The Three-Part Act III
Hope my U.S. friends had a happy Thanksgiving, and that everyone’s enjoying the weekend.
So we’re in the Nanowrimo home stretch! But honestly, I don’t expect that many people doing Nano are into Act III already. Remember, you don’t have to get all the way to the end of your book this month! To me, Nanowrimo isn’t about finishing a book, although it can be really really useful when you’re on a deadline. But these are what I see as the main benefits of doing Nano:
Writing consistently for a month will help you develop a writing-every-single-day routine.
Doing a month’s straight writing will help you figure our how many words, or pages or hours, constitutes a good day’s writing for you.
Yes, it can help you power through a first draft!
And most important: You write fast enough to turn off your internal, infernal censor!
Of course you realize that you don’t need to do Nanowrimo to do a month-long writing intensive. Or two weeks or one week. Do a weekend! Do what you can. Maybe take a day this Thanksgiving weekend.
Just do it.
So anyway, after all that, maybe you are approaching Act III - and now I know from the poll that a lot of you are rewriting right now! So let’s see what goes into that last, thrilling act.
The Three-Part Act III
From Screenwriting Tricks for Authors, ©Alexandra Sokoloff
To learn how to craft a great third act, you have to look specifically at the endings that work for you. So, as usual, make a list:
If you haven’t done it already, stop now, and make your Master List of ten best endings. And of course, add it to your Master Lists notebook!
Now that you have some endings in mind, let’s see what they (probably!) have in common.
Act III is generally the final 20 to 30 minutes in a film, or the last 70 to 100 pages in a 400-page novel. The final quarter, and the shortest quarter. At least, it should feel like the shortest quarter! You definitely don’t want to drag it out.
In a shorter film or book, Act III can be quite simple, basically just two things: a FINAL BATTLE and RESOLUTION. It can often be one continuous sequence: the chase and confrontation, or confrontation and chase. There may be a final preparation for battle, or it might be done on the fly.
But in a lot of Act III’s, you see a bit more than that - but it’s still simple. And here’s a useful pattern to be aware of.
Act III is very often divided into two major sequences, and a third, shorter, but important sequence or scene:
1. Getting there (STORMING THE CASTLE)
2. The FINAL BATTLE itself
3. The RESOLUTION and NEW WAY OF LIFE
And I hope this Three-Part Act III concept will take away some of your anxiety about writing it!
Here’s an overview of the elements you find in each part.
In SEQUENCE SEVEN:
• Either here or in the last part of Act II:2, the hero/ine will make a new, FINAL PLAN based on the new information/revelation of the Act II climax.
• The PLAN generally involves STORMING THE CASTLE, either a metaphorical CASTLE, or sometimes a real one! The Castle is most often the ANTAGONIST’S HOME TURF, and it’s a bit of a journey: the hero/ine will have to get there and get in.
• There may be a TICKING CLOCK
• The hero/ine may REASSEMBLE THE TEAM, and there may be another short TRAINING SEQUENCE and/or GATHERING THE TOOLS scene.
• The team often goes in together, first, and there is a big TEAM BATTLE that climaxes Sequence Seven
• In this battle, we possibly see the ALLY/ALLIES’ CHARACTER CHANGES and/or gaining of their desire(s)
• We may LOSE AN ALLY/ALLIES, or at least think we lose them
• We also often get the DEFEAT OF SECONDARY OPPONENTS
In SEQUENCE EIGHT:
• The hero/ine goes into the FINAL BATTLE to face the antagonist alone, MANO A MANO
• The final battle takes place in a THEMATIC LOCATION: inside the Castle, the Villain’s Home Turf: and is often a visual and literal representation of the HERO/INE’S GREATEST NIGHTMARE
• We see the protagonist’s CHARACTER ARC
• We may see the ANTAGONIST’S CHARACTER ARC, too (but often there is none)
• We get a glimpse of the TRUE NATURE OF THE ANTAGONIST
• Possibly there is a huge FINAL REVERSAL or reveal (TWIST), or even a whole series of payoffs that you’ve been saving (as in Back to the Future and It’s A Wonderful Life)
Then in the RESOLUTION or EPILOGUE we have these elements:
• FULL CIRCLE: Not every story uses this technique, but often the hero/ine returns to home or a significant place we saw at the beginning of the story, and we see their character growth.
• RESOLUTION: We get a glimpse into the New Way of Life that the hero/ine will be living after this whole journey/ordeal and all they’ve learned from it.
• CEREMONY AND AWARDS: Not all stories have this element, but mythic structure stories very often have a step in the Resolution in which the hero/ine and team are honored by the community that they have just saved. In romance, the ceremony may be a wedding, or a holiday celebraion.
• FINAL BOWS: We need to see all our favorite characters one final time (this may happen earlier, in the Team Battle, or it may be combined with the Ceremony).
• CLOSING IMAGE: Which is often a variation of the Opening Image.
Since we Americans inevitably spend time over Thanksgiving weekend parked in front of some screen, why not take the opportunity to look for these elements in whatever movie you might end up watching?
Have a good one!!
Alex
Read on to look at these elements more closely! You can also find much more discussion of Act III in:
Stealing Hollywood, Chapters 15, 16, 19, 21 and throughout the Story Breakdowns section
Writing Love, Chapters 16 through 21 and throughout the Story Breakdowns section
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Thank you. This is great help, but I'd like to know if any of these change in a tragedy?