Solid plotting is critical to screenwriters. Movies are
expected to deliver stories with the complexity and depth of a novel but in
much less time. The average screenplay is 110 pages with lots of white on the
page. That means we have to be very efficient. As a result, Hollywood has
developed a “three act structure” concept of plotting.
But before I get into the three act structure, I want to
discuss the foundation of narrative. This may seem a little basic at first, but
there is a method to my madness. I want to show that the three act approach is
not some Hollywood formula but grows out of the fundamental nature of
storytelling.
So let me start by addressing the question: What is a story?
Next, the character must be facing some kind of dilemma. I
don’t really care to hear about someone whose life is just fine. I mean, that’s
great for them, but how does it affect me? Whatever it is that causes us to
respond to made-up stories has something to do with watching how people deal
with problems.
Finally, a story needs a resolution. I’m
watching/listening/reading to find out how this character deals with their
problem. I’m not going to be satisfied until I see how it all comes out.
If you have those three things, you have a story — even a
thirty-second narrative commercial has them. A young man (character) is not
getting good gas mileage (dilemma) so he tries a different type of gasoline and
his mileage improves (resolution).
But simply having a character, dilemma, and resolution doesn’t
necessarily make the story dramatic. If you have a guy sitting in his living
room whose dilemma is that he’s hungry and he goes into the kitchen to make a
sandwich you have a story…but not a very dramatic one.
There are two things that affect how dramatic your story is:
stakes and obstacles. The more that’s at stake for the character and the
greater the obstacles standing in the way of successfully resolving the
dilemma, the more dramatic your story becomes. Of course “dramatic” isn’t quite
the same as “good” but we’ll get to that.
Those five things — character, dilemma, resolution, stakes
and obstacles — are the basis of three-act structure. In act one we introduce a
character with a dilemma and show what’s at stake. In act two the character
tries to resolve their dilemma but faces increasing obstacles. And in act three
we get some kind of resolution (not necessarily successful, but final.)
Now let’s look at the components of three act structure. Probably the most important is the Dramatic Question. If you understand nothing else but the Dramatic Question and the Moment of Failure (which I’ll get to in a bit) you’ll probably end up with a fairly well structured story.
The Dramatic Question is the structural spine of your story.
On some level all Dramatic Questions can be boiled down to “Will the character
solve their dilemma?” Of course that’s not very helpful to the writer trying to
crack a particular story. You need to ask that question with the specifics of
your character and dilemma.
So in Star Wars
(written by George Lucas) the question is “Will Luke Skywalker defeat Darth
Vadar?” In E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial
(written by Melissa Mathison) it’s “Can Elliot save E.T.?” In Little Miss Sunshine (written by Michael
Arndt) it’s “Will Olive win the beauty pageant?”
Those sound simple, right? Simpler is better when it comes
to the Dramatic Question. But it’s not always easy to be simple. You have to
know who your character is and what their dilemma is before you can craft a
nice simple Dramatic Question. But then if you haven’t figured out your
character and their dilemma, you’re not really ready to start writing yet
anyway!
I also think it’s good to phrase the Dramatic Question as a
yes or no question. So it’s not “Who will Susan marry?” it’s “Will Susan marry
Bill?” Keeping it yes/no helps you tightly focus your narrative.
The Dramatic Question is not the theme of your movie. It’s not
the hook. It’s not necessarily the character arc (sometimes it is, but not
usually.) It doesn’t define whether your story is sophisticated or facile.
Do not think the Dramatic Question determines the quality of
your story. It’s simply the spine on which you’re going to build your story. What
you hang on that spine is going to determine how good your script is. Just
because a person doesn’t collapse under the weight of their own body doesn’t
mean they’re beautiful, intelligent, interesting, or emotionally complex. However,
if your spine isn’t solid, none of the other stuff is going to work properly
either.
How to use the Dramatic Question in your story
The Dramatic Question is an unspoken agreement with the
audience. It tells them what the scope and shape of the story is going to be. They
need to know what the question is fairly early in the proceedings or you will
lose them. If too much time passes before they understand the Dramatic Question
they’re liable to walk out of the theater or turn the DVD off or put down your
script. They’ll say something like, “I couldn’t figure out what the movie was
about.”
The moment when the Dramatic Question becomes clear is
called the Catalyst. The Catalyst is where the audience understands who the
main character is and what their basic dilemma is. They may not understand the
entire dimension of the problem, but they have an idea what the story arc will
be about.
So in E.T. the
catalyst is when Elliot sees E.T. for the first time. We don’t yet know that
his mission will ultimately be to get E.T. home or even that first he’ll have
to hide E.T. And we don’t know that E.T. will start dying from the Earth
environment. But we know that this kid who nobody takes seriously just found a
little lost alien — and that some scary men are looking for it. We have a
character with a dilemma.
Similarly, when the audience knows the outcome of the
Dramatic Question, your story is over. The audience will stick with you for a
few minutes of wrap up, but if you go on too long after resolving the dramatic
question, they’re going to get restless. They’ll say things like, “it was
anti-climactic” or “it had too many endings.”
Once E.T. takes off in his space ship, the movie ends. Credits
roll. The story is over. Compare that to the Lord of the Rings trilogy (screenplay by Fran Walsh & Philippa
Boyens & Peter Jackson). The Dramatic Question is “Can Frodo destroy the
ring?” He does, but then the movie continues for another forty minutes or so. Kind
of got tedious didn’t it? The story was over. We wanted to go home.
The structural beat where you answer the Dramatic Question
is called the Resolution.
There’s one other critical structural concept you need to
understand. That is the moment of apparent failure (or success). Whatever the
Resolution to your Dramatic Question is, there needs to be a moment where the
opposite appears to be inevitable. If your character succeeds at the end, you
need a moment where it appears the character must fail. And if your character
fails at the end, you need a moment where they appear about to succeed.
This moment should come late in the story as the tension is
building toward the climax. We need it so the audience can’t predict how the
movie’s going to unfold. We may know that in a big Hollywood movie the hero
will beat the bad guy and get the girl, but we shouldn’t be able to figure out
how they’ll accomplish that. In screenwriting, we call this moment of apparent
failure/success the Act Two Break.
Breaking Your Story into Three Acts
Now let’s discuss how you apply the three act structure to
your story. It might be useful if I first point out that there are no actual
act breaks in a movie. A movie is a continuous experience. In a play there
often are act breaks — the curtain comes down, the lights come up and the
audience goes out to the lobby for a drink. In TV there are act breaks that are
filled by commercials. But in feature films there are no actual breaks in the
narrative.
Instead, when we say “act break,” we’re talking about a
literary concept. We use act breaks to discuss critical turning points in the
story. Since this is a literary concept it can be subjective. You and I might
disagree on the act breaks in a given story. There’s no way to tell who’s right
and who’s wrong. As a writer you identify the act breaks in the way that is
most useful to you in telling your story.
So, we have our Dramatic Question that is introduced in the
Catalyst and answered in the Resolution. Typically, the Catalyst comes around
page ten of your screenplay. The Resolution should probably come in the last
six to eight pages. That leaves a lot of pages in between. We could use some
structural landmarks to help us out.
As I said earlier, the first act is the section of your
story where you introduce your character, their dilemma, and what’s at stake. This
typically takes up the first fourth of your screenplay. Sometime around page
twenty-five or thirty there will be an act break — The First Act Break. This is
the point at which your character embarks on the journey of the movie,
sometimes known as the “point of no return.”
The second act takes up roughly the middle half of your
screenplay. This is where the character tries to solve their problem but faces
escalating obstacles and, ideally, escalating stakes. It ends at the Second Act
Break, which I’ve already mentioned is the point of apparent success or
failure.
The third act, then, takes up roughly the last quarter of
your screenplay. It provides the climactic resolution to your story.
So now let’s look at the major signposts of the three act
structure in order, adding a few other beats to help keep things moving:
Generally you want to spend a little time showing the
character in their status quo before introducing the catalyst of the story. We
need to get to know who the character is so we can understand how the story
changes them.
For example, in E.T. we
see Elliot at home. His parents are divorced and his father has moved out. His
older brother and his friends are playing a game. Elliot wants to play, but they
won’t let him. And when he claims something strange is out in the shed, nobody
takes him seriously. He’s longing to fit in but ignored.
It’s usually best if you show the most interesting part of
your character’s status quo, not the most boring. We meet Indiana Jones
escaping traps, traitorous assistants and angry tribesmen — not doing his
laundry! This is why it’s usually not a good idea to open your movie with your
character waking up in the morning — that’s seldom the most interesting part of
someone’s day.
The Catalyst
The Catalyst is the point at which the main character and
their dilemma are made clear to the audience. It’s when the Dramatic Question
gets asked. So in Little Miss Sunshine
the catalyst is when we learn that Olive has gotten into the pageant, but it’s
in Los Angeles in a couple days. Now interestingly, the main character of this
movie is the father, Richard. He’s the one whose decisions are driving the
action. But the Dramatic Question centers on Olive: Will she win the pageant?
In this case Richard’s goal is to help his daughter be a winner.
In Star Wars, the
catalyst is when Luke Skywalker sees R2D2 project the hologram of Princess Leia
and decides he wants to help her. The audience knows that Leia is being held by
Darth Vadar and that Vadar is looking for R2D2. The Dramatic Question becomes, “Will
Luke beat Darth Vadar?” Note that Luke doesn’t even know about Vadar yet and
that the audience doesn’t know the Death Star will eventually come to threaten
the rebel base. We don’t need all these details, we simply need to understand
what the core of the story is going to be about. We know Luke has a dilemma
even if he doesn’t!
Act One Break
The Act One Break is the point at which the character
actually embarks on the journey of the story. It’s sometimes known as the “point
of no return.” I think that’s a good way to look at it — from here on out the
character has no choice but to see this through to the end. If the character
can walk away from the story without losing anything there isn’t much tension. At
the Act One Break you have to trap them in the story.
The Act One Break in Little
Miss Sunshine is when the family sets out on their road trip to California.
In Star Wars the Act One Break is
when Luke goes with Obi Wan to Mos Eisley to find a pilot to take them into
space. The Act One Break in E.T. is
when Elliot first feels E.T.’s feelings when E.T. is scared by an umbrella. At
that point E.T. and Elliot are linked. If Elliot doesn’t help the little alien,
there are going to be serious consequences for him.
In all these cases, if the character walks away from the
story after this point they will fail in their goal and suffer for it. They are
locked in.
Midpoint
As you might expect, the Midpoint is a beat that occurs in
the middle of the movie, which also makes it the middle of Act Two. The concept
of the Midpoint is fairly straightforward, though its use and purpose can vary
a lot. I know several successful screenwriters who don’t give any thought to
the midpoint and I’ve seen movies that don’t have a traditional midpoint. It
doesn’t really seem to be a required beat. But it can be a valuable milestone
to help us keep things moving. If used well, it can be the tent pole that
supports Act Two.
Traditionally the Midpoint mirrors the Resolution and is
opposite to the Act Two Break. If your character is going to succeed at their
goal in the Resolution, then the Midpoint should be a moment of success and the
Act Two Break will be a moment of failure. If the character will fail in the
Resolution, then the Midpoint will be a moment of failure and the Act Two Break
a moment of success. In this way we’ll have a story that has dramatic peaks and
valleys.
So in Star Wars,
the midpoint is Luke rescuing Princess Leia from the prison cell. It’s a moment
of success in a movie where ultimately Luke will succeed in defeating Darth
Vadar.
In Little Miss
Sunshine Olive actually fails to win the pageant at the resolution. Though
the movie has a “happy” ending emotionally, in terms of the Dramatic Question
Richard is ultimately unsuccessful. The Act Two Break is when the family
finally arrives at the pageant and Richard manages to get registered in the
nick of time — a moment of success. The Midpoint, then, is when Grandpa dies, a
big setback that mirrors the resolution.
The Midpoint often twists the story in a new direction or
adds a new element. It’s also a good place to raise the stakes. In E.T. the Midpoint is when E.T. figures
out his plan to “phone home,” but it’s also the point when they first realize
E.T. and Eliot are getting sick. So we both add a new element — the plan — and
increase the consequences of failure.
The Act Two Break
The Act Two Break is one of the most critical beats of your
story. It’s often referred to as the “lowest moment,” though I don’t like that
because I think it’s misleading. Seldom do I see a successful story where
things start getting better right after the Act Two Break. I think “moment of
greatest failure” is a better description. It’s also sometimes called the “all
is lost” moment, which is pretty good. The point is that this is when it looks
like your character is doomed to fail. The Act Two Break in E.T. is E.T. apparently dying and the
breaking of the psychic link with Elliot.
That assumes, of course, that ultimately your character will
succeed. Some stories, like Little Miss
Sunshine, end with the character failing in their goal, and in this case
you have to reverse the Act Two Break. It becomes the moment of greatest
success. Gangster movies often work this way — the gangster seizes control of
the gang at the end of Act Two and looks like he’ll be unstoppable. But by the
end he’ll be lying dead in the street, riddled with bullets.
Why is this so important? Because the ending won’t be
satisfying unless it’s hard to achieve. And you don’t want your movie to feel
completely predictable. This is the point where the audience needs to think, “Boy,
I know the hero must be going to beat the bad guy and get the girl (this is a
movie, after all), but I sure don’t know how he’s going to do it. It seems
hopeless.”
Hope and fear come into play here. What is the audience
rooting for? Do they want the character to succeed or fail? (Both are
possibilities depending on your premise.) This is the moment where you make
them think the opposite might actually happen. Or in a tragedy you make them
think they might get the ending they want, only to snatch it away from them. Romeo
and Juliet hatch a plan to run away together… maybe it will all work out after
all….
The Act Two Break in Star
Wars is when our heroes escape the Death Star in the Millennium Falcon… but
we learn that Darth Vadar has put a tracking device on their ship. It’s their
biggest failure because they’re going to lead the bad guys right to the rebel
base.
The Epiphany
When the character has really hit rock bottom (or the height
of their success), that’s when the Epiphany comes. This is the twist that shows
us how the character is going to succeed (or fail) after all. In Star Wars the Epiphany is the briefing
scene when the general explains the weakness in the Death Star. Luke now knows
how he can beat Darth Vader. Most often the character themselves has the
realization, but sometimes the character has already figured it out and it’s
the audience who’s let in on the secret.
It’s important here that you avoid the Deus Ex Machina
ending. This is an ending where some outside force saves the day for the
character. The term comes from Aristotle and means literally “God in the
Machine,” referring to those ancient plays where an actor playing Zeus would be
lowered in a basket to sort everything out for the characters. A more modern
equivalent would be the cavalry to the rescue in a western. Endings where the
character succeeds by pure luck also fall into this category.
To avoid this, the Epiphany must be set up. Whatever
realization the character has must be planted, usually around the midpoint. We
know Princess Leia has put something into R2D2. Luke has rescued Leia and
brought her and the ’droid back to the rebels. When it is revealed that the robot
contains the Death Star plans and that these reveal a weakness, it feels
organic because the elements have been planted and Luke was critical to
bringing them together. But the audience was kept in the dark just enough so
that they didn’t know how this twist would come about.
In Little Miss
Sunshine, the epiphany is when Richard realizes he loves Olive more than he
cares about winning. He wants to stop her from competing in the pageant for
fear she’ll be humiliated. He hasn’t quite figured out how he’s going to
succeed (Olive does compete) but he’s had the key realization he needs for the
Resolution.
In E.T., the
epiphany is when Elliot realizes E.T. isn’t actually dead and they’ve succeeded
in contacting his people after all. This may seem a bit convenient, but notice
that Elliot is far from done here. He now has to get E.T. out of the heavily
guarded house and to the landing site. He knows how to succeed, but he still has to do it.
The Resolution
The Resolution is the climax of the movie. It should be big
and exciting and emotional. It is also the moment when the Dramatic Question is
answered either positively or negatively. Thus, it is what we’ve been waiting
for since the Catalyst.
In addition to making this a big moment, it is crucial that
you make it a final moment. The Dramatic Question must be answered definitively.
If our hero can just go out and try again, then we don’t feel like the question
is resolved. The Resolution must be the last chance for success or failure. If
Luke can’t destroy the Death Star, then the rebellion will be crushed. It’s not
just another battle; it’s the climactic battle.
The resolution is usually pretty obvious. Luke destroys the
Death Star. E.T. gets to the spaceship. In Little
Miss Sunshine, Richard gets up onstage with Olive and dances with her in
support, and in defiance of the pageant people who want Olive off the stage. Olive
may lose the pageant, answering the Dramatic Question in the negative, but the
previously dysfunctional family has come together.
These are the structural stages Hollywood screenwriters use
to build well-plotted scripts. Of course, a well-structured script isn’t the
same as a good script. You still have to write the actual characters and scenes.
But if you have a strong plot, then you have a solid foundation that will allow
you to tell a truly great story.
Douglas J. Eboch wrote the original script for the movie Sweet Home Alabama. He teaches at Art Center College of Design and lectures internationally. He writes a blog about screenwriting where he shares techniques like the ones in this article. Check out his other projects, including his Sweet Home Alabama prequel novels and his novel Totally Rad Wormhole here.
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