It is usually built on one of the following plans:
(a) The single line of sequence, as in Hans Andersen's "Princess on the Pea," or "The Sleeping Beauty," or "The Frog Prince;"
(b) The three-parallel line—what the first did, what the second did, what the third did,—as in "The Golden Pears" and in "Dummling;"
(c) The balanced antithetical plan, two contrasting courses of action placed side by side,
what the beautiful, what the ugly,
industrious child did idle child did,
as in "Mother Holle" or in "Diamonds and Toads."
(d) The cumulative plan, as in "Henny-Penny," "The Cat and the Mouse in the Malt House," "The House that Jack Built," "The Old Woman and her Pig." Do not miss the increase in interest and suspense.
Note in the three-parallel structure the climactic "thirdness" and its distinguishing characteristic; it is the youngest and the stupid third member of the family who turns out to be the cleverest and most favored of fortune; it is Dummling who marries the sweetest princess; it is the woodcutter's third daughter who proves considerate of the dumb
