[0]: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sch%C3%A9ma_narratif (https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sch%C3%A9ma_quinaire is also describing the same thing)
Anyway the site is too clever for its own good and crashes out with a "We hit an error" modal overlay on Safari on Mac, so I'll never know.
The question we started off with was - if there are scales and raagas for music, is there something similar for storytelling. What goes well after what beat.
That took us through a journey.
Building Quanten Pulse, which led to Quanten Arc (real data, that led to a model), which then allowed us to create a benchmark database of more than 400 films.
So if you breakdown 400 hollywood blockbusters, and break them scene by scene, map emotions and durations, and character arcs, what is the patterns that you see - and if you step back, do you see clusters of patterns that resonate well.
Most people in hollywood write stories in two structures - predominantly. It is either Save the Cat, or the Heroes journey. But what if you don't want to save cats or go on the journey? (imagine if someone telling a musician, you have two scales - thats it).
We took a peek into the 400 and found 15 different narrative structures that work well. I have a feeling as we expand - into regional cinema, and different formats, we will find more.
Tell me what you think : https://arc.quanten.co/archetype
PS: While we started with Hollywood, we are starting to do this analysis for Bollywood films too (though finding scripts has been difficult)
But as stories get more complex, with multiple stories weaving in and also as you bring different genres in, some structures are better than others for different stories.
While I have figured out 15 so far, I want to take the WGA 101 screenplays of all time, which goes all the way from Casablanca, - and i want to see how some of these structures have evolved and are evolving over time.
For eg, since the past 2-3 years, leaving an open end (like in the case of Project Hail Mary in a new universe) shows up in 12% of films, compared to less than 1% before that. Those kind of insights are interesting.
Thanks for sharing that link.
My musician friends who are scholars in indian music tell me that there is a difference between a written raaga and a performed raaga and in a performed raaga, the actor has the right to improvize on that.
Im trying very hard to not go into the rabbit hole which might become purely academic :) But i would think that if we take how youtube content is structured, or tiktoks are, each format would lend to a new structure.
Thats my sense, i could be wrong. What do you think?
How do you deal with emotions that only exist (as their own concepts) in certain cultures (saudade in Portugal, hygge in Scandinavia)?
There are 72 major raagas - called mela kartha raagas - those are the root raagas, and there are combinations and permutations done that generates the janya raagas - which is children raagas (there are thousands of those - and different artists can create variations on these).
Most films in Hollywood have narrative beats - its 7-8 beats. Each tv show for eg, has 5-6 beats. Most micro drama episode has 2-4 beats. Its quite structure that way.
If you take a structure like Save the cat, or Heroes' journey, the order of the beats are also quite well laid out - just that those two structures dont cover the span of stories, and rest is all quite undocumented.
Im trying to work backwards - and quite aware that i am probably identifying derivatives than the root, but even the derivatives can be quite useful to guide others from generating engaging content.
I am not aware of Aarne Thompson's work. I'm looking it up right now...
I totally get why you would want to avoid the rabbit hole but your work is super interesting and I hope that you do get the luxury of being able to dive into adjacent formats and comparing them.
There was this snide remark that someone in hollywood made where they said, they make movies whereas Europe makes (art) cinema.
I havent figured out how to resolve that yet.
But yes to korean, japanese films - that's very much on the list.
But yes, I do believe that if AI is going to get so good at things that we are all going to have free time, we are going to have more time for entertainment. It is either going to be the arena or protests - and theatre might reclaim its glory days.
Ive been watching some of the shows by the National Theatre via streaming and do enjoy them.
Adjacency wise, a few startups have asked if they can use this framework to finetune their storytelling. Im still thinking.
http://arc.quanten.co/showcase/film (Anora) http://arc.quanten.co/showcase/series (The Pitt S01E01)
Quanten Arc Insights
15 structural archetypes derived from 405 films. Each archetype is defined by five parameters borrowed from Hindustani classical music, a system built on the idea that melody is not just sound but emotional territory. We extended this logic to narrative structure: screen time replaces note duration, dramatic registers replace musical registers, and the characteristic phrase of a raaga becomes the beat trajectory of a story. The result is a structural grammar for film that is precise enough to classify and legible enough to write from.
Ga-Dominant
Ma-Dominant
Pa-Dominant
Ri-Dominant
Dha-Dominant
The Five Parameters
VadiThe Dominant Note
In music: In Hindustani classical music, the vadi is the most important note of a raaga, the one the melody keeps returning to, the note that gives the raaga its fundamental character.
In story: The emotional register with the most screen time. The vadi tells you what a story is fundamentally about: whether it is a story of pursuit, reversal, crisis, incitement, or revelation.
SamvadiThe Supporting Note
In music: The samvadi is the vadi's consonant partner, always a fourth or fifth away. It complements and supports without displacing the dominant note.
In story: The secondary structural engine. The samvadi provides contrast and complicates the vadi, often determining the specific character of a story within its family. Two stories can share the same vadi but feel very different because of their samvadi.
GrahaThe Opening Note
In music: The graha is the note on which a classical composition begins, the first structural commitment, setting the register from which everything unfolds.
In story: The register of the first beat. Whether a story opens in stability (Sa), disruption (Ri), or crisis (Pa) sets a structural contract with the audience about what kind of world they are entering and what has already happened before the frame.
NyasaThe Resting Note
In music: The nyasa is the note on which a melodic phrase comes to rest, not necessarily the final note of the piece, but the note that signals a phrase is complete. In a raaga, the nyasa determines whether a phrase feels resolved or suspended.
In story: The register of the final beat. The nyasa determines resolution level: full resolution (Sa'/Ni), mid-register tension (Pa/Dha/Ma), or irresolution (Ri/Ga/Sa). It is the structural decision that most determines how an audience leaves the cinema.
PakadThe Characteristic Phrase
In music: The pakad is the short melodic phrase that fingerprints a raaga. A trained listener hears the pakad and immediately knows which raaga is being played, even before the full composition unfolds. It is the raaga's signature movement through its own scale.
In story: The trajectory modifier: the beat movement pattern that distinguishes stories within the same archetype family. Two films can share the same vadi, samvadi, graha, and nyasa, yet feel structurally different because one Dwells in a single register while another Rebounds or Returns. The pakad is what separates variants of the same archetype.
The Eight Registers
SaStability
RiIncitement
GaPursuit
MaReversal
PaCrisis
DhaRevelation
NiClimax
Sa'Resolution
Ga-Dominant / Pursuit
Stories in the Ga-Dominant family live in the act of doing. The process of pursuit, not the reversals or crises along the way, is the primary narrative substance.
Ma-Dominant / Reversal
Stories in the Ma-Dominant family are driven by plot machinery. Reversals, twists, and shifting ground are the story's primary language. Whether triumphant or tragic, Ma-Dominant films are about the experience of the ground shifting beneath the protagonist.
Pa-Dominant / Crisis
Stories in the Pa-Dominant family are defined by sustained darkness. Crisis is not a single beat but a condition the protagonist inhabits for an extended period.
Ri-Dominant / Incitement
Stories in the Ri-Dominant family are defined by a disruption that never fully leaves the room. The inciting event, the wound, the mystery, the displacement, retains structural weight throughout the story rather than receding after Act 1.
Dha-Dominant / Revelation
There is only one Dha-Dominant archetype in the library, a reflection of how rare it is for revelation to structurally dominate a story rather than serve as a single scene.
Methodology
This classification framework was developed by the Quanten Arc research team through structural analysis of 405 films across Drama, Thriller, Action, Horror, Comedy, Romance, Adventure, Mystery, Science Fiction, and Fantasy. Each film was manually segmented into narrative beats and scored on the five Hindustani classical music parameters.
The rule-based classifier was derived from the most statistically significant parameter combinations observed across the corpus. The framework is descriptive, not prescriptive: it identifies structural patterns in completed works and does not claim that all strong films follow these patterns.
Research by Quanten Media Pvt Ltd. All rights reserved.
Film counts and IMDb averages are derived from the 405-film Quanten Arc library. Browse all titles to explore individual narrative analyses.