Exposition.
This is a set of scenes in which no major changes occur and the point is to introduce the principal characters, time period, and tone, and set up the “exciting force.”
Exciting Force.
Freytag also calls this the “complication,” and other frameworks call it the “inciting incident,” when some force of will on the part of the protagonist or an outside complication forces the protagonist into motion.
Rising Action.
Now that the chief action has been started, this continues the movement toward the climax. Any characters who have not as of yet been introduced should be introduced here.
Climax.
In Freytag’s framework, the climax occurs in the middle of the story.
In this framework, the climax can be thought of as a reflection point. If things have gone well for the protagonist, at the climax they start to fall apart tragically.
Or in a comedy, if things have been going poorly for the protagonist, things start improving.
After the climax, whatever ambition the protagonist showed is reversed against himself, and whatever suffering she endured is redeemed. In other words, the energy, values, and themes shown in the first half are reversed and undone in the second half.
Falling action.
Things continue to either devolve for the protagonist or, in the case of a comedy, improve, leading up to the “force of the final suspense,” a moment before the catastrophe, when the author projects the final catastrophe and prepares the audience for it. As Freytag says, “It is well understood that the catastrophe must not come entirely as a surprise to the audience.”
But just after this foreshadowing, there must be a moment of suspense where the slim possibility of reversal is hinted at.
Resolution.
Freytag was chiefly focused on tragedy, not comedy, and he saw the ending phase of a story as the moment of catastrophe, in which the character is finally undone by their own choices, actions, and energy.