21.35: The Four Acts of Kishōtenketsu

Introducing Kisho Tenketsu

0:00This episode of Writing Excuses has been brought to you by our listeners, patrons, and friends. If you would like to learn how to support this podcast, visit www.patreon.com slash writingexcuses. Season 21, episode 35.

0:19This is Writing Excuses. The four acts of Kisho Tenketsu. Tools, not rules. For writers, by writers. I'm Mary Robinette. I'm Dong Wan. I'm Erin. And I'm Howard. And we are talking about a different narrative structure that we're going to be deconstructing. We've done some things like Save the Cat, Hero's Journey. This time we are deconstructing an Asian structure that appears under different names in China and Korea and Japan and Vietnam.

0:50It is not a conflict-based structure, which the Western three-act structure is. The pieces are introduction, development, twist, and conclusion. There's a fair chance that if you think you haven't seen it, you probably have. If you've been watching anime, if you saw the movie Parasite, this shows up in a lot of different places. Yes, anime can be definitely conflict-driven.

1:20But a lot of times what we're looking at is this change that happens over the course of the story. I love Asian cinema very, very deeply. It's very important to me. There's a lot of stories that I love. I read works in translation as well. And I think there's a criticism I see leveled at particular Asian movies quite a bit. I mean, they're also known for being very violent and very dramatic in certain ways. Like, we see that with sort of the rise of Korean cinema more recently. But there's also these groups of, like, Wong Kar-wai, who is one of my very favorite filmmakers of all time.

1:56Chungking Express, In the Mood for Love. These are two of my favorite films of all time. And people always say that they're incredibly slow, right? They're very often referred to as very slow and meditative, whereas I find them very tense and quite thrilling and engaging in a lot of ways. But they don't follow this Western three-act narrative structure, right? They don't follow this rising and then falling. They don't follow sort of the steps that we've talked about in terms of Save the Cat. They have their own structure, which feels very distinct and unique.

2:26And, you know, I find it very satisfying to move through these steps in a way that there is tension, but not conflict in the same way, right? If you're looking at the movie In the Mood for Love, the tension is that these two characters have a deep connection to each other. She is married. He is not. And there is a will they, won't they? But by God, that thing never resolves, right? And a lot of people find the movie very unsatisfying because it doesn't resolve. But in their commitment to the lack of resolution, there is stuff that you learn about what it is to exist in a modern society, what it is to be a person, what it is to be in love, all of these things that make for an incredible experience.

3:05But you have to go in with the mindset of this isn't a rom-com. You're not going to get a romance structure out of this. What you will get is a very human story that is about experience. There's a novel that I read, Tatami Galaxy, and the first part of it, like, I know Kisho Tinteksu exists, and I also forget that it exists. And so the first part of it, I'm like, this was recommended to me, but why was this recommended to me? Because it's just this whiny college kid who's, like, making stupid mischoices.

3:39And then it resets, and I'm like, oh, that was our normal establishment. And he goes through, there are, it's literally four acts where he's like, I could have made this other choice. And so you see him develop as a character, having made this other choice. And then there's this twist where you realize, oh, nothing about this. I thought that it was, you know, like a parallel universe, but this kid is actually resetting.

4:10It's fascinating. And once you, you know, once I kind of realized, reminded myself of this, it takes the story in different ways. And it's not, it's not the same kind of conflict-driven story. There's conflict that happens in it. It's not that. It's just, that's not the driver of it. Exactly. I was going to say, I think also it's what engine in some ways is driving your storytelling. So I, one of the things that I really think is interesting about Kisho Tenkatsu in a really traditional, my understanding of it traditionally, is that often the, the ten in it is another story.

4:49So you'll have like establishment of, and like a world, movement through that world, something outside of the world of the story that you're currently in. And then something that gives you an understanding of how these two things are actually like part of some greater narrative. Yeah. And so in some ways it is a journey of understanding. And it puts a little bit of the onus on you as the reader, watcher, listener, player. Some people argue that Super Mario, or that Mario is actually Kisho Tenkatsu. But like, I don't know why, but I'm just saying it.

5:21Excuse me while I blue screen for 40 minutes over here. I'm just going to say, I'm now, I'm now replaying that game. And actually, I will find the article that explains that and we'll put it in the show notes so you can know why. I do think a lot of JRPGs do follow a Kisho Tenkatsu model in a way that feels very distinct from, say, how Bioware does a RPG. Exactly. Because I think that a lot of Western storytelling is very catharsis based. Like, I will follow an emotional journey and at the end I will get an emotional release. Whereas this is more, okay, I will follow a knowledge journey.

5:54And by looking at different stories, I will understand my world differently. And if you're expecting one and getting the other, you're going to end up really disappointed. I'm going to, yes, all of that.

A Poetic Example

6:06And I want to give an example that's shorter, which is a little bit of poetry, which is, this is a Japanese poem and I'm reading an English translation. So, Ki, daughters of Itoya in the Hanmachi of Osaka. Okay. So, there's our establishment. Shô, the elder daughter is 16 and the younger one is 14. Ten. Throughout history, Damyo killed the enemy with bows and arrows. There's a big twist there. What do we do? Ketsu.

6:36The daughters of Itoya kill with their eyes. And it's like, oh, I see how all of these things go together now. And that, I think, is when you talk about this journey of knowledge and understanding. It's not information. It's understanding the connections and seeing a new network that you hadn't seen before. One of the challenges to, one of the challenges for Westerners like me who love structure and want to understand Kishô Tenketsu is that, for instance, the word twist.

7:10When I think of twist, I think of a plot twist. But in Kishô Tenketsu, twist can mean plot twist, but it can also mean a contextual shift that forces us to learn a completely new thing. That invites us into a completely new place so that when we get to Ketsu, when we get to the resolution, everything that we've been told flows together.

7:41And there's this temptation to look at the four acts of Kishô Tenketsu and say, well, wouldn't that just map onto a three act structure where the big fat second act just gets carved into two bits? And the answer is, well, in terms of carving a pie into four pieces, sure, you've made four pieces. But the reason this is a separate structure is that those things are, they have different jobs.

8:11The twist that you described, the kid is actually resetting. That's the sort of thing in a superhero film that would be, you know, to act sooner. That would be our inciting incident. That wouldn't be our twist. That would be the setup for a completely different type of story. And that's why I think it's so important to look at this structure, look at this structure as its own thing, because it tells different stories than the kinds we, and I say we speaking for Western dudes like me, are accustomed to telling.

Applying the Structure to Film

8:55In Korean, we call this Giseong Jeon Gyeol. I say that as if I didn't look up the Wikipedia right before we started. But that is what we Koreans call it. And, you know, I want to talk about it and break it down a little bit in terms of the film Parasite, which I think is a thing a lot of people have seen that's relatively well known in the West, but perfectly follows its structure, right? And so the thing in particular I wanted to hit was the Jeon stage, which is the twist, which is, you know, Howard, you're right that it doesn't have to be a plot twist.

9:25In Parasite, it is a plot twist, right? So the Gi is the meeting of the characters when we see them in their home. They're like folding pizza boxes, right? The Sang is them starting to infiltrate their way into the family, right? Getting this job as the caretakers to these kids. And then the Chun is the incredible, shocking reversal where they discover there's an entire house under the house and there's a man living down there, right? And that completely inverts everything we've come to understand about this movie, about the role that this lower class family is playing in the story of trying to infiltrate their way into this upper class family, when actually there's an entire other family literally living beneath it, right?

10:06And it is this contemplative thing that is a deep critique of both capitalism and post-war Korean society in this way that is a complete reversal. And then I think one thing that people really struggle with when watching Asian cinema is a feeling at the end of what the hell was I supposed to get from that, right? Because Parasite ends in this like orgy of violence, of this incredible, very violent scene that happens at this child's birthday party. And I think there's a desire to take that and say, oh, so this should, what's the moral lesson we're taking away from this?

10:42And there isn't one. There's a process lesson that you're taking away from it. There is, you are drawing connections between the four parts of this movie that almost operate as standalones, right? I would actually argue that the movie Sinners, which came out last year, follows a Kishon Tenketsu structure more than it follows a traditional Western three-actor-save-the-cat structure. Because it has a similar thing at the end where you're like, god damn, what do I take away from this thing? I've experienced so much. But it has the normal at the beginning where you sort of meet the smokestack twins, you meet the young musician, the preacher boy.

11:19And then you sort of like, the story starts when they get into the speakeasy or into the juke joint. And then you have the reversal, which is the vampires, and then the conclusion, which is bonkers. But each of those things feel really distinct as phases of the movie. And I think that movie maps much more onto that structure than it does onto a traditional Western one. And I think that's part of what makes the movie feel so dynamic and generative. These are all fantastic. We should take a break and then come back and talk about some of how we can apply this if we want to play with four-part structure.

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Breaking Down the Terminology

14:09All right, so coming back into this, I'm going to, again, using Wikipedia, thank you to whoever has done the work of this. Kisho Tenketsu, we've said that most cultures have this in Asia, and what's interesting is that each of these syllables actually has a meaning. These are, it's basically, these are just the words. The Japanese characters for ki, ki can also, that character can also mean to rouse, to wake up, or to get up, which is, I think, a really interesting way to think about what is happening at the beginning of the story.

14:53We, in Western terms, it is the call to action, but it doesn't have to be that. Shou comes from shoku, which can mean, which is development, but it can also mean acquiescence, or hearing, or listening. It can be, be informed or receiving. Tinko can be, the ten, is twist, where it can mean, but it can also mean, like, revolve, or turn around, and change.

15:23And then, Ketsu comes from, the character for that, Keku, can also mean result, or consequence, outcome, effect, coming to fruition, or bearing fruit. And so, I think when you actually think about, like, I found looking at those to kind of help me unpack that a little bit more. When you, if you were thinking about, oh, I want to sort of play with this, one thing that I would, like, approach myself is the same way that I approach adding, trying any new tool, which is to deal with it in micro.

16:04Instead of saying, I'm going to write a novel that's using this format, say, let me try this just in one scene.

16:11I agree. Great. I think we should, not at, oh, go for it. I, in Extreme Dungeon Mastery, second edition, we talked briefly about Kisho Tenketsu. We talked about each of the story structures, and analyze it as if Star Wars had been written using that structure. And we kind of remap, retell a little bit. With Kisho Tenketsu, what we decided to do is, well, it ends, the story ends with Obi-Wan being struck down by Vader.

16:47You know, the twist happens, the twist happens earlier, and this is the story of, you know, an ordinary world and, and a little bit of development. And then, you know, a twist, you know, oh, no, bad guys, and then a resolution, which is the master is vanishing and, and Luke will become the replacement. This is not a perfect mapping, but it helped me understand that by telling it in this way, the, by slicing this out of Star Wars, Star Wars was no longer about, you know, Luke versus Empire, Rebels versus Empire.

17:31It was now about the journey of one person, and, and it occurred to me, you know, I bet I could write individual character arcs aside from whatever novel, whatever piece I'm working on, using that form, and then thread them into the form that I'm working with, and that might end up as a very satisfying way to, to tell those stories. I think this is a, a thing that is a great idea is to just write the thing you're going to write, and then, in the same way we've talked about using other plot formats as, as a, as a diagnostic tool, layering it on afterwards, just to, to, like, if I group things in a different way, does that offer me any opportunities?

18:15But also remembering that one of the things this has in common with the other structures we've talked about is that there is a beginning and an end. There is an establishment of normal, and then there's the consequences, the result, the, the, of whatever exploration that we've been in. Just one thing that I want to point out about the, um, Gyo stage, the Keku stage, is that it is not conclusion. It is not resolution, right? Um, in, in, in Western structure, we have that, you know, conclusion or climax or something along those lines.

18:50Instead, it is an ending of the story, right? And those are different things, because you can end in a moment that is inconclusive in a different way. That's not just like, you know, Inception, does the top fall over? Not, that's inconclusive, but that story has a resolution before then. In a lot of, in a lot of Eastern media, you will see an ending that is much more ambiguous. It is a stop to the action, because the, this particular story has reached an end, but not a resolution or conclusion in a sort of either moralistic or thematic way.

19:24I misspoke. I said resolution, and I meant to use the word reconciliation, because it is, it is the part of the story where I must reconcile the twist with the, the normal world and the development that happened beforehand. And I would say, you got me thinking about, like, how I would, uh, move Star Wars into this specific structure, which is interesting as somebody who doesn't really know it very well. Um, but I always, whenever I think about Star Wars, I'm, like, most interested in, like, how that map got in that droid.

19:54Isn't there a map in a droid at some point? There's a whole movie about that. It's very good. Okay, great. Well, I didn't see it. So, pretend.

20:02So, sorry about that. There's a whole two-part miniseries that's one of the best things ever made that leads into that movie. Love it. Great. There's a lot of information about how that droid got that map. Definitely right after Severn's getting on that. But, um, what I think is interesting is, I think for me, what I would do is, Luke, the character, is, keeps receiving, basically, the hero's call. Like, Luke is being called into action. He refuses. Luke is being called into action in a different way. He refuses. Maybe he meets the pilot dude, and that guy is very active, and that gives him an example, but he still refuses to do anything.

20:33And then I would actually do, like, the last moments of, I don't know why he dies in this process, the person who put the map in the droid, like, taking the last steps towards something. And then I might end with Luke flying to the Death Star. So, to me, that's really, it's, on a conceptual level, it's about, do you take the hero's call? What does it mean to be the person who makes something happen versus the person who things happen around? Which is a completely different story. This is going to mean nothing to you, but you, I just had this incredible brainwave that actually, because in my head I was like, oh, the Andor story is a trilogy.

21:07It's a Star Wars trilogy inside of it, but really it's a Kishoten Ketsu where A New Hope is the fourth step in it, right? The first three, the twist is Rogue One. Okay, you've now blue-screened our entire audience. 100%. The new normal is Andor season one. The beginning of the action is Andor season two, where he is a revolution, and the rebellion is beginning. And then three, the reversal, is them getting the plans. And then four is the entire arc of A New Hope, which is just the end of Andor's story.

21:38Okay. This is amazing. Everyone in the room is kind of staring at each other. Where Marshall, our engineer, is rubbing his head and looking like we've all lost.

21:51Yeah, completely broken.

Flexible pacing and homework

21:54So we're going to wrap up. The one thing that I'm going to flag is the same thing that we flagged with the three-act structure, is that in a four-act structure, the structure, they do not have to be of equal length. Yes. Most of your time is probably actually spent in show, even though we, you know, this is definitely show-don't-tell, I guess, in this case. Oh, no. So, but just bearing in mind that if you're trying this, that it doesn't have to be equal parts.

22:28I've also seen it done where most of it is key, actually, where you really spend a lot of time in the normal world, and then the back half is a little compressed between the other three steps. But I think the main takeaway is, like three-act structure, it doesn't have to be quarter, half, quarter. It can be very flexible in how you apply it to your fiction. And you can have smaller twists within the larger twist, just like we've been talking about macrocosm and macrocosm, that you can do that with this, too. You can have smaller iterations of this within the larger story. So, with that, I think it is time for us to go to our homework.

23:04And our homework is actually something that I talked about during the show, which is to take something that you've already written and then group it into a kishu tenketsu structure to see what opportunities you might have to add something. This has been writing excuses. You're out of excuses. Now go write.

23:32Writing Excuses has been brought to you by our listeners, patrons, and friends. For this episode, your hosts were Mary Robinette Kowal, Dong Wan Song, Aaron Roberts, and Howard Taylor. This episode was engineered by Marshall Carr, Jr., mastered by Alex Jackson, and produced by Emma Reynolds. For more information, visit writingexcuses.com.