Story Shapes

There's a particular poster I've seen on classroom walls around the world. It's not always exactly the same, but it shows the same thing: the shape of a story.



Usually, the poster shows some kind of roller-coaster. And that roller-coaster always follows the same shape. It looks a bit like this:









This is a terrible shape for a story.



I said this at a lovely school I visited recently and once I explained why, within a few minutes the teachers removed the poster. Impressive. If you ha...