Act Structure

Confession: I think my shyness is only on an average basis. After a day or two of being outgoing, it takes a week of solitude to center myself.

Reading:

• "Pa's Darling," by Louis Auchincloss
• Superior Saturday, by Garth Nix

Writing:

• Untitled Dark Fantasy Project

Revising:

• "Cora and the Sea"

Movies tend to have clearly defined acts. Some books do, some don't. My question is, should they? And if so, how can it be done well?

By an act, I mean a discrete chunk of a story with its own miniature rising action, climax, and falling action. I think acts are shorthand for the person experiencing a story. After all, you can't keep in your mind simultaneously all of the details of a plot. So you break it up into parts whose import you can remember.

For example, I just watched Hellboy today. (The original, not the recent sequel.) I had a pretty well defined four act structure. In the first, we got Hellboy's origins and a taste of the relationship with his father. (The details of Nazi portal machines and candy bars are unimportant.) In the second, we see the adult character in action, see what he can do.

Both of these acts end with a success, or at least a perceived success. In the third, we get a failure for the first time. Well, it's a success in that the main heroes live to fight on, but they suffer loss. In the fourth, there is an even more major loss, as Hellboy loses his adopted father.

The trend appears to continue into the fifth act until, at the end, the day is improbably saved by a confluence of everything that came before.

I think the early successes are important to a story, because they are what make us root for a character. We learn their capabilities and their weaknesses, and that makes later failures and successes believable.

By the same token, the later failures are very important, because they draw the characters out of the routine and into the exceptional, the sort of exceptionality that can only be found in trying circumstances.

In creating plot, then, it is best to be aware of the act structure without becoming a slave to it. After all, it's the result that's important, not the theory, and surely there are many exceptions to the rule.

Publication Status:

• Submitted: 2
• Accepted: 1
• Rejected: 1