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The three-act screenplay structure is a storytelling model that goes back to Aristotle's dramatic theory as outlined in Poetics. It is loosely defined as a narrative with a beginning, middle, and end. We can also think of the three-act structure as the Setup, the Confrontation, and the Resolution.
This article will explore the key ingredients of the three-act structure, the long history of this ancient dramatic theory, and how you can use a three-act structure to make your screenplay stand out.
If you are already well-versed in some aspects of the three-act structure, feel free to jump ahead. Otherwise, sit tight and we'll explain all the details as well as how Arc Studio can help you navigate the sometimes beguiling world of narrative structure.
In this article:
The three-act structure is a narrative model that separates stories into three distinct sections or acts.
Act I is the setup or exposition. This establishes the main characters and their goals.
Act II raises the stakes culminating in the confrontation between the hero and the villain.
Act III resolves the story. The hero returns home, somehow changed, and the final sequence can serve as a setup for a potential sequel.
The most important takeaway from Aristotle's theory is that the three sections are not just the beginning, middle, and end but individual events that logically follow each other.
The three-act structure is there to help you construct a compelling story full of suspense and tension.
Remember, you can plot all this out using the outlining features in Arc Studio Pro. That way, you'll never get lost as you write.
Much of the narrative theory we use today has its origins in Ancient Greece. Aristotle's Poetics first established the difference between verse drama (what we would call narratives), lyric poetry, and epic poems.
Dramatic verse and tragedies must have a plot he describes as an "organization of incidents" that takes us on a journey. More complex plots have multiple reversals and resolutions.
Aristotle was the first theorist to commit to paper the idea that a narrative had to be organized logically for it to make sense.
The action starts by confronting the hero with an external problem, often connected to the hero's internal or emotional state of being. Therefore, the first act poses the dramatic question "How can the hero solve these problems?" The promise of your story is that after Act III, the audience will know the answer.
Act I sets the stage and should feature the following:
At the beginning of a movie, the audience's mind is open as they haven't yet formed a frame for the story. Events of pure luck or chance seem much more plausible in the first act than in the second act. This can be a thematically powerful image or an early, exciting scene that grabs the audience's attention.
What kind of person is your hero, with what advantages and flaws? Show the goal your character wants or is pursuing. Any crucial characters for this phase of your main character's journey should also be introduced. The hero usually faces a problem or character flaw, or even more than one, to create dynamics between them. Here, you are setting up the different world of the second act.
Your first act plants the seed for what will grow into the theme of your story. Your hero wants one thing but needs another, which differs from their goal and is universal. By the movie's end, they will be more independent or responsible, less fearful or selfish, or have found love, faith, forgiveness, trust, or acceptance.
Once you've introduced your hero with their goal and theme, it's time for the call to action. This inciting incident is the catalyst that will send your hero off into the unknown. It needs to break the status quo of your main character and prevent them from going back to normal afterward. This event is an action that happens to the hero; they don't cause it.
Not many characters accept a life-changing event just like that. They assess the incident and consider their chances, but they are reluctant to go. So either they debate back and forth if they should go, or the call has to be repeated a second time to make them embark on their journey. If your hero is not yet ready to leave, they must gather tools or learn skills before going.
In The Matrix the audience is introduced to the protagonist, Thomas Anderson, known by his hacker alias Neo. This introduction is a masterful illustration of the first act's Setup.
1. Neo's Dual Life as a Programmer and Hacker:
Neo leads a dual life as a disenchanted computer programmer by day and a hacker by night. This duality sets the stage for his character's inner conflict and dissatisfaction with his mundane existence.
Scenes showing Neo at his regular job are juxtaposed with his secretive activities as a hacker. This contrast visually and thematically represents the two worlds he is torn between: the real and the artificial.
2. Depicting Dissatisfaction:
The film portrays Neo's sense of disillusionment with the reality he knows. He is often seen searching for answers to a question he can't quite articulate, signified by his obsession with understanding what the Matrix is.
His environment in the real world – a cramped, cluttered apartment, a monotonous job, and a lack of fulfilling personal connections – visually underscores his dissatisfaction and yearning for something more.
3. Hinting at Greater Potential:
The film cleverly plants the seeds of Neo's potential for something beyond his current existence. His skills as a hacker, his curiosity, and his clear sense of feeling that something is 'off' about the world hint at a deeper destiny awaiting him.
His interactions with other characters, like Morpheus and Trinity, who seek him out and seem to know more about him than he does himself, further hint at his central role in the larger story.
This setup in "The Matrix" effectively establishes the protagonist’s current state and subtly hints at his potential for transformation, skillfully utilizing the elements of Act I in the three-act structure.
The second act of your screenplay structure isn't called "the confrontation" for nothing – this is when you get to throw all sorts of problems and obstacles at your hero. To have enough rising action and a complete character arc for your protagonist, you'll need to include these elements:
Your hero pursues what they want and makes a conscious, proactive choice – the hero's journey has begun, and they have stepped into a new environment. Katniss Everdeen enters the Capitol (The Hunger Games), Cooper leaves his family to join NASA (Interstellar), and Forrest starts running (Forrest Gump).
In the first act, you introduced secondary characters connected to the external story. Now it's time for a helper figure, the B Story character. The B Story character will come to play a significant role later. Still, you must introduce them early so the audience won't have the feeling they appear out of nowhere as an instant solution to help your main character fix their flaws or problems.
Arc Studio Pro has a suite of features that keeps track of character relationships for you, making it easy to figure out when to bring side characters in and out of the action.
Now it's time to deliver and fulfill the premise's promise; in other words, give the audience what they want. In a nutshell, your hero has to try and fail, then do it again and again. But, of course, there are many ups and downs along the way, but you either put your protagonist on an upward or downward trajectory, headed for success or failure.
Your story's pivot point comes roughly in the middle of your script. The previous path of your hero leads to either a false victory or defeat as a culmination of their trials and tribulations.
The purpose is to raise the stakes and begin shifting from an external to an internal journey. From now on, the hero will have to address their need. This is when the countdowns start, love stories become severe, and significant plot twists occur, or a public outing makes it impossible for the main character ever to go back to how things were before.
Another name for this part of the second act is "Bad Guys Close In" – they've been foiled and now come back stronger than before after the Midpoint.
But your hero's struggles are not only external at this point; they are also internal. However, your main character still hasn't entirely changed and is dealing with the same problems or flaws you've outlined in Act I.
As for the direction of this shift from external to internal, your protagonist will now be on a downward path towards rock bottom after a false victory at the Midpoint.
Your hero needs another push, this time towards transforming themselves. Something big happens to the main character that takes everything away from them. It's the point in the movie where a mentor or helper character dies or a love interest leaves. Your protagonist is facing their inner demons alone.
Remember your hero's resistance to the call to action at the end of Act I? The Dark Night Of The Soul is the same: your hero assesses the situation and thinks about giving up. But as your main character ponders their past failures, they realize the common denominator that always stood between them and achieving their goal. To fix that, change is necessary.
Now let's dive into some concrete examples of confrontations in Act II from classic films so you can see how it's done.
Rising Action: The team's journey into the dream world, facing challenges that test their skills and reveal their vulnerabilities.
Midpoint: The revelation of Cobb's guilt and its impact on the mission, raising questions about his reliability and the feasibility of inception.
Crisis: The team faces intensified obstacles in the layered dream, with stakes heightened by personal conflicts and the complexity of the task
Rising Action: Woody and Buzz's adventures outside Andy's room, which expose their contrasting personalities and insecurities.
Midpoint: Woody's realization of Buzz's innocence and Buzz's confrontation with his own identity as a toy, not a space ranger.
Crisis: The duo's capture by Sid, the neighbor known for mutilating toys, which presents an urgent problem needing resolution.
Second-act problems are the most common ailment that plagues screenwriters. Fear not; we have some fixes for what you might be struggling with in Act II.
Yes, the second act sucks: after a great setup in Act I, you want to get to the finale in Act III as quickly as possible. What's in between is drudgery with neither glory nor romance. Your hero's struggles have become your own. They have to exercise will and find the strength to continue. Your job is to show what keeps them from skipping forward. If you're having trouble with your mid-point, you could try using our new AI research assistant feature to come up with some better plot ideas and do some general research to give you inspiration.
Even if your hero has superpowers, something keeps them from going straight to the final fight. They have to face their character first, as we all do. Your second act won't be tedious if the audience can relate to that.
If you don't know how to begin Act II or have written a bunch of scenes that all seem to come later, you might have a structural weakness. The second act is a chain of events: cause and effect lead from one activity to another.
If you can't write in chronological order, assess each of your scenes.
For example, how close is the hero to their goal? How far are they from where they've started? What is happening externally and internally? Place the scenes under one of the story beats in Act II and see how the result flows like a narrative.
It's common to enter Act II and begin to doubt the strength of your story's foundation. Assuming your hero is a well-rounded character, you can test the foundation by looking at the Midpoint and working outwards in either direction from there. Remember, the false defeat or victory in the middle informs the hero's trajectory before and after. From there, you check the Threshold and the rock bottom at All Is Lost: your hero needs to be primed for the coming acts in these sections.
If you don't have a clear break between Act I and II or have a run-on first act on your hands, you might be too busy world-building to kick off your story – or your call to action is not strong enough, so your hero remains in the status quo of the first act. Remember that you can continue to add to the world in the second act and that your first act only needs to include a few essential elements, which we've outlined in the previous sections.
The adage "show don't tell" holds for Act II. Of course, dialog is necessary, but your characters reveal who they are through their actions. This is especially important in Act II when the hero needs to understand who they are.
Do consider using Arc Studio's story outlining feature to help you visualize Act II and help you understand where you need to cut and where you need to double down.
Whose story are you telling? If your protagonist doesn't have enough scenes in the second act, you might have the wrong hero – or you've locked them up in a predicament too early.
Only in the All Is Lost should they reach the end of their wit; a false defeat at the Midpoint raises the stakes and makes them continue.
While individual episodes of a TV series have story arcs with ups and downs, the entire season is itself a story with a beginning, middle and end. But when does the second act of the season begin and end?
Act II makes up the bulk of a movie or series at roughly 50 to 60 percent. As a rule of thumb, Crossing The Threshold occurs at around 20%, and the third act begins more or less at about 80% of the total runtime.
Therefore, in a season of ten episodes, your second act would therefore stretch over episodes three to eight.
Writing Act III is easy; you simply need to resolve your story, tie up all the loose strings of your subplots, answer the dramatic question raised in Act I, complete the transformation of your main character, and end your story – plus there should be a killer climax in there! See? Easy! Not convinced? Don't worry, we'll coach you through the elements of Act III:
Remember your hero's epiphany at the end of Act II, where they realized that their inner struggles were holding them back? In a breakthrough moment, they learn how they can overcome that. The Fix represents the acceptance of the hero's flawed self and a resulting decision towards a solution. You can do this in a single scene that sets up the more extended finale.
This is the big moment to which you've been building up all along – the final battle. In terms of The Hero's Journey, this is the fight where the hero dies and is resurrected again transformed.
If Act III is roughly 25 percent of your movie, the finale takes up most of that with nearly 20 percent of the screen-time. So it's essential not to rush to the climax or deliver a straightforward, predictable win for your hero.
Break the finale down into these steps: the hero gathers their strength or otherwise prepares; the plan is put in motion; a twist reveals the program as it cannot work; the hero (figuratively) dies and is resurrected; after which they alter the plan to succeed at the end.
In the approach to the climax, your hero prepares by gathering the necessary tools, which can mean weapons, maps, supplies, or information depending on your genre. If they don't face their last battle alone, they need a team. At this point, your main character makes amends with A Story characters they've alienated before.
Enter the final surprise or twist: the hero has stepped into a trap or detects an oversight in the plan. This can be a big reveal (Malcolm Crowe in The Sixth Sense was dead the whole time!), a dramatic plummet of the winning odds (Mark hears from NASA that the ascent vehicle is too heavy in The Martian), or any other "Your Princess Is In Another Castle" moment.
What follows must be a reaction by the main character. Once more, they assess their situation, however briefly: defeat or giving up are real possibilities. The theme of your story comes into play. What is it that your hero needs to do or realize? They overcome their internal problems and demonstrate their inner change, completing their transformation.
At the climax of the finale, the hero triumphs. They've altered the plan, put it to use, and succeeded. The ultimate reward awaits. As a screenwriter, making that reward metaphorical or literal is up to you.
In the first act of your screenplay structure, you've shown the hero in their status quo before the journey, their world before they changed. Now, all the tension from the climax has dissipated. So let the audience see the transformation.
The Closing Image can be a single scene or a series of scenes, but the mirror effect between Act I and III works best if you dedicate an equal amount of screen-time for opening and closing images.
Disney movies have a phenomenal grasp on the three-act structure and function like meticulously crafted Swiss watches delivering theme and plot in perfect harmony. Each plot point is carefully designed to maximize pay-off while hiding the machinery under a heap of charm and humor. Here's how Moana works.
Opening/Setup: The opening of Moana gives us necessary background information of the world before introducing us to Moana herself. She's intelligent and adventurous but is expressly forbidden by her father to go beyond the island's limits.
Inciting Incident: However, a blight hits the island that threatens to starve everyone who lives off its vegetation. Moana's grandmother tells her that to stop the blight; she needs to restore the heart of Te Fiti, an ancient God, by finding Maui, a long-lost demigod.
Turn to Act II: Moana breaks from the tradition and takes a defiant step towards adventure and away from the life she knew to save her island. Like many transitions to Act II, this is a literal step away from the location of Act One and is the encapsulation of one of the movie's most famous songs, How Far I'll Go.
Premise/Fun & Games: As Moana is a musical, we hear some of the more comedic songs and are introduced to the secondary character of Maui. Moana and Maui run afoul of Kakamora and try to retrieve Maui's hook from a giant crab.
Midpoint: Moana and Maui bond, and as such, Maui teaches her how to sail, which helps him regain control of his powers. The two seem like unstoppable forces.
Descent to Darkest Moment: However, when they reach their destination, Moana refuses to heed Maui's call to retreat, resulting in his hook being damaged. Maui abandons Moana leaving her alone and sad. Here she has her "come to God" moment by communing with the spirit of the ocean.
Turn to Act III: Inspired by her encounter with the spirit of the ocean, Moana perseveres and sails back to the island to restore the heart of Te Fiti.
Finale: In a final conflict with the main antagonist, Moana realizes that Te Ka, the antagonist, is Te Fiti, the goal of her quest; Moana restores the heart, and the blight is healed.
Closing Image: Moana returns home to reunite with her tribe, who return to their adventuring ways.
One of the greatest movies of all time that still holds up to this day and unsurprisingly has a firm grasp of screenplay structure.
Opening/Setup: Through an opening monologue, we are told about the state of Casablanca as a city for refugees fleeing the Nazi regime. In Casablanca, we meet Rick, the protagonist, at his cafe, which hosts both liberation figures and envoys of the Vichy French regime. Rick is jaded and considers himself neutral on all things.
Inciting Incident: One of Rick's many criminal friends, Ugarte, entrusts Rick with two letters that guarantee safe passage to neutral Portugal, a precious commodity in a town where everyone wants to get out. However, Ugarte is arrested before he can retrieve them.
Turn to Act II: To make a sticky situation worse, who should walk into Rick's bar but Ilsa, his former love, alongside her now-husband Victor Laszlo, a famous resistance leader. They need the letters to escape, and the Nazi Major Stasser is here to ensure they fail, all while Rick's stuck in the middle. How long can he stay neutral?
Promise of the Premise/Fun & Games: Rick starts to navigate his precarious position by refusing to sell the letters to Laszlo because of the internal grudge Rick still holds towards Ilsa for as yet undisclosed reasons.
Midpoint: But Rick can't stay neutral forever. In his bar, a group of German officers starts singing a patriotic German song to some silent animosity. Laszlo asks the band to play La Marseillaise, a french anthem, in defiance. The band looks to Rick, which is a crucial act of defiance; he gives a nod of approval. The bar erupts in song and drowns out the German officers.
Descent to Darkest Moment: Of course, the German officers don't take kindly to this and forcibly shut down Rick's bar. In the wake of this stress, Ilsa confronts Rick, where we get the crucial backstory that details Rick and Ilsa's love affair the previous year in Paris.
Turn to Act III: Rick realizes that he was likely in the wrong the entire time, and we start to see the old gun-runner he used to be.
Finale: Rick helps Ilsa and Lazslo escape Casablanca with the letters he was given, killing Major Strasser in the process. In a noble sacrifice, Rick lets Ilsa go knowing that he must sacrifice his love in the name of a greater good. A far cry from the neutral state he began in.
Closing Image: Rick walks away from the airstrip with Renault, suggesting a fully-fledged return to resistance against the Nazi regime.
Of course, superhero films are no exception to three-act structure. They're particularly well suited to it in some ways, considering their mythic roots. Despite The Dark Knight's relatively complex plot, it follows the three-act structure brilliantly.
Opening/Setup: The opening introduces The Joker, an element of chaos that will send Gotham into mayhem and challenge the structures of justice it currently operates under. Shortly afterward, we're introduced to Batman, reckoning with his influence over other do-gooders in Gotham. We actually hear the Joker talked about before we actually see him, adding to the sense of mystery and expectation around him.
Inciting Incident: Batman allies with Jim Gordon and Harvey Dent with the secret hope that Dent will be able to protect Gotham so that he can hang up the cowl.
Turn to Act II: The Joker makes his debut in the crime world, forcefully taking over one of the prominent crime families and promising to kill Batman in exchange for half the mob's money.
Premise/Fun & Games: Batman chases the mob's corrupt accountant to Hong Kong, returns him to justice, Joker plays maniacal and sadistic games with Batman by murdering justice officials and learns that Rachel, his ex-girlfriend and Dent's current partner, is going to be the Joker's next target.
Midpoint: Just as Bruce is about to reveal his secret identity, Dent lies and says that he is Batman in a bid to stop The Joker's rampage. This ploy lures The Joker out into the open, where he is taken into custody after an attack on a convoy carrying Dent.
Descent to Darkest Moment: However, it looks like The Joker planned for all this. In an interrogation, The Joker reveals that he organized the kidnapping of Dent and Rachel. The bombs go off, killing Rachel and permanently scarring Dent, disillusioning him with the entire idea of justice. To make things worse, The Joker escapes, turns Dent to the side of supervillainy and takes a bus full of hostages.
Turn to Act III: Batman resorts to extreme measures of privacy invasion to bring The Joker to justice with grave consequences on the horizon.
Finale: Batman tracks down The Joker, rescues the hostages, and beats him in the fight, but not before he realizes that the plan was always to turn Dent to the side of chaos. Batman and Jim confront Dent, who falls to his death. Batman convinces Jim to blame him for Dent's spree of murders to preserve his image of being Gotham's protector.
Closing Image: Batman runs from the police, his reputation ruined, having made the ultimate sacrifice to keep Gotham from falling into chaos.
After reading this blog, you should feel prepared to start writing your three-act structure screenplay! There's no need to read another blog or book about the three-act structure! Get your story ideas down on paper (or a computer). Start writing with Arc Studio Pro, the optimal choice for both novice and professional screenwriters. Remember it's FREE for the web browser version, no credit card required.
Jakob is a freelance writer and storyteller. He publishes creative fiction in English and German and assists other writers with the development of plot and characters to shape their manuscripts into compelling stories.
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