How many ways can you structure a plot?

Plotting isn’t always my favorite thing, but I do like books and movies with nonlinear plots.  So I was trying to think of all the different ways you can structure a plot. Here’s the list I came up with:

1. Chronological.  Straight forward, one plot point after another.
   
2. Circular.   The story comes full circle in some way.  Ground Hog Day would be an extreme example. Usually, there’s some element that ties the end back to the beginning.
   
3. Disconnected.  The story isn’t told in one continuous stream.  The narrative jumps forward, flashes back, but the seemingly disconnected scenes come together to form a whole story in the end. Think Pulp Fiction or The Time Traveler’s Wife.
   
4. Nested / framed .  There’s a story within a story (maybe even within a story).  Adaptation (2008) is the best example I can think of. It’s a movie about writing a movie based a book about real life Orchid thieves.  The outer story—Charlie Kaufman (Nicholas Cage) struggling to adapt the book—gets intertwined with the inner story about the subject of the book.
   
5. Wandering / tangential.  Think Family Guy. One action leads to another in a wholly unexpected direction or consequence. Brian and Stewie may start off showing a pig at the county fair, but they end up in an alternative universe where Brian is human.  But it all works.

Can you guys think of any other plot structures or examples? 

Plot Holes

Plot holes. They’re those pesky gaps or inconsistencies in the logical flow of a story.  I must confess I’ve been guilty of them. I want a story to go a certain way. I plot it all out to my satisfaction, and then someone—agent, editor, reader—asks why didn’t they just do X?  Or, if they did Y, why didn’t Z happen?

Grumble. Grumble. “Because it doesn’t work that way,” I say.

In reality, I just didn’t want it to work that way---or I didn’t have a convenient 5-year-old to read the story and point out the obvious lapses in my story logic. (Note to self: add new reader to staff.)

So I console myself with these two lists from Cracked magazine:

•    8 Classic Movies that Got Away with Gaping Plot Holes.

•    5 Gaping Plot Holes Hollywood Knows You Won’t Notice.

One of my favorite holes from the first list is the entire premise to Citizen Kane, which is arguably one of the best movies ever made.  The reporters are trying to figure out the significance of Charles Foster Kane’s final words: Rosebud.  However, no one ever heard them.  He was alone in the room when he died.  The nurse gets there after his last gasp. So how does anyone know what he uttered?

But, if your story is entertaining enough, you can get away with some astonishing lapses in story logic  (though it’s probably not a good idea to try. )

What are some of your favorite plot holes from books, movies, or TV?