Story structure
Kishotenketsu
A four-part narrative structure from East Asian tradition: introduction, development, twist and conclusion, able to run without conflict.
Kishotenketsu (起承転結) "describes the four-part structure of many classic Chinese, Korean, Japanese and Vietnamese narratives": introduction (ki), development (sho), twist (ten) and conclusion (ketsu). The form began as the Chinese poetic structure qǐchéngzhuǎnhé, and Korean and Vietnamese narrative keep their own names for the same four parts. Its distinguishing property: it "does not center on conflict as part of its structure," unlike the three-act structure and the Hero's Journey, though works written in it "can and often do contain conflict." The structure "deliberately holds back a major story element until the third of four acts," and that withheld twist, the ten, is the crux of the story.
For novelists it is the standard alternative to conflict-driven plotting: slice of life, quiet stories and episodic serials fit its turn-based shape, and a chapter or an arc can each run ki, sho, ten, ketsu. The beat-by-beat treatment is the kishotenketsu guide.