In our Craft Capsule series, authors reveal the personal and particular ways they approach the art of writing. This is no. 225.

The Western narrative three-act structure values symmetry. The main elements (protagonists, antagonists, and conflict/problem) have to be introduced in Act One and reappear in Act Three. Leave one aspect out and the story swerves until all the other wheels fall off.

Imagine if in Romeo and Juliet, the first half were entirely about Romeo. Then kapow! After the halfway point, a new character named Juliet enters the story. Audiences would howl, “That’s not Romeo and Juliet. That’s Romeo THEN Juliet.”

However, East Asian storytelling often conforms to a radically different four-act structure (also known as kishōtenketsu). Its defining feature is that it deliberately withholds a main element, then injects it into the story after the halfway point. Further, that new element often makes the story jump tracks into an entirely different genre.

a. Act One—Introduce elements.

b. Act Two—Develop elements.

c. Act Three—Introduce new element (the twist).

d. Act Four—Harmonize all elements.

Here’s an example: a short story called “Spring, Summer, Asteroid, Bird” from my new nonfiction writing craft book of the same title.

a. Act One—The characters are two distant cousins in the theropod family, Chelsea (a bird) and Marilyn (a Tyrannsaur). They dislike each other.

b. Act Two—Chelsea lays her first eggs. Marilyn couldn’t care less.

c. Act Three—An asteroid slams into the Earth, which blocks out sunlight for years, ending most life. The story jumps from a cozy nature documentary into an astronomic, apocalyptic tale.

d. Act Four—Chelsea survives because she could eat seeds, which remain edible for years after the asteroid.

The structure allows the reader to experience the surprise that the characters feel when the new, un-foreshadowed element arrives. Chelsea and Marilyn don’t know they are in a four-act story. When the asteroid arrives in their lives, they are surprised. So is the reader.

The fourth act emphasizes the identification of previously unseen relationships among the preceding elements. The asteroid creates a new context in which being small instead of huge and having a beak instead of fangs end up being critical to survival. The new facet of the story reveals that Chelsea’s seeming disadvantages are in fact massive advantages.

To some Western writers, this structure might seem too radical to gain a wide audience. However, look at Haruki Murakami’s Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World (Kodansha, 1991). The book has two parallel storylines, a near-future, cyberpunk storyline and a Surrealist fable. After the halfway point, their surprising relationship is revealed.

I invite writers of all backgrounds to attempt a four-act retrofit of one of their own stories-in-progress. Here are the steps:

1. Identify three main elements of your story.

2. Hold back introducing one of them until the third act.

3. Make the remaining elements in the first two acts more engaging than previously (this is the hardest part and can involve craft tools such as plotting, density, characterization, and dialogue).

4. Ask how the fourth act reveals unseen relationships among all the elements.

5. Does the new third-act element jump the story from one genre track to another?

This exercise allows writers to expand their arsenal and experience the joy of holding back.

Henry Lien is a speculative fiction author and writing instructor who teaches classes on Eastern storytelling. His writing has been nominated several times for a Nebula Award for speculative fiction. Born in Taiwan, he now lives in Los Angeles.