# The three act structure



## Firekeeper (Dec 22, 2013)

I've heard of it, but have no clue how to use it. I know it goes setup, build-up, payoff, something like that, but how do you know when to end each act, how long should each act be....that kind of thing.

I think learning how to use it would help solve my issue of being able to create good beginnings and good endings, but the middle of my plots are extremely lacking. 

Any insight would be awesome


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## Feo Takahari (Dec 22, 2013)

I'm not sure the three-act structure is necessarily a solution to your problem, so I'd like to ask for more details on what exactly that problem is. You say that you write good beginnings and good endings. What makes those beginnings and endings good, and why is that not present in middles?


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## Firekeeper (Dec 22, 2013)

I started a thread on that here: http://mythicscribes.com/forums/writing-questions/10823-when-do-you-give-up.html

This is the only forum I've ever been on, so wasn't sure how to do this, because it's kind of two different issues, because I do want to know about the three act structure. This whole forum thing is weird to me. If the mods see fit to merge them, that's cool.


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## Firekeeper (Dec 22, 2013)

But...ok like I have a good amount of conflict in my beginnings and endings. I can set up a story really well, I can introduce the characters, set the stakes and draw you into the world. And I can close it out pretty well too; I'm good at setting the stage for the final confrontation, conflict resolution and winding up subplots

But the middle just seems to fizzle. My plot developments just don't seem to flow. Like the beginning of one story I have, my 'hero' accepts a task to kill a fallen angel, and he decides to seek out a sword that kill angles, but after obtaining it from its guardian he loses it. He had to go deep into a cavern to get it, and when he 'wins' it he drops it into a deep gorge, and he can't retrieve it. A cruel trick of fate. 

At the end, he has discovered another way to stop the angel. The angel is trying to "hitch a ride" back to heaven on the backs of souls of people he kills, so my hero binds his soul to a gem and allows himself to be killed by the angel, and when he tries to hitch a ride on my hero's soul, he becomes trapped within the gem as well. It's.....not as cool telling it here, what I have written is much better than a short explanation. 

But every time I try to fill in the middle, like how he discovers what the angel is trying to do, how he learns how to bind his soul....stuff like that I have no clue how to write. Every attempt just seems to lack the tension and conflict of my beginning and end. 

Everything I come up with just seems to be there to be there, you know?


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## Feo Takahari (Dec 22, 2013)

Your "beginning" sounds like it could be a story of its own, with its own three-act structure. You create the problem (fallen angel needs to be killed), you have the protagonist attempt to resolve it (get the sword), and you have the conclusion (protagonist's efforts were unsuccessful; sword can't be retrieved.) Many stories can be framed as fractals--the structure of the overall story is also the structure of the subplots, which is in turn the structure of individual arcs--so in this case, you might benefit from trying to extrapolate the structure of your beginning into the structure of the story. Each attack on the problem of the fallen angel comes with its own attempt at resolution and its own conclusion, and each can potentially deepen the protagonist's larger issue of "Is there even a way to defeat this angel?"


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## Penpilot (Dec 23, 2013)

Here's something I posted on it a while ago.



> If you use a three act structure. There are certain types of things that need to happen in the acts and the transitions from one act to another. There are various theories on structure. No one structure is right, but knowing structure(s), allows me to view a story from differ angles and see what I have and what's missing. I use three different structures to shape my stories. There's the classic 3 act structure, there's a 15 story beat structure that I found in a screen writing book called Save the Cat, and finally there's the seven point plot structure, described by author Dan Wells, I found on youtube.
> 
> Here's a simple run down of how I see a story. It's not original, but maybe it'll give you ideas. I'll use Star Wars as an example.
> 
> ...


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## Ireth (Dec 23, 2013)

I like the Star Wars example, but I think the numbers can vary a bit. In one of my WIPs, the MC reaches the "break into act 2" point at the end of chapter 2, when he realizes that his world and people are under threat, and decides he wants to be the first to do something to prevent it. That's hardly 25% of the story, even at the point I'm at in the writing (just started chapter 13 of an estimated 36 or more). I'm sure other people's stories may have different numbers too.

Could you perhaps elaborate a little more on the other structures you mentioned?


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## Penpilot (Dec 23, 2013)

Ireth said:


> Could you perhaps elaborate a little more on the other structures you mentioned?



Here's a link to a pdf which describes the 15 beat story structure.

http://files.meetup.com/138890/Blake Snyder Beat Sheet - Explained.pdf


Here's a link to Dan Well's blog entry with a link to a video where he drescribes his 7 point structure in depth with lots of examples. Also there's a power point file you can download that you can use for reference during and after the video.
How to Build a Story (Now on Video!) Ã‚Â« Dan Wells

Also they did a writing excuses expisode on it if you want to hear Dan describe it some more.
Writing Excuses 7.41: Seven-Point Story Structure Ã‚Â» Writing Excuses

Also, heres a link to a blog where someone did a quick run down on the structure.
Dan WellsÃ¢€™s Seven-Point Story Stucture | To Eat a Peach

These sources can explain the concepts better than I can but if you need any clarifications on things just ask.


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## Bansidhe (Dec 24, 2013)

Three act structure comes from the plays of Ancient Greece (it's also known as Aristotle's Incline). I look at it like plot architecture; the scaffolding around which I build my story. It does wonders for pacing and for figuring out what comes next, even if you're a pantser. There are any number of books that can break it down for you, but here's how I use it:

ACT I: 

-Setup
-Inciting Incident (10%)
-Plot Point 1 (25%) 

ACT II:

-Pinch Point 1 (37.5%)--added complication, potentially told from the Villain's POV 
-Midpoint (50%)--Everything changes!
-Pinch Point 2 (62.5%)--added complication, etc.

ACT III:

-Plot Point 2 (75%)
-Climax (90%)
-Catharsis (100%)

How you use these plot points depends entirely on your story, but they're all turning points of some sort in the primary, or potentially all, your story arcs. The best way I've found of studying it is to watch movies on your computer by watching the streaming bar on the bottom of your screen. At the 10% mark, what happens? Do the same for each plot point. Or by gauging your progress through books by the page number. As you deconstruct (or reverse engineer) stories, you can't help but see story structure everywhere you go.

Larry Brooks at Story Fix (Novel Writing Tips & Fundamentals Ã¢â‚¬“ Storyfix.com does an excellent job of providing instruction on what he refers to as Story Engineering. I believe he also has a .pdf available that illustrates the sorts of things that belong in each act. 

Story engineering was a game changer for me, to be sure!


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## Firekeeper (Dec 25, 2013)

Om my great goodness that is exactly what I was looking for. All great advice in this thread to be sure, Penpilot's post was really awesome but yours is exactly what I needed; I've googled and googled but could find anything half as good as what has been provided by everyone here.


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## wordwalker (Dec 25, 2013)

There's a lot of good advice here.

Still, the 3-act is best known for showing up in plays, and then Syd Field wrote about finding it in almost every movie he could find. It's a great structure, but keep in mind the milestones and ratios can be a lot more flexible when you're writing 80K or 150K of words instead of 110 mass-marketed minutes of film. If the book is going to be 160K maybe you should design Act One to be the recommended 25%, 40,000 words-- but maybe you shouldn't.


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## Greed (Jan 19, 2014)

I used the 'Monomyth' story structure, as described by Joseph Campbell, in order to give some shape and guidance to my NaNoWriMo novel last year. 

It splits the story into three basic sections: departure, initiation and return. 

I literally took the circle diagram and made a ton of notes around it fitting my story into it where it could. I was amazed at how it clarified and improved certain elements of my story, gave certain characters a purpose beyond what I had originally given them and helped me work out which settings and scenes should go where in the story. 

I did feel a bit like I was cheating, and it may have made the story feel like a more formulaic fantasy quest-tale but in the end I felt happy with it all.


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## A. E. Lowan (Jan 20, 2014)

Yeah, that beast often goes by the common genre name "The Hero's Journey," and sometimes also gets tucked into a three act structure, depending on the writer and how they structure their plots.  Nice job making the connection!


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## WooHooMan (Jan 20, 2014)

The three-act structure is often associated with the Hero's Journey but it's been around much longer.  I heard it goes as far back as Aristotle.
The structure is based around set-up (beginning), build-up (middle) and pay-off (end).  Even jokes fit this structure.  

"Knock Knock"  "Who's there?"
 "Orange."  "Orange who?"
"Orange you glad I didn't say banana?"

There's a three-act story with only 15 words.  It can be any length and any level of complexity.
In fact, the only other story structure I've heard about is a Japanese theatre structure which uses five acts.

So, three acts are basically the way you do it.

Also, I feel I should point out that the Hero's Journey is not a story template or even a tool for writing.  It was meant to be a tool for analyzing fiction.


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## Reaver (Jan 20, 2014)

WooHooMan said:


> Also, I feel I should point out that the Hero's Journey is not a story template or even a tool for writing.  It was meant to be a tool for analyzing fiction.



True, but it sure worked  really well for George Lucas.


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## Helen (Jan 20, 2014)

WooHooMan said:


> I feel I should point out that the Hero's Journey is not a story template or even a tool for writing.



It's used as such all the time: clickokDOTcoDOTuk - YouTube


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## WooHooMan (Jan 20, 2014)

Helen said:


> It's used as such all the time: clickokDOTcoDOTuk - YouTube





WooHooMan said:


> It was meant to be a tool for analyzing fiction.



It seems like this guy is using it for its intended purpose.


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## Greed (Jan 21, 2014)

I think that although it's not necessarily _meant_ to be used as a writing tool, if you feel like you're wading through mud then it can be a useful rope. And it seems to be something that people do naturally when story-telling whether or not you acknowledge it whilst formulating the story. 

This reminds me of The Prestige,  which explains that in magic there are three stages to every trick: the pledge (present the audience with an object), the turn (make the object become/do something extraordinary) and the prestige (return the object to it's original state). I suppose that this version of the Three Acts applies to fiction just as well as magic: You present a character (let's try Frodo), you make him disappear and/or go through some extraordinary circumstances (all of Frodo's adventures, particularly after the fellowship breaks) and then reappear (he does return, right down to returning to Hobbiton to kick out Saruman's evil army). I suppose this could also be said to happen to the worlds in which these stories are set; which are on the brink of destruction, only to be saved at the vital moment by the hero(es). It's interesting how often this trilogy aspect recurs in story telling and human performative culture in general. Even our lives go through childhood, adulthood and old age. Not to mention several religious or mythological narratives.


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## Helen (Jan 25, 2014)

WooHooMan said:


> It seems like this guy is using it for its intended purpose.





Greed said:


> I think that although it's not necessarily _meant_ to be used as a writing tool



Doesn't matter whether it's meant to be used as a writing tool or not. We know that it IS being used as a writing tool. The Hobbit and Percy Jackson movies are obvious examples. Writers / authors ADMIT to using it as a writing tool.


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## Greed (Jan 26, 2014)

Helen said:


> Doesn't matter whether it's meant to be used as a writing tool or not. We know that it IS being used as a writing tool. The Hobbit and Percy Jackson movies are obvious examples. Writers / authors ADMIT to using it as a writing tool.



I was agreeing with you; in my earlier post I wrote about how I used it as a writing tool. 
When I said "I think that although..." I was responding to, and disagreeing with, this statement: 



WooHooMan said:


> It was meant to be a tool for analyzing fiction.




Surely since both of those movies are adaptations you're really suggesting that the writers of the novels used it as a writing tool?


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## Helen (Jan 30, 2014)

Greed said:


> Surely since both of those movies are adaptations you're really suggesting that the writers of the novels used it as a writing tool?



I think the "going on a journey" and what happens on it (character-wise) template has been around for thousands of years. I think Tolkien et al used a version of that.

What we call "hero's journey" has come to be identified with Campbell's steps, which I think is only a small part of the larger template.


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## wordwalker (Jan 30, 2014)

Honestly, I think we're misapplying Campbell if we match his "Leave, Travel, Return" to the 3 acts.

The third act is the final buildup cycle and climax, often a fourth of the story (especially in Syd Field movie analysis). In Campbell the Return is usually after the climax: the dragon is slain and unlike _The Hobbit_ that pretty much ends the action, what's left is the hero bringing the treasure back and seeing how it changes life in the village he left. It's the celebration, and the Lesson Learned.

--Or the Return _could_ be the whole third act. It might make more narrative sense to say the real enemy is bearing down on the hero's hometown (or was hiding there all along) and so the third act is reconciling the lessons of the second (the time away) with the demands of home. Such as, convincing your neighbors to start fighting back after all. This makes a great arc for a third act, playing up that "getting the elixir" on an adventure wouldn't in itself convince Normal Folk to accept it. But only some modern stories do that; very few classic ones do.

More often, the third act is the last leg of the journey (or the trials at the far end of it), with the Return tacked on at the end.

Edit: also, I wouldn't match the first act with the Departure too often either. The hero's more likely to begin his journey (physically or otherwise) only partway through the first act; the act's end is when he faces the first challenge to really change him. (Eg in _The Hobbit_ again, trolls.)


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## Helen (Feb 4, 2014)

wordwalker said:


> Honestly, I think we're misapplying Campbell if we match his "Leave, Travel, Return" to the 3 acts.
> 
> The third act is the final buildup cycle and climax, often a fourth of the story (especially in Syd Field movie analysis). In Campbell the Return is usually after the climax: the dragon is slain and unlike _The Hobbit_ that pretty much ends the action, what's left is the hero bringing the treasure back and seeing how it changes life in the village he left. It's the celebration, and the Lesson Learned.
> 
> ...



You absolutely can apply hero's journey to three acts. It's done in movies all the time.


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## Jabrosky (Feb 4, 2014)

Has anyone considered that some perfectly solid stories may not fit the traditional "Hero's Journey" model of story structure? Take _Jurassic Park_ and _King Kong_ for example. While both definitely have a lot of conflict in them, neither of them is really about a central hero overcoming the odds against a central antagonist. What these narratives share instead are core themes that the stories were designed to articulate. In _Jurassic Park_, it's that we shouldn't try to control over things we don't fully understand. In _King Kong_, it's either that beauty can kill the beast or that humanity's greed is the real monster depending on which iteration you watch. Given this, I'd argue that communicating a clear theme can do just as many wonders for structuring stories as any Hero's Journey conventions.


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## wordwalker (Feb 5, 2014)

Helen said:


> You absolutely can apply hero's journey to three acts. It's done in movies all the time.



Sorry if I wasn't clear. Three acts fit very well with Hero's Journey; what I meant was that the Departure, Journey and Return aspects of it don't usually match the three acts, the Journey takes up much of the first and last acts as well as the middle. The acts split by dramatic buildup more than by location.

Jabrosky, it's true, some stories are less Campbell than others, and they all get to make their own themes. Hero's Journey is the kind of tool we should use by degrees, rather than build to fit the "great fantasy movie template of sameness" approach.


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## Helen (Feb 7, 2014)

Jabrosky said:


> Take _Jurassic Park_ and _King Kong_ for example. While both definitely have a lot of conflict in them, neither of them is really about a central hero overcoming the odds against a central antagonist.



Both of these movies are hero's journey. For example, both cross First Thresholds into New Worlds.

"central hero overcoming the odds against a central antagonist" is only a narrow interpretation of what hero's journey is.



Jabrosky said:


> In _Jurassic Park_, it's that we shouldn't try to control over things we don't fully understand. In _King Kong_, it's either that beauty can kill the beast or that humanity's greed is the real monster depending on which iteration you watch. Given this, I'd argue that communicating a clear theme can do just as many wonders for structuring stories as any Hero's Journey conventions.



Theme is always part of hero's journey. Star Wars and Matrix both have themes.



wordwalker said:


> Three acts fit very well with Hero's Journey; what I meant was that the Departure, Journey and Return aspects of it don't usually match the three acts



That's a contradiction, because hero's journey is departure, journey and return. You're just breaking into the acts in the wrong places.



wordwalker said:


> Hero's Journey is the kind of tool we should use by degrees, rather than build to fit the "great fantasy movie template of sameness" approach.



So many different stories use hero's journey that this argument of "sameness" doesn't apply.


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