I love stories, I always have and I think at our most basic level we all do, we don’t just like story’s we need stories, they keep our egos alive, they give life meaning, we tell stories all day. but writing, writing is a different story.
Once there was a protagonist with a goal and every day they did something. Until one day something happens because of that, because of that, because of that, until the final climax.
As humans, we recognize shapes and symbols and give them meaning, when you draw two dots and a line suddenly you have a face, and depending on how those lines are drawn you have emotion, and when you have emotion you have a story.
We’re so good at recognizing faces we see them everywhere, we know faces so well and we know when they look wrong. It’s immediate, sometimes you can’t even identify what it is that makes it wrong you just know.
The same is true with stories, story’s are so built into us that as soon as something is off we feel it and it pulls you out. So how does one write a good story that not only passes the test but is also, new, entertaining and captivating?
I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this and researching others’ ideas of what makes a good story, I’m not sure if I’m right but now I have a structure and it makes a whole lot of sense to me . . . most days.
Every good story has a solid structure, some people write organically and the structure works its way into the story naturally while others start with the structure and fill in the details, I’m in the latter camp, the way my brain works, I need to limit the number of decisions to the bare minimum if the structure is solid the actual writing is only a definable amount of steps away from a successful story.
Some of the story structures I’ve found that I resonated with were
- Ulysses a hero’s journey
- Joseph Campbell hero of a thousand faces
- Dan Harmons story cycle
- The 2, 3, 4 and 5 act structure
Although there are many ideas around this subject they all share a lot in common Starting with the basics, the building blocks which many of the other structures build upon is the 3 act structure, going all the way back to the c. 335BC Aristotle wrote about the 3 act structure in his book “Poetics”
The 3 acts are broken down into the following story beats
Act 1 – set up – we are introduced to our protagonist, there is an inciting incident that causes them to want something, they have second thoughts or fears about pursuing the want and ultimately refuse the call to action.
Act 2 – Confrontation – they realize they must pursue the want from the inciting incident and they begin their journey. They face many obstacles that they try to overcome without changing themselves, at the midpoint we discover the protagonist’s need, the thing standing in the way of their want the whole time. The protagonist continues toward their original goal regardless. They finally reach their initial goal but because they have neglected their need they end up in the crisis, their rock bottom, their lowest point, they must pay a price for getting their want
Act 3- Resolution – the protagonist has to finally learn their lesson and change so they escape the crisis and return home.
Over time and with different mediums the 3 act structure has been adapted to be anywhere between 2 acts for a short film or story and all the way up to 5 acts for a complex film or novel.
Next post I’ll continue talking about story structure and how I’ve used and combined different structures while writing the show.