Dane Bundy
Jul 125 min read
Step 2: Identifying the Plot & Structure - Framing Stories with God's Story
Jul 12
5 min read
© 2026 Dane M. Bundy. All rights reserved.
Editor's Note: This is the third installment in a series on Framing Story's with God's Story. Click here to read all published installments.
In the last installment, we discussed the first step in the Framing process: Listening to God's Echoes. Today, we'll explore the second step in the Framing Stories approach - Identifying the Plot & Structure.
Aristotle was one of the first to describe the structure of a story. In his Poetics, he says a complete story is “one which has a beginning, middle, and an end” (5.1). His observation may seem elementary, but it is foundational to storytelling. Narrative analysis also sheds light on what makes a complete story. There is the rising action in Act I, the climax toward the end of Act II, and the denouement at the end of Act III.
By overlapping these terms, we see the rise and fall of a well-structured story.
Northrop Frye offers another helpful way to speak of story structure. While analyzing the influence the Bible has had on Western literature, he identified “two great organizing patterns” (The Great Code, 73). Comedy moves towards a “happy” ending, often rewarding us with “They lived happily ever after.” Tragedy does the opposite and spirals toward a “miserable” ending, one in which we can sing the mantra, “Count no man happy until he is dead” (Herodotus, The Histories).
Both patterns mirror the structure of the Bible. This is not a coincidence because even the structure of God’s Story echoes through the halls of our literature and film. “It is possible to think of the Gospel…,” writes Frederick Buechner, “a speaking of the truth about the way things are. And it is possible to think of that truth as tragedy, comedy, and as fairy tale” (Telling the Truth, 7).
In this illustration, we see that taken as a whole, God’s Story is a comedy with a fairy tale-like ending. But if taken in parts, if we only look at the movements of Fall and Redemption, we see the structure of tragedy. Think of the book of Judges, Ecclesiastes, and Lamentations, and the stories of those who spend eternity separated from God.
This leads to another way to examine a story’s structure in three categories, which is central to the Framing approach. I have drawn them from Oliver DeMille’s A Thomas Jefferson Education. DeMille in his book outlines four types of stories: whole, bent, broken, and healing. However, for our purposes, the first three are the most helpful. The categories of good and evil form the basis for these story types. To visualize them, I will have them interact with God’s Story.
The Whole Story
A whole story portrays good as good and evil as evil. And in the end, good wins.
Good is a transcendent category and something that flows from the character of God. Evil, among other things, is a corruption of it, introduced in the Fall. Notice on the chart the distinction between good (green) and evil (red).
In Creation, man is innocent and in New Creation God has purified his people. But in the Fall and Redemption stage of God’s Story, humanity is a complex mixture of good and evil, even the godly whom God is redeeming (Romans 7).
Yet, this does not discount the reality that good and evil are real and distinct. God is holy, and no evil dwells within him. Therefore, God’s Story fits in the category of whole story, in which good wins over evil.
Outside of Scripture, we can think of many novels, plays, and films that fit this type, such as A Tale of Two Cities, The Lord of the Rings, Great Expectations, Jane Eyre, and Harry Potter.
The Broken Story
A broken story portrays good as good and evil as evil, but in the end, evil actually wins.
The key difference between the whole and the broken story is that in the latter, evil wins. In the illustration, we see the green dotted line break, showing that good failed to accomplish its purposes.
As mentioned earlier, the book of Judges is a simple example of a broken story. The last line of the book haunts us, “In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes” (21:25). Yikes! Evil ran amok in Israel, as Israel turned from God.
Tragedies, Greek or Shakespearean, often fit the mold of broken stories, though I would argue that plays like Macbeth and Hamlet are actually whole stories with a heavy emphasis on brokenness.
The value of broken stories is significant. They can serve as cautionary tales, warning us against the path of evil. Think of Aesop’s Fables or George Orwell’s 1984. Or, consider the modern classic Jurassic Park and its warning: play god with science and you will face the wrath of a T-Rex! While Christians may not enjoy broken stories as much as whole ones, if crafted well, Christians should not avoid them. Actually, more Christians should write modern tragedies. Like the stories of Flannery O’Connor, they can shock and sober us into wise living. Now, we will explore the final story type.
The Bent Story
A bent story portrays good as evil and evil as good, blurring the two categories. In the end, good or evil wins.
In the illustration above, the intertwined lines of good and evil show how blurry the moral categories become. At first, good and evil appear distinct, but as the conflict unfolds, the author challenges our moral convictions. Before the end, we may have compassion for “the villain” and hatred for “the good guy.”
Bent stories are prevalent in modern literature, television, and film. The rise of the anti-hero fits well into the category of a bent story, and here is one stock formula you may recognize:
take a villain universally considered “evil” (e.g. the Joker or Cruella);
tell their origin story and noble intentions;
highlight “the villain” suffering at the hands of “the good guys,” stirring empathy within us;
present the misunderstood and highly magnetic anti-hero.
The prophet Isaiah warns in this direction:
Woe to those who call evil good
and good evil
who put darkness for light
and light for darkness . . . (5:20).
While we should be wary of mindlessly consuming bent stories, they can have value. Bent stories thrive on deconstruction, breaking down our conceptions of good and evil, right and wrong. And sometimes we need to deconstruct our categories, because they are not biblical.
Did not Jesus do this for the Jews regarding the Samaritans and other “sinners”? In the Gospels, did not Jesus help us see that the zealous religious leaders were actually the enemies of the Kingdom? But Jesus did not leave them in a deconstructed state, an invitation for sinister philosophies to move in. No, after he broke the categories down, he rebuilt them, giving them a clear understanding of the gospel and the Kingdom of God.
After identifying the plot and structure of the story, whether it is whole, bent, or broken, you can ask yourself and your students, what does the author portray in this story as good and as evil? Whatever the answer may be, you can write it in the space underneath the garden of New Creation. In step 4, we will look at another way to show a story’s type.
For more insights on thinking biblically about story, culture, and the imagination subscribe to our monthly newsletter here.
This is the third installment in a series on Framing Story's with God's Story. Click here to read all published installments.
Dane Bundy is President of Stage & Story and Director of Fine Arts at Regents School of Austin.
Comments