From Shutta Crum — “children’s author and teller of stories”. Shutta outlines eight picture book plot structures. So far I haven’t seen anyone else come up with a list like this:

• Cummulative -> Toppling Structure
• Decreasing Structure
• Increasing Structure
• Simultaneously Increasing and Decreasing Structure
• Parallel Structure
• Story Within a Story Structure
• Time Line Structure – straight time line
• Time Line Structure – full circle
• Traditional Rising Action Structure

Shutta gives examples for each structure. The fun part now is to figure out which structure when reading new books.