All right folks listen up
1. 2. 3. ACTion
The simple Three Act Structure.
“STRUCTURE is a selection of events from the characters’ lie stories that is composed into a strategic sequence to arouse specific emotions and to express a specific view of life.” — From Story by Robert Mckee.
So this is a rough picture of a three-act structure. You are probably wondering why there are three subplots in this. Those are optional; you do not need three of them; just one is fine. This would be your B-story, which is optional.
The Three Act structure has been around for years, check out the book The Poetics by Aristotle. That in itself tells you how old this structure is.
I’m going to be breaking down the Three Acts into chunks. I will give you the purpose and the points that should be in there.
[Enough daddling, get to the content.]
As you wish.
Act 1
This is where the story begins. Your story. The first act is where you introduce the characters, their problems, and what is going on in the world — all the essential things that are going to be important later in the story.
First impressions matter, this is also where the writers are going to write the juicy hook that draws you into the story.
Character
Most writers do not introduce every single character, but introducing the main characters (MC), and the Main Opponent, is always good; maybe a love interest. [B-Story character].
First impressions matter.
Inciting Incident (Catalyst)
The Inciting Incident is what is going to make the MC push into the story. It is what propels the plot forward. Remember the MC can ignore the catalyst and exit the story [do not do this], or dive headfirst in order to complete their desire [desire being the goal of the MC].
Reasons to make the MC do this can be almost anything, but it has to be personal, the MC needs to do this in order to achieve that. That being the character’s motive.
[Are you going to talk more about the motivations of the characters?]
In another article, I will go more in-depth in the character creation.
The Climax of Act 1
Making this section pretty simple here. At the end of the first Act, the MC has left his ordinary world behind and is now walking forward into a new world, different from his own.
Act 2 has to be completely different from the start of Act 1. The MC must be foreign in this new world, a tourist doing tourist things and getting slapped around for doing being a tourist. [Do not be stupid, stupid.]
The MC can still turn back and go home; this is not the point of no return, so do not seal off his escape. He/she must think there is no way back from this.
Act 2
This is the most significant part of the structure, as you can see from the diagram I made at the beginning of this article. It is the meat of the story, this is where the fun and games happen, the training of the MC, the murder of the B- Story, and where the MC tries to learn the theme and fails.
Midpoint
You know that part of the movie or novel when the heroes think they have won and everything seems fine, but then all of a sudden they learn they have walked right into the villain’s trap? Or even when the villains beat the heroes because they were not ready?
The Midpoint is where all of that happens. It is the halfway point of the movie or novel. From here, it is all downhill like a car heading straight for a wall. That wall being Act 3.
The Climax of Act 2
Once the hero has had a taste of defeat, has failed at learning the theme a couple of times, and has lost everything to the Main Opponent. Then and only then is the MC is ready to take on the Main Opponent. This is when the MC realizes the theme. He/She knows what they have to do, and this becomes the real point of no return.
Act 3
This is where everything comes to fruition. MC and the Main Opponent fight it out. Everything is a hair tip away from going the Main Opponent’s way, and where the love relationships have blossomed.
The MC needs to put his money where his mouth is and embody the theme, only through acceptance can the MC defeat the Main Opponent. Defeat could mean a lot of things, but usually, it means defeating the Main Opponent at what they do best or being superior to them by being opposite to them.
For example, if Main Opponent is good at drawing, the MC is terrible at drawing and then overcomes the Main Opponent. If the Main Opponent is a serial killer, the MC beats the Main Opponent by outwitting them and capturing them.
Finale
The Finale should tie up all loose ends and bring the story full circle or forward to a sequel if one is planned.
Conclusion
I ran through this pretty quickly, and not in super detail, I know. These are just the bare bone of the three-act structure. It is a common structure and the best way to get better at it is to see it in action in other mediums.
Another similar structure that goes into more depth would be the Save the Cat method. Save the Cat!: The Last Book on Screenwriting You’ll Ever Need by Blake Snyder and Save the Cat! Writes a Novel: The Last Book On Novel Writing You’ll Ever Need by Jessica Brody. These do the method more justice than a simple article. I might go into depth on that topic later.
That’s it from me, thank for reading.
