The Chemistry Of Storytelling

I was googling something -- maybe whether canned corn stores safely in perpetuity and where it belongs in the food pyramid -- and I ran across this diagram of how to write a dramatic story:

link to original

This immediately suggested to me what is known as a generic reaction coordinate in chemistry:

Both diagrams depict action moving left-to-right. Think of the "reactants" on the left side, lower figure as the "exposition" in the top diagram and the "products" as the "denouement."

In chemistry, the climax is known as the transition state. The transition state is the fleeting state where a reaction can go forward or reverse. I believe these notions are covered by the language in the Freytag Pyramid diagram.

Note also that the chemistry plot ends in a higher energy state. Reaction diagrams that end in a lower energy state are possible as well as those that start and finish at the same level. Is this possible in storytelling? Are there uphill stories as as well as downhill ones?