Most good stories start with a fundamental list of ingredients: the initial situation, conflict, complication, climax, suspense, denouement, and conclusion. Great writers sometimes shake up the recipe and add some spice.
Exposition
Off to War
When TJ gets sent to fight in the Vietnam War only a few weeks after enlisting in the army, his family is shocked—it happens so soon. Jamie, on the other hand, is thrilled. War is all she and her brother have talked about throughout their lives. This is our initial situation because everyone in the family reacts to it differently: The Colonel might love the war in theory, but that doesn't mean he wants his son shipped off to it right after his eighteenth birthday; and Jamie might think she knows how her army brat family feels about war, but she's not even close.
Rising Action
Send Me a Letter
When TJ's first package from Vietnam arrives, Jamie can barely contain her excitement. And then she discovers what's inside: no letter for her and zero details about the war. Instead all TJ sends her is a roll of film to develop. Gee, thanks. We're calling this our complication because Jamie is forced to deal with her expectations about the war: She wants a letter with the details, but the film shows her what things are really like.
Climax
Snap a Picture
As Jamie keeps developing her brother's film from Vietnam, she starts to realize that some pictures aren't worth showing to her parents. Pics of injured soldiers in wheelchairs don't exactly make for light dinnertime conversation. Meanwhile, she starts to notice that her dad is fed up with the war. All her life, she's known him as Mr. Army Guy, so his frustration throws a wrench in her system. It's a big crisis for her to be forced to think about the war in a new—more tragic—way.
Falling Action
Where In the World Is TJ?
After TJ goes missing in Vietnam, Jamie wants to search for answers, so she looks the only place she can think of: his pictures. Of course there are no clues in TJ's snaps of soldiers and the moon, and Jamie is disappointed. She wants to see her brother again—or at least know the guy is safe. It might not seem like "falling action" material, since it stirs up a lot of sad emotions in Jamie, but in terms of her relationship with the war, this is our event. She's past glorifying it or pretending it's not gruesome and grotesque; finally, she sees the war for what it is and just wants her brother to come home. Wouldn't you?
Resolution
Moon Landing
We're told that TJ comes home after two years in a POW camp over in Vietnam. When Jamie finally sees her brother again, she shows him the pictures of all the moons he missed while he was away. This is our resolution because it brings the family back together again—besides, Jamie finally gets the importance of photographing the moon.