The 15 Story Patterns
What direction are you currently going?
Figuring out where you are is the first step towards getting unstuck from an in-between stage, continuing rising momentum, or pulling out of a downward spiral.
⇡ Upward Spiral ⇡
The upward spiral is about growth, renewal, and moving forward. It’s when you face the challenge, embrace the lesson, and turn it into something that makes you stronger, freer, or more alive. Each step upward feels like you’re reclaiming your voice, building something real, surviving what tried to break you, returning with wisdom, or leaving a mark that matters. It’s not easy, but it’s purposeful.
|| Drifting In-between ||
The in-between is the space of stalling, circling, or drifting. You’re not crashing, but you’re not climbing either. It can feel safe, but it’s full of hesitation, half-choices, waiting for certainty, dabbling without committing. It’s the fog between chapters where you resist endings or beginnings. Everyone passes through this space, but staying too long risks wasting your time, gifts, and story.
⇣ Downward Spiral⇣
The downward spiral is when the same forces that could grow you instead consume or diminish you. Disconnection hardens into isolation. Talent turns destructive. Struggles crush instead of refine. Failures become permanent detours. Influence corrupts instead of bless. There’s a refusal to learn, to rise, and life shrinks you instead of expand you.
Note: we can find ourselves in any of these directions at any point of our lives. This is literally part of the human experience and there is no shame in it. The journey is to walk through and handle with grace the experiences that make us wiser and resilient and we cannot shortcut what we are here to do and learn.
A word about “in-between” spaces.
In storytelling and in life, there are two in-between spaces:
Liminal & Liminoid
Liminal Spaces
are temporary thresholds or in-between times when you're transitioning from one stable identity to another or the period of training before facing a great challenge - college years, pregnancy, grief, or career changes. Temporary phases that prepare you for a new role. These spaces are meant to transform the character and then send them back into the world, changed but reintegrated. We cannot skip or rush the liminal spaces, they must be navigated with patience, grace, and resilience. EVERYONE must walk through liminal spaces and time, this is part of the human experience.
The key is eventual integration.
Liminal spaces don't inherently lead to upward spirals… they're neutral thresholds that can facilitate either growth or decline depending on how the character navigates them. A character might enter a liminal space (like a rite of passage) and fail, becoming diminished or corrupted rather than elevated. Think of characters who undergo trials but emerge broken rather than strengthened.
Liminoid Spaces
are more like closed loops you can get lost in - addiction cycles, certain forms of escapism, or recursive thought patterns that create their own complete reality separate from broader society. Liminoid spaces become self-contained substitutes that don't lead to a return or an integration back into life.
15 Story Patterns
What you will see below are not identities or permanent states. They are modes and chapters that go on to create patterns that we navigate in and out of.
Click the underlined headlines to explore each of the life themes, chapters, and modes in depth.
⇡ The Pilgrim: Claims & Callings⇡
You’re discovering who you are becoming and claiming your voice.
|| The Wanderer: Drifting & Distracted ||
You drift or half-commit… afraid to choose, stuck between options. Fear of missing out.
⇣ The Exile: Lost & Disconnected ⇣
You’ve forgotten yourself, cut off from roots, belonging, or direction.
⇡ The Warrior : Trials & Transformation⇡
You face the fire, endure, and grow stronger through challenge.
|| The Escapist: Stalled & Avoidant ||
You skirt the hard stuff, distract, or wait it out, hoping to bypass difficulty.
⇣ The Defeated: Collapse & Despair⇣
You collapse under pressure, stuck in cycles of burnout, defeat, or despair.
⇡ The Creator: Birthing & Growing⇡
You’re building, bringing forth, making, or giving something real to the world. Growing and nurturing your creations.
|| The Dreamer: Dreaming & Dabbling ||
You dream but don’t finish. You’re full of ideas, but little follow throughs.
⇣ The Wasted Genius: Wasted Potential ⇣
You’ve given up on your gifts or turned them (self) destructive, talent unused, creation abandoned.
⇡ The Survivor: Returns & Redemption ⇡
You rise after failure, rebuild, and find grace for a second chance.
|| The Relapser: Lingering Detour ||
You’re delaying your return, circling the same mistakes, hesitant to re-engage.
⇣ The Cynic: Stagnation⇣
You stay lost, refusing to return, consumed by regret, shame, or bitterness.
⇡ The Sage & Steward: Impact & Legacy⇡
You embody wisdom, guide others, and shape what outlives you. Transcendent values, mastery, legacy, and vision.
|| The Procrastinator: Unfinished Business ||
You hoard your wisdom or wait for the “right time” to share.
⇣ The Self-Server: Corruption & Regret ⇣
You misuse influence, chase hollow success, or leave behind harm instead of good.
