PLOT AND STRUCTURE – PART 2
THE THREE ACT STRUCTURE Beginning Middle and End
v Act 1 – The Beginning. The Set Up.
v Act 2 – The Middle. The Development.
v Act 3 – The End. The Resolution.
If you’ve been to the theatre you’ll know how the play is divided – Act 1, Act 2, Act 3. Watching movies at the cinema or on TV and, of course, reading books, you’ll have been aware of the action having a beginning, middle and end even if they’re not clearly indicated.
So, how does this tie in to the previous Narrative Structure in my blog Plot And Structure – Part 1? Easily. The Three Act Structure is simply a broader way of looking at things. Here’s the illustration again.
Beginning Middle End
The Beginning is exactly that; the Inciting Incident. Setting up the event that kick-starts the whole story. Your characters are in your head. Your job is to get them into words and into someone else’s head. Should your story start at Hello today, in order to finish at Goodbye tomorrow? Maybe. You’re the writer; you can shift time around if you want.
The End is what it says; the Climax and the Denouement – the Resolution; the Happy Ever After or Happy For Now, followed by tying up the loose ends. The way you develop your plot sets up questions for the reader such that they want to continue reading right to the end. This is where the issues will be resolved, the reader’s questions answered, the story’s goals achieved (Bond saves the world and gets the girl).
The Middle, you’ll never guess, is the big bit in between; the Development of the Crises or Plot Points and the Complications. Should your story cover everything in between Hello and Goodbye in a chronological fashion? Maybe.
You might want to have your characters move around in time. Flashbacks can throw light on current events. Some characters may not see the action within the same timescale as others; they could be looking back, for instance, or, as is sometimes the case in Science Fiction, looking forward (think Terminator).
The transition from one act to another is normally where a major Complication or Crisis occurs – a Plot Point, often called a cliffhanger; that will it/won’t it; will they/won’t they? moment. As you can see in the diagram, the three sections are separated by Plot Points; the two circles on the slope
Think about Cause – Effect – Cause. Your characters are constantly making choices and taking actions which bring about an effect. That effect causes more situations to arise needing further decisions. One character’s judgement moves another who does something to affect the state of affairs, and so on. These are the twists and turns of your plot. What is your protagonist’s aim? What are your other players’ aims? Do they remain the same throughout the story?
These are all the things for you to consider that take place in the Middle.
For an easy-to-follow example of the two structures outlined in my blogs Plot and Structure Parts 1 and 2 go to Cinderella Plot and Structure Part 3.
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