such a good story. Welcome to your next draft. Great stories are built with great story structure. If you've been listening to this podcast for awhile, that's probably a familiar mantra. If this is your first episode. Welcome. I'm so glad you're here. And this is a line you're going to hear me say a lot. Great stories are built on great story structure. I see it a lot because it's true. And because when I started to really understand story structure, everything changed for me. It was like I was handed the keys to the kingdom story, went from being something that felt really subjective. Something that I could feel was either working or not, but I couldn't pinpoint why to something that followed objective patterns that I could identify and trace and strategically improve. It completely changed the way I approach editing novels. And I talk about story structure so much here on the podcast, because I know that it can do the same for you too. When you understand story structure. When a storytelling pattern clicks for you, it unlocks everything. It empowers you to tell any story you want in a way that your readers can't get enough of story structure really? Is that powerful? It's at the core of everything I do as a developmental editor. And my favorite story structure framework. Is the six elements of story. Again, if you've been listening to this podcast for awhile, the six elements of story will be familiar to you. I referenced them in so many episodes of this podcast. And for the last few weeks, I've been doing a deep dive into the six elements to help you apply them to your stories too. I started off with defining each of the six elements and examining what role each one plays in a story. I'm going to recap those definitions in a minute, but if you want to hear the full explanation, you can find that episode@alicesobo.com slash 42. Then I shared why I love this story structure framework so much and why I use it in every single story that I edit. You can hear about why I rely on it so heavily by going to Alice said, though.com/ 43. Next I shared three ways. You can apply the six elements to your story. The true power of the structure is that it's recursive by that. I mean that this is a structure you'll find at every level of story, it appears in the story as a whole. It appears in each act. It appears in each scene and more for more on how to apply the six elements to every level of your story. Check out ALIS southern.com/ 44. And you can find all those links in the show notes as well. In all those episodes, I've shared a lot of theory. But these concepts are much easier to understand when you can see them at work. So now I want to give you examples. I've chosen one of my favorite stories. And I'm going to show you how the six elements of story play out in it. I'm going to use the movie, how to train your dragon as our example story. Yes, it's a movie, but movies and novels are both long form stories and you can learn a lot about story structure by studying movies. And how to train your dragon is a fantastically plotted movie. I am impressed by it. Every time I watch it and I have watched it a lot. I will give you a heads up. This episode is full of spoilers, but this is not a new movie. It came out in 2010. And you can also go stream it. And I highly recommend that you watch it after you listened to this episode. So you can see all this story structure at work. All right. That's enough preamble. Let's get into story structure and how it works and how to train your dragon. First up let's recap, the six elements of story. The six elements of story form one arc of change things start one way and they end another way. In order to change, they go through the following six steps. First the inciting incident. Something disrupts the characters normal and kicks off the action in the story. Second progressive complications. The conflict escalates as more complications happen. These events might make things better or worse, but they certainly make things more complicated. Third. The turning point. The largest, most problematic, progressive complication, which forces the protagonist to respond in some way. Fourth. The crisis in order to respond to the turning point, the protagonist was to make a difficult choice. This is a choice between two bad things, a best bad choice. Or to good things irreconcilable goods. Fifth, the climax. The moment when the protagonist takes action on the crisis, choice and experiences, the consequences. And sixth. The resolution. The new normal after the climax, something has changed since the story began with the inciting incidents and readers. Want to see what the world looks like now? And there you go. The six elements of story, one arc of change. If you want to see them all written out, I have a free worksheet that you can download. It's called the scene analysis worksheet, and you can get it at Alice sedler.com/scene worksheet. Though, as you'll see in this example, the six elements of story apply to way more than just scenes. And while we're recapping ideas. Let me mention one more story structure, concepts. That's really important here. The value shift. Stories are about change. Like I said before, things are one way at the beginning of a story and they're another way at the end of the story. The value shift is essentially the thing that changes. And the six elements of story or the journey that we take from the starting state to the ending state. If the term value shifts is new to you, don't worry. I have a full episode on value shifts, which you can find at our Southern. Dot com slash 27 or at the link in the show notes. And the example story that I use in that episode is also how to train your dragon. So it's a great companion to this episode. So that's our story structure, the value shift, and six elements that we'll look for throughout how to train your dragon. Now let's get into our example and see them at work. In this episode, I'm going to study the six elements in the movie as a whole. We're looking at the whole arc of change in this movie from start to finish. I'll also be breaking down the arcs of change within acts and scenes in later episodes. But in this episode, I'm going to focus on the entire movie, the whole entire story from start to finish. In case you haven't seen the movie, here's the premise. A scrawny young Viking boy whose community is frequently attacked by dragons, wants to prove that he's a true Viking by killing a dragon. First off what changes in how to train your dragon? What is the value shifts in this movie About a scrawny little Viking boy, what changes from the beginning to the end of the movie? It might seem a little odd to start here, especially if you haven't seen the movie, but I want to start by mentioning the value shifts so you can keep them in mind. As we talk through the six elements of story. You're going to see them at play all the way through the six elements. And we could start with the six elements It's been discovered the value shift through them. But I'd rather tell you what the start. So you can see these values at play all the way through. Here are the three most important value shifts that I see in the story. At the beginning of the movie. Vikings are in constant danger. Always living with the threat of another dragon attack at the end there safe. At the beginning of the story, hiccup is shamed for his unveiling, like traits at the end, he's honored for those same traits. And at the beginning of the story, hiccup cannot kill a dragon. At the end, he has succeeded in killing a dragon. Just one, the one that threatened everyone. Danger to safety. Shame to honor. Failure to success. Keep those values in mind, as we walk through the story structure. Remember the six elements are the process that will get us from the starting values to the ending values. Ready to see the six elements in action. Let's dive in. This is the exciting part. Here we go. First step. The inciting incident hiccup, doesn't kill a dragon. At the beginning of the movie, hiccup feels out of place among the Vikings. They looked down on him as weak and useless because he can't help defend the community from constant dragon attacks. So he tries to prove himself by killing a dragon. He builds a clever machine to shoot a dragon down out of the sky. He shoots down the dragon. He hikes through the woods until he finds it down, but still alive. He raises his knife to kill it. And he can't. Much as he wants to or thinks he wants too much, as he knows that killing this dragon is his ticket to status. As a Viking, he cannot bring himself to kill it. He turns from the tradition and expectations of his community and freeze the dragon instead. Next the progressive complications. There are a lot of things that I could mention as progressive complications. If I wanted, I could list out every problem hiccup in counters in the movie from the moment that he frees toothless the dragon to the end of the third act. But I don't need to list everything that happens in the movie here. I've narrowed it all down to five core events. Here they are. First hiccup bonds with toothless the dragon that he freed. He's not just chosen not to kill a dragon. He's now interacting peacefully with toothless working to earn toothlessness trust. Next hiccup gain status among the Vikings. As he spends time with toothless, he learns about dragons, how they think and how to act around them. Then when he's among the Vikings, his secret specialized knowledge of dragons helps him to rise to the top of the class and dragon training where he's training with other Viking teens to kill dragons. His unprecedented skill, earns him the admiration and respect of the Viking community. Then hiccup wins the honor of killing a dragon.'cause he's top of his class. He's granted the honor of killing his first dragon in front of the entire community. This is a huge deal. It's a sign that the Vikings are respecting and valuing him now, which is what he's wanted from the very beginning, but he knows he can't bring himself to kill a dragon. So this is also a major problem for him. Next. Hiccup changes of Vikings, mind and gains an ally. Astrid hiccups, rival classmate, discovers hiccup training with toothless and threatens to reveal this betrayal of everything the Viking stand for to their whole community. But hiccup shows her how he and toothless have bonded and she changes her mind and supports his choice to make peace with dragons rather than kill them. This is a great development for hiccup. Now he has an ally. And not only that he has proof that it's possible for Vikings to change what they believe about dragons. And the last plot points that I've marked as a progressive complication, is this. Toothless takes hiccup to the dragon ness and reveals the truth threat to dragons the giant dragon in the nest that controls them. All this time in the background hiccups, dad's stoic has been searching for the dragon nest so he can destroy all the dragons once. And for all. And toothless reveals to hiccup an asteroid where that nest is and how to get there. And that inside the nest, there's a dragon more powerful than any Viking has imagined an enemy of Vikings and dragons alike. Some of these progressive complications are good for hiccup. Some of them are bad for him. Some of them are good for him in the moment, but they spiral into problems later on. All of these progressive complications, raise the stakes and make the situation more complicated. And that leads us to the turning point. Up to this point. Hiccups been able to hold things together. He has his Viking community who now admire and respect him. And he has this bond with toothless that keeps growing stronger. Yes. He's had some close calls with nearly getting found out by Vikings or eaten by the giant dragon. And the situation has gotten a little precarious, but he's holding it together. And then comes the day when hiccup is to kill a dragon in front of the entire community and things have to change. Hiccup has a plan. When he's down in the ring, facing the dragon that he's meant to kill. He tries to demonstrate to the Vikings that this dragon and all dragons don't have to be killed. They can be trained instead. He wants to win over the rest of the Vikings. Like he won over Astrid. He's hoping that in demonstrating that the Viking tradition is wrong, he can transform the whole community. But his community. His father won't hear of it. They reject him. Worse, the Vikings capture toothless and force him to lead them to the dragon nest. Rather than changing his community's mind, hiccup loses everything and watches the Viking, sail away on a doomed mission to destroy all dragons. So this is our turning point, the ball of fire that drops into hiccups life and forces him to a crisis decision. When hiccup, publicly refuses to kill a dragon, the Vikings reject him from their community capture, toothless and embark on a doomed mission to destroy all dragons. At this point. Hiccup has lost everything he's failed on every I failed to protect toothless, failed to change the biking's minds and sent them all off to a fight. They can't win with no way for hiccup to follow them. What will he do now? This is his crisis. The crisis is a binary choice in which both options have consequences. Here's how I frame hiccups, crisis choice. Will he attempt to kill an invincible dragon in order to rescue his community? Or will he accept that he can not and allow his community to be slaughtered? Do you hear the consequences in each one of these choices? Option one. Search for a means of transportation that he doesn't have follow the Vikings who rejected him to a battle. They can't win and attempt to kill a dragon for the first time ever. And not just any dragon, but this unfathomably powerful beast that not even the strongest Vikings can defeat. The risk here is death. Hiccup could die during any part of this plan. He'll also have to face the community who rejected him, which is a painful prospect though, less terrible than the risk of pickup dying. Until finally have to kill a dragon. The one thing he's refused to do this whole time. If he succeeds though, he might just be able to save everyone and prove to the Vikings that a better relationship with the dragons is possible. Option to accept that he has failed except his limitations. Don't follow the Vikings to the nest and wait to see if anyone comes back. The risk here. Is also death. But not hiccups. The good part of this plan is that hiccup will be safe in the village. But he knows the Vikings and toothless will almost certainly perish. No one is coming back and if he stays and does nothing, he'll have to live with that for the rest of his life. Option one is such a long shot. It's nearly impossible. But option two. Is unacceptable. I love the scene in the movie because it's so wonderfully visual hiccup stands on a cliff. Watching the Viking ships disappear over the horizon. Astrid comes up to him and lists out all his failures. He despairs, we feel the weight of this crisis, the stakes that it holds, we see how absolutely impossible it is for him to follow the Vikings. It seems like there's nothing hiccup can do. He tried, he failed and there's nothing left. And when Astrid interrogates him, his responses reflect that lack of agency. That sense that there's nothing he can do. She asks why he didn't kill toothless. When he first found him. At first, he says he couldn't, but when she presses him, he says I was a coward. I was weak. I wouldn't kill a dragon. She says, you said wouldn't that time? And he defends his choice. Up to this point, he has actively chosen not to kill a dragon. He looked at toothless and saw himself. And he has chosen ever since to protect, not kill. And then Astrid asks him what he's going to do next. He's reminded of what he cares about toothless and the humanity he sees in all of the Vikings. He's reminded of his agency. That he has not killed a dragon because he has chosen not to do so. Not because he is an unveiling like coward. And he's reminded of his assets. He is the first Viking to ride a dragon. He can do things no other Viking has ever done before he can form a plan. No Viking has ever formed. We'll hiccup attempt to kill an invincible dragon in order to rescue his community. Or will he accept that he can not and allow his community to be slaughtered? When it comes down to it, this choice echoes the same choice that he has faced from the very beginning. Kill a dragon or not. Hiccup runs off to take action, which leads us to the climax. Remember the climax is the point when the protagonist takes action on the crisis choice. It's where we see what they're choosing and what the consequences of that choice are. Hiccup chooses to follow the Vikings to the nest and fight the battle that only he and toothless can fight. He and his classmates from dragon training, Mount the captive dragons they'd fought in class. They fly out to the nest where the Vikings are under attack and losing badly hiccup, freeze, toothless with Stoics help. And then hiccup and toothless fly up to battle the giant dragon themselves. I have a lost count of how many times I've seen this movie and this scene still gives me chills. Hiccup maligned by the Vikings, belittled and ignored, considered weak. And unliking like flying into the clouds on toothless his back. Literally the only person with the skills and heart and dragon bond that it will take to defeat this enemy of unfathomable power. And they succeed. Which makes this our climax hiccup and toothless kill the giant dragon. The greatest threat to both Vikings and dragons alike. And that brings us to the resolution. What's the new world order after hiccup and toothless defeat. The giant dragon. Hiccup wakes up, back in his home. And when he opens the door and goes outside toothless at his side, he discovers that the world has transformed. The village is full of dragons. All over town. Vikings are flying on their backs. When they see hiccup, everyone flocks to him, they celebrate and honor him and tell him that it was him. They needed all along. And then hiccup and his friends Mount their dragons and fly around Burke for fun. Dragons are no longer pests enemies to be destroyed. Now, their pets, friends who live harmoniously with the Vikings. And so the resolution of this story is that now Vikings and dragons live together in peace. So there you have it all six elements of story mapped out across the full movie. And remember the value shifts. When you add the value shifts to the six elements, this becomes a map of transformation. Things start one way. They end another way. And these six elements are the way that we get from start to finish. Here are the value shifts we're watching. Danger to safety. Shame to honor failure to success. And here are those six elements again. Inciting incident hiccup. Doesn't kill a dragon. Progressive complications. Hiccup bones with toothless hiccup gain status among the Vikings for his skill in dragon training. Hiccup wins the honor of killing a dragon. Hiccup changes of Vikings, mind and gains and ally. Toothless takes hiccup to the dragon nest and reveals the true threat to dragons, the giant dragon and the nest that controls them. Turning point. When hiccup, publicly refuses to kill a dragon, the Vikings cast him from their community capture, toothless and embark on a doomed mission to destroy all dragons. Crisis. Attempt to kill an invincible dragon in order to rescue his community or except that he cannot and allow his community to be slaughtered. Climax. Hiccup and toothless kill the giant dragon, the greatest threat to both Vikings and dragons and resolution. Vikings and dragons live together in peace. We start at Danger and we end at safety. We start in shame and we end in honor, we start in failure and end in success. It is such a good story. I hope this close study of how to train your dragon. This look at the six elements in action. Helps you see how the story structure really works. Theory is great, but there's no substitute for examples where you can see it in action. And if you'd like even more examples, I have good news for you. Remember how the six elements of story are recursive, how you can find them on every level of story, the whole story, the acts, the scenes, and more. In this episode, we've looked at the big picture, the story as a whole. But coming up in the next episode of your next draft, I'll be zooming in to look at the six elements in the first act of how to train your dragon. You'll get another example of the six elements at work and you'll get to see what it looks like when they nest, when you have the six elements within a larger story that also follows the six elements. If you want to test your knowledge of the six elements, I recommend that you go watch how to train your dragon. See if you can spot everything that we've looked at in this episode. And then challenge yourself. Can you find the six elements in the first apt? Can you zoom in and spot where those six elements are? If you take me up on this challenge, send me an email with the six elements that you come up with. Email me at Alice at Alice. dot com. I'll email you back and tell you how close your answers are to mine. And then next week I'll be back on the podcast with my answers. So you can see how I break down the first act using the six elements of story. Seriously, email me your answers. I can't wait to see what you come up with. Plus it means you get to watch how to train your dragon, which is always a treat. And probably my favorite part of putting together all this analysis. I'll see you back here next week with the next part of our analysis until then happy editing.