If you’ve wanted to write a novel for some time but you don’t know how to get organized, then this is the guide for you. A lot of writers have difficulty when it comes to figuring out what needs to happen in their story. You want to keep your readers engaged. To do this, you need to become familiar with the three-act structure. This blog will teach you some of the basics so you can start outlining your story.
What is the three-act structure?
The three-act structure divides your novel into three distinct parts. Most movies have a three-act structure as well. Shakespeare used a five-act structure, which can work just fine, but it simply isn’t as common for a number of reasons that we won’t get into. To put it simply, the three-act structure was popularized by Syd Field, whose professional background is screenplay.
How to Craft a Story Plot Using the Three-Act Structure
You can learn how to craft a story plot by following this plot point breakdown of the three-act structure below:
The First Act
Also called the opening narration or the setup, the first act relies more on exposition than the other acts do. This is where you introduce your characters to the readers or audience. We get to know them, what their backgrounds are, what they do for a living, and so on. The goal is to establish a baseline for your characters. In order to witness their transition, and their decision to do something terrifying but necessary, we need to know what their lives were like beforehand. We need to visualize the necessity of change or action. The first act should take about a quarter of the story.
Inciting incident: The inciting incident is the moment when everything changes for your main character. In this scene, or sequence, the character is confronted with a very difficult question: Do I stay or do I go? After some deliberation, they of course choose to go. They have no other choice. Perhaps it’s the right thing to do, or maybe the only thing to do. Either way, this is when we know that the character will have undergone a complete transformation by the end of the story.
Hesitation/debate: The character, now confronted with the question, resists change. Using Star Wars as an example, this would be when Ben tells Luke that he must come to Alderaan after playing R2D2’s hologram of Leia. Luke immediately refuses, though he is intrigued. He can’t just up and leave like that, and for what? But eventually, after some debate and convincing, he decides he has to go. Your character should resist or hesitate because there are internal and external obstacles, making their commitment to going all the more important and compelling.
The Second Act
The second act is more commonly referred to as the rising action, which should hint at what the purpose of this act is. Your main character now must solve a problem that is becoming ever more pertinent to solve. The trouble is that they are facing more and more resistance, both because they don’t have the skills or tools yet to solve them, but more importantly, because they haven’t discovered “the truth”, which can mean a variety of things depending on what you’re writing about. In a lot of cases, your character’s attempts to solve the problem will put them in worse situations, leading to more frustration, despair, and opportunities to learn and grow. The second act is roughly twice as long as the first.
Obstacle 1: There will be three main obstacles in this story structure. The first will come shortly after the start of the second act. The obstacle is just something that gets in the way of your character solving their problem. This might mean they are too physically or mentally weak, or they might have certain people holding them back.
Obstacle 2: The second obstacle should be even more difficult than the first. Between the two obstacles, your character is still determined to try again. However, this time, it gets even more difficult. They made a bad decision or wrong move, and they simply aren’t equipped with the right tools and knowledge yet to overcome anything.
Midpoint: The midpoint should reverse the character’s trajectory, whether it’s good or bad. Usually, it’s very bad. The midpoint can also arrive as a false victory. Your character might make some sort of progress, or what appears to be progress, but it comes at too high a price. Someone might’ve died, or they lost something they cherish deeply. Whatever happens, it should raise the stakes and increase the pressure on the character to solve the mounting problem. The idea is that the midpoint is a twist, a sudden change that exploits the character’s hopes or progress thus far.
Obstacle 3: Following the midpoint, the character is desperate to regain what they lost or sacrificed. They’re still holding onto the idea that if they can just fight back harder, they will win. But it’s too late for that. There’s no going back. This obstacle should be even more challenging and impossible than the first two. It should bring them to their breaking point.
Disaster: Desperate times call for desperate measures. Your character is in deep and now and the stakes are at their highest. In this plot point, your character might get close to solving their problem, perhaps rescuing a loved one from imminent danger, only for them to get pulled away at the last moment. Because of their desperation, their strategy is rash, and ill-conceived, and ultimately contributes to their failure. We should see clearly the character’s faults and weaknesses. They simply haven’t changed enough to resolve anything meaningfully.
Crisis: Your character made a final attempt at resolving the problem, only leading to another failure and now despair. This is when your character should be at their lowest. There’s seemingly no hope, nothing they can do to reverse their fate. All seems lost and your character is now on the brink of giving up if they haven’t already.
The Third Act
The third act is all about finally overcoming the problem and resolving all of the plots. You will have B and C plots, no doubt, and this act will represent resolution in all forms. The main character will have learned something crucial from the failures in the second act, and now they possess the tools to confront the antagonist one last time, only this time, they manage to defeat whatever it is, often with the help of someone important.
Climax: The climax comes shortly after your character decides they still need to fight. At the end of act two, your character is in despair, wanting to give up. The beginning of the third act should be about finding inspiration; the character finds someone who can help achieve this, or perhaps they discover some sort of secret that revives their determination. In the climax, your character sets out to confront the antagonist, and after a long and (almost) even battle, they win. This plot point functions a lot like the obstacles in the second act, the difference is in the outcome.
Denouement: The character wraps up defeating the antagonist using the tools they gained from failing so many times prior. Perhaps they are reunited with their loved ones and they finally get what they were after. The question they had to answer is resolved, and now the character goes around and forgives, apologizes, and otherwise ties up any loose ends. Perhaps we saw them in the first act behave like an ass toward their loved ones, only to have them taken away from them; now, in the third act, their gratitude increases and they resolve never to treat anyone like they did before.
Resolution: We now see the character inhabiting their final, evolved form. They are a changed person, typically for the better. How we see them now is in contrast to how we saw them in the first act. They are now equipped to handle what seems like a bright future ahead. A nice touch is to create an ending scene that runs contrary to the opening scene. It’s a movie technique that can also work nicely for novels. Think of what the opposite of your opening scene was and design your final scene so that it’s a sort of reminder of how things have changed.
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