Tag: plot

On Writing: Five-act structure – Act 1 – General #2

On By Jon UreñaIn advice, Arte, Escritura1 Comment

You can check out all my posts on writing through this link.

Once you’ve come up with a list of meaningful plot points that should happen in your story, and you have determined the general structure, you could strengthen the scaffolding further by relying on a five-act structure. The original three-act structure suffers from issues regarding the second act, which is the bulk of the story yet it’s treated as if it were the same length as the first and third acts. The five-act structure divides the second act into three, relying on a mid-story turning point as the main mast of the tale.

The following list of notions strives to strengthen the first act of a five-act structure.

  • How do the scenes in the first act chase your protagonist up a tree? How does it push him into a conflict situation?
  • How does the first act set up trouble brewing? Things may settle for a bit after the disturbance, but then a glimpse of greated trouble coming or hovering.
  • How does the first act set up the stakes for the whole story?
  • What scenes of the first act deepen the stakes? How do they deepen the conflict until it explodes so that the story moves into the second act?
  • Is there imminent danger in the first act of the story so as to bond with the lead?
  • How do you make the reader believe the threats to the protagonist in this act are real?
  • How do you make the reader fear for the safety of the characters?
  • How do you make clear what the characters stand to lose in the coming conflict?
  • How is the protagonist’s need to change explored?
  • Somewhere in the first act, can you have the protagonist make an argument against the lesson they learn by the end of the story?
  • What reasons do you give early on to the readers to care about the characters?
  • See how do you illustrate this about the important characters: who are these people? What is the essence of their personalities? What are their core beliefs (even more particularly, what are the beliefs that will be challenged or straightened throughout the book)?
  • What is your hero’s world view, goals, values, problems, etc. prior to the First Plot Point?
  • When the story opens, is the lie/flaw making the protagonist’s life miserable? If so, how?
  • This is the time to lavish some extra attention on the Lie, because within the Lie is always where we discover what is at stake for the protagonist. What horrible things will happen to him and his world if the Lie isn’t overthrown?
  • What is the antagonist doing during this act?
  • Can you place the characters where something bad is happening, or about to happen?
  • Try to focus on only giving the information that is strictly necessary to understand the current situation.
  • Audiences prefer their heroes to get out of trouble in the second act using talents they already displayed in the first act. Even heroes who seem to be starting from scratch are actually adapters. They find ways to use skills from a completely different job to surmount their current problem.

On Writing: Five-act structure – Act 1 – General #1

On By Jon UreñaIn advice, Arte, Escritura1 Comment

You can check out all my posts on writing through this link.

Once you’ve come up with a list of meaningful plot points that should happen in your story, and you have determined the general structure, you could strengthen the scaffolding further by relying on a five-act structure. The original three-act structure suffers from issues regarding the second act, which is the bulk of the story yet it’s treated as if it were the same length as the first and third acts. The five-act structure divides the second act into three, relying on a mid-story turning point as the main mast of the tale.

The following list of notions strives to strengthen the first act of a five-act structure.

  • What is the goal in this act that the main charactes believes that by achieving it he’ll get closer to achieving his external goal?
  • How does the main character’s external goal bend to his internal issue, the thing he struggles with that keeps him from easily achieving said goal without breaking a sweat?
  • For every goal in an act (or scene), see which goals could fail first. That ups the conflict.
  • One way to tell if what the protagonist wants in the beginning is her genuine goal is to ask yourself: will she have to face her biggest fear, and so resolve her inner issue, to achieve said goal?
  • Look at every single character in your story and ask, “What’s their goal at this very moment?” If they don’t have one, give them one.
  • List the actions your hero will take toward his goal.
  • Create a plan that requires the hero to take a number of actions, but also to adjust when the initial plan doesn’t work. How is the plan unique and complex enough that the hero will have to adjust when it fails?
  • As a general rule: whatever the protagonist tries, his first two attempts must be futile.
  • How is this act an unit of action bound by a character’s desire?
  • How does this act fulfill its purpose of preparing the readers for what’s in store?
  • How do you bring with your important characters, as you introduce them, the stakes, what they care about, and the antagonistic forces that threaten what they care about.
  • How do you take the time to introduce the character in his “normal world” before the inciting event comes blasting into view?
  • How does this act represent the phase of the universal story that is Comfort and Separation?
  • In the beginning quarter of the story, get the front story going first by hooking readers and audiences with present moment-to-moment conflict. The protagonist faces an immediate dilemma, experiences a loss, feels fear, and is compelled to take action.
  • The first act sets up the story: the story problem, the story question, and the motivation for the protagonist to take action.
  • Is there a hint of the consequences of failing the act’s goal, a mirror or echo of the kind of death he risks (physical, psychological, social, or a mix)?
  • How does this act mirror and echo act five (the traditional third act)?
  • How do the actions in this act prompt readers to ask “what is the worst consequence of this decision”, and the consequences will be shown in the second half of this story?
  • How do you set up the stakes and the opposition for the desire line?
  • All the scenes in this act should be contributing toward that First Plot Point moment: revealing backstory, giving it stakes, infusing it with tension and fear and anticipation.
  • The mission of these act one scenes is clear: Make us feel like we’re there (vicarious experience), so that we see dynamics that the characters cannot. The characters feel them—and you can certainly make that feeling visceral—but for them it isn’t a story yet, it’s just their lives.
  • The mission of this opening quartile is to invest the reader in the story through empathy for the hero, which depends on the establishment of stakes and a clearly defined dramatic question at the heart of the story.
  • The scenes within each act should align contextually with that mission and thus bear a different context than scenes from the other parts. That’s critical to understand—it’s the difference between a writer who knows what she’s doing and one who is faking it or imitating what she’s read and mislabeling it as knowing how to write.
  • Every single scene before your First Plot Point should contribute to the setup of the dynamic in the second act and forward, either through foreshadowing, hero backstory and present context, the establishment of stakes, or the ramp-up to the First Plot Point story turn.
  • To set up the “Normal World,” not only focus on the existence and archetypical role of the protagonist, but also in the relationships he maintains, and especially in how those relationships are going to be altered or cut off when moving into the second act.
  • Act 1 introduces your hero then throws a problem at him.  That problem will propel him into the heart of your story.
  • Does the hero hesitate to engage with the story problem until the stakes are raised?
  • Make sure the order of the events creates a gauntlet of challenge, baptism by escalating fire.
  • Since story, both internally and externally, revolves around whether the protagonist achieves his goal, each turn of the cause-and-effect wheel, large and small, must bring him closer to the answer. How? By relentlessly winnowing away everything that stands in his way, legitimate reasons and far-fetched rationalizations alike, until the clock runs down to “now or never”.

On Writing: Five-act structure – Act 1 – Objectives to hit

On By Jon UreñaIn advice, Arte, EscrituraLeave a comment

You can check out all my posts on writing through this link.

Once you’ve come up with a list of meaningful plot points that should happen in your story, and you have determined the general structure, you could strengthen the scaffolding further by relying on a five-act structure. The original three-act structure suffers from issues regarding the second act, which is the bulk of the story yet it’s treated as if it were the same length as the first and third acts. The five-act structure divides the second act into three, relying on a mid-story turning point as the main mast of the tale.

The following is a list of points that should be nailed for a satisfying first act in a five-act structure (or in a three-act structure for that matter).

  • Introduce the major characters, giving the reader an idea of who they are, their emotional makeup, and the weight they carry in the story.
  • Devise the characteristic moment for your protagonist:
    • How does it accomplish several tasks:
      • Introduce your protagonist.
      • (Probably) reveal your protagonist’s name.
      • Indicate your protagonist’s gender, age, nationality, and possibly his occupation.
      • Indicate important physical characteristics.
      • Indicate his role in the story (i.e., that he is the protagonist).
      • Demonstrate the prevailing aspect of his personality.
      • Hook readers’ sympathy and/or their interest.
      • Show the protagonist’s scene goal.
      • Indicate the protagonist’s story goal.
      • Demonstrate, or at least hint at, the protagonist’s lie.
      • Influence the plot, preferably directly, but at the very least in a way that foreshadows later events.
    • To do this, select an event that will:
      • Make the protagonist appealing to readers.
      • Introduce both his strengths and weaknesses.
      • Build the plot.
    • What important personality trait, virtue, or skill best sums up your protagonist?
    • How can you dramatize this trait to its fullest extent?
    • How can you dramatize this trait in a way that also introduces the plot?
    • How can you demonstrate your protagonist’s belief in his lie?
    • Can you reveal or hint at his ghost?
    • How can you use this scene to reveal the thing he wants most?
    • Does your protagonist’s pursuit of both the overall goal and the scene goal meet with an obvious obstacle (i.e., conflict)?
    • How can you share important details about your protagonist (name, age, physical appearance) quickly and unobtrusively?
    • Don’t settle for anything less than spectacular for your Characteristic Moment. This is your opportunity to create a fun and effective scene that will introduce readers to your character in a way the’ll never forget–and from which they won’t be able to look away.
  • Show us the hero’s situation, goals, worldview, and emotional state prior to the launch of the path that lies ahead.
  • Show us setting, time, place, and (as necessary) some backstory.
  • Develop the normal world of the story:
    • People are largely defined by the microcosms in which they live. We are inevitably shaped by our surroundings, either because of the ways we fit in or the ways we don’t. Just as inevitably, we are defined by our surroundings because they reflect our choices and limitations. How we came to be someplace, why we choose to remain there, or why we are forced to remain even if we don’t want to–all these factors reveal interesting facets of our personalities, values, strengths and weaknesses.
    • How does it do this: the Normal World plays a vital role in grounding the story in a concrete setting. Even more important, the Normal World creates the standard against which all the personal and plot changes to come will be measured. Without this vivid opening example of what will change in your character’s life, the rest of the arc will lack definition and potency.
    • Is it a place in which the character has found contentment–or at least complacency?
    • The point is that the Normal World is a place the protagonist either doesn’t want to leave or can’t leave. It’s the staging ground for his grand adventure.
    • Think of the Normal World as a symbolic representation of your character’s inner world. The Normal World dramatizes the Lie and Character Beliefs. It empowers the character in that Lie, giving him no reason to look beyond it. Only when the Normal World is challenged or abandoned at the First plot Point is the protagonist’s belief in that Lie shaken.
    • Does it present one set of challenges, which the protagonist finds himself unequipped to deal with until after he’s experienced life beyond the Normal World?
    • In creating your story’s Normal World, first ask yourself what kind of world will provide the most logical backstory for why your character believes the Lie. Then consider how to enhance the Normal World by making it the comfiest place ever for that Lie to continue its existence. note, however, this does not mean it necessarily has to be a comfy place for your protagonist. Sometime she may seem outwardly comfy, while, deep down, the Lie is making him miserable.
    • How can you create a Normal World that will best contrast the “adventure world” to follow in the next acts?
    • You want to strive for the most dramatic contrast possible between the worlds, in order to provide your character with as much incentive as possible to enact this change.
    • What setting will open your story?
    • How will this setting change at the First Plot Point?
    • How does the Normal World dramatize or symbolize your character’s enslavement to the Lie?
    • How is the Normal World causing or empowering the Lie?
    • Why is your character in the Normal World?
    • If your character doesn’t want to leave the Normal World, what is helping him mask the discomfort caused by his Lie?
    • If your character wants to leave, what’s stopping him?
    • If the Normal World is a legitimately good place, how will the protagonist need to change in order to appreciate it?
  • The first act’s highest calling is to introduce and set up the story elements in such a way that when the First Plot Point arrives, it is reinforced by stakes, emotional empathy, the shadow of an emerging antagonistic force, and foreshadowing of other elements that await down the road.
  • What kind of thesis about the normal world of the characters this act poses, for which the rest of the story will be an antithesis?
  • Represent the overall range of change of your hero in the story. This frame gives you the structural “journey” your hero will take. As when starting at the endpoint of your hero’s development by figuring out his self-revelation, we returned to the beginning to set his weakness and need and desire, we must use the same process when determining the plot. Establish the endpoint of the plot first.
  • What will my hero learn at the end?
  • What does he know at the beginning? What does he believe?
  • What is he wrong about at the beginning?
  • Is there an event from the past that still haunts the hero in the present? An open wound that is after the source of the hero’s psychological and moral weakness. Could think of it as the hero’s internal opponent. The great fear that is holding him back from action. Acts as a counter desire: the hero’s desire drives him forward, his ghost holds him back.
  • In some stories, it could be that a ghost is not possible because the hero lives in a paradise world. The hero begins free, but an attack will change that.
  • Try to withhold as much information as possible about the hero, including the details of his ghost.
  • Weakness: the hero has one or more character flaws that are so serious they are ruining his life. They come in two forms: psychological and moral. Could have both.
  • Inner person is damaged in some way. The moral one causes someone else to get hurt.
  • If he has a moral weakness, how does he have a direct negative effect on someone else? Is he clearly hurting at least one person at the beginning of the story?
  • Need: what the hero must fulfill in order to have a better life. It almost always requires that he overcomes his weakness by the end.
  • Problem: the trouble or crisis your hero faces at the very beginning of the story. He is aware of the crisis but doesn’t know how to solve it. The problem is usually an outgrowth of the hero’s weakness and is designed to quickly show that weakness to the audience. Should be present at the beginning, but it is far less important than weakness and need.
  • Set up the dramatic action and the underlying conflict that will run throughout the story.
  • Foreshadow as necessary, including the presence (perhaps implied, maybe in the reader’s face, your call) of the antagonist (dramatic tension).
  • Make us care about the hero through the establishing of stakes.
  • Make sure you establish the underlying stakes and the personal demons attached to the First Plot Point decision before it hits.
  • Hook the reader (compelling premise).
  • Introduce the concept of the story (compelling premise and dramatic tension).
  • How does it manage to get the readers involved?
  • Have you come up with the most powerful and memorable combination of inciting event and key event so that they will fuel the entire story?

On Writing: Five-act structure – Overview

On By Jon UreñaIn advice, Arte, EscrituraLeave a comment

You can check out all my posts on writing through this link.

Once you’ve come up with a list of meaningful plot points that should happen in your story, and you have determined the general structure, you could strengthen the scaffolding further by relying on a five-act structure. The original three-act structure suffers from issues regarding the second act, which is the bulk of the story yet it’s treated as if it were the same length as the first and third acts. The five-act structure divides the second act into three, relying on a mid-story turning point as the main mast of the tale.

The following is the overview of the five-act structure.

Act 1 (Orphan, Innocent, No knowledge, Call to Arms)

  • Hook
  • Beginning
  • Inciting Incident (No knowledge)
  • Midpoint / Turning point / Story’s Inciting incident (Growing knowledge)
  • Crisis
  • First Plot Point / Climax / Point of No Return / Story’s Key Event (Awakening)
  • Resolution / Denouement

Act 2 (Wanderer, Training, Doubt, Dream Stage)

  • Beginning
  • Inciting incident (Doubt)
  • Midpoint / Turning point (Overcoming reluctance)
  • Crisis / Lowest Point
  • Climax / First Pinch Point (Acceptance)
  • Resolution / Denouement

Act 3 (Magician, Midpoint, Experimenting with knowledge, Frustration Stage)

  • Inciting incident (Experimenting with knowledge)
  • Midpoint / Turning point (MIDPOINT, Knowledge)
  • Crisis / Lowest point
  • Climax / Second Pinch Point (Experimenting post-knowledge)
  • Resolution / Denouement

Act 4 (Warrior, Doubt, Nightmare Stage)

  • Last stretch
  • Inciting incident (Doubt)
  • Midpoint / Turning point (Growing reluctance)
  • Crisis / Lowest Point
  • Third Plot Point / Doorway of No Return 2 / Climax (Regression)
  • Resolution / Denouement

Act 5 (Martyr, Hero, Reawakening, Total mastery, Thrilling escape from death)

  • Inciting Incident (Reawakening)
  • Midpoint / Turning point (Re-acceptance)
  • Crisis / Lowest Point
  • Climax (Total mastery)
  • Resolution / Denouement

On Writing: General structure – Development

On By Jon UreñaIn advice, EscrituraLeave a comment

You can check out all my posts on writing through this link.

Once you’ve come up with a list of meaningful plot points that should happen in your story, the Acts structure (generally three, but could be strengthened by turning it into five) is a proven method to organize those plot points in a way that makes the story more cohesive, and usually building up in tension.

The following questions may help in developing the general structure.

  • Brainstorm the specific strategies and actions your hero will take to confront and antagonistic force (villain, threat or obstacle) standing in his way.
  • Write down a summary of what your hero does in pursuit of the goal, the major campaigns and efforts and confrontations he must navigate along the path toward resolving the dramatic question.
  • What is the antagonist’s plan in each act, what maneuvers does he execute to prevent the protagonist from achieving his goal? For each global goal in each act for the protagonist there should be a counterpoint by the antagonist(s).
  • How does the story consist of a great crisis, worked out through a series of minor crises?
  • How does this story involve characters being thrown into a world that represents the opposite of everything they believe and stand for?
  • Sometimes it’s easier to think of the structure in question-and-answer form. Q: What are the worst possible consequences of Macbeth’s decision to kill the King of Scotland? A: The massed ranks of his former allies will march upon him seeking revenge. Good structure will deliver a crisis point that forces the protagonist to choose between their old and new selves.
  • The beginning sets something up. It makes something move. What is a story trying to set up? The end, of course. The key to an effective beginning is that it must contain the seeds of your future climax.
  • How could the story start at the moment the problem becomes acute?
  • How would this story’s inciting incident embody all the characteristics the protagonist lacks?
  • Do away with the overly vague concept of the “inciting incident” and replace it with three specific parts: the long-standing personal problem, the intimidating opportunity, and the unexpected conflict that arises from pursuing that opportunity. Together these form what I call “the challenge”.
  • Rather than start with a happy status quo that gets ruined by an inciting incident, most stories begin the opposite way: The hero starts out with a long-standing social problem, and the inciting incident (even if it’s something horrible) presents itself as an opportunity to solve that problem.
  • Does the hero discover an intimidating opportunity to fix the problem? Simply restoring the status quo is never a strong motivation. In real life, as a general rule, our crises are not just temporary accidents that must be undone but crucial opportunities to fix long-standing problems. To build sympathy, the opportunity should be obviously intimidating. This shouldn’t be a no-brainer decision, but to avoid losing empathy, the full size of the potential conflict should not be immediately apparent.
  • Could you make sure that the inciting incident of the story is personal enough, that it isn’t defined externally? Otherwise the heroes would merely be reacting to outside events instead of choosing to act based on their volatile personal psychology.
  • First Plot Point preliminary: a definitive reaction to the first plot point will shape your character’s arc. You know you’ve found the right First Plot Point when it drags your character out of his former complacency and puts his feet on the path toward destroying his Lie–even though he probably won’t realize that’s what’s happening and, indeed, may be actively fighting that destination. Whether he realizes it or not, he has committed himself to change, even though he may still be trying to change in the wrong way.
  • How will the First Plot Point create a new world in which the character will be “punished” for acting according to his Lie?
  • A big crash usually happens at the midpoint. Not only does this change everything in terms of the external situation, but it slams the hero into a radically new outlook. The first half of a story can often be summarized as “the easy way,” and the second half as “the hard way”.
  • How would the midpoint contain the very essence of the quality the protagonist lacks, the opposite of their initial state, the “truth” of what they’re looking for, the hidden elixir in the enemy’s cave?
  • Could you make it so by halfway through, your heroes are making it up on the fly?
  • What happens (or will happen) in the climax of the novel that will show why your concept and kicker are unique and compelling?
  • Do your story’s beginning and ending contrast each other strongly enough?
  • If your protagonist had to face the events of the Climax in the beginning of the story, would he react to them in the same way he does at the end? If he would, something is seriously wrong with your story.
  • How do you misdirect the lowest points, the cliffhangers, or even the climaxes of each act? How do you make them impossible, or at least set up events in ways that make the reader feel that the story could have gone a different way?
  • Every roadblock, every obstacle, every setback, should escalate in difficulty. Start small and keep building.
  • Write a list of unexpected changes that might occur.

On Writing: General structure – Prioritary

On By Jon UreñaIn advice, EscrituraLeave a comment

You can check out all my posts on writing through this link.

Once you’ve come up with a list of meaningful plot points that should happen in your story, the Acts structure (generally three, but could be strengthened by turning it into five) is a proven method to organize those plot points in a way that makes the story more cohesive, and usually building up in tension.

The following are prioritary points of a story that need to be covered in each specific act.

Act 1 (the setup)

  • Hook / Disturbance
  • What is the flaw / need of the protagonist, and how do you show it?
  • What is the inciting incident of which the turning point of the first act will be its consequence? (problem)
  • A notion about what will happen at the First Plot Point. When those two things are on the table—the concept and a First Plot Point twist—almost everything that follows, both in terms of planning and execution, happens in context to them.
    • What is the accepting of the call, the turning point that launches the desire line?
    • How is a major force of antagonism through the story revealed?

Act 2 (the confrontation)

  • Character realizes external goal
  • Display of flaw
  • Drive for goal
  • Part Two Exposition (response, journey begins)
  • Antagonist revealed
  • First Pinch Point
  • What are the forces of antagonism and how do they escalate?
  • Midpoint / Mirror Moment. Does it involve the protagonist changing toward curing his flaw?
  • Revisiting flaw
  • New drive for goal
  • Antagonist attacks
  • Second Pinch Point
  • Part Three Exposition (hero becomes proactive) / Attack
  • What is the worst possible point, the worst possible consequence of the story’s inciting incident, and that will make the climax possible? (The Second Plot Point)
  • List the plot complications of the second act, that leave the protagonist worse off than she was before.

Act 3 (the resolution)

  • Changed goal
  • Part Four Exposition (hero becomes catalyst for…)
  • What have you envisioned as the climax? Does the protagonist do something heroic? Does he solve or not the problem?
  • Ending/Resolution

Important notes:

  • Successful planning is when the mission-critical story beats—Hook, First Plot Point, First Pinch Point, Midpoint, Second Pinch Point, Second Plot Point, and the Climax scenes—have been optimized.
  • Come up with the major crises that would make the act breaks, in which MC’s flaw causes him to choose a path that’ll drive him further into trouble, until he changes by his choice at the final crisis, if he changes at all. For each of those decisions, brainstorm which could be the worst possible consequences.
  • See what dilemmas there are at the end of each act and try to make sure they are real dilemmas. No easy answers.
  • Try to come up with crisis plot points that seem impossible to come out of.
  • Define the goals for each of the acts, and make sure each successive goal is bigger than the last.
  • List every climax of every act, try to come up with events or information that would have made them completely unpredictable or impossible, and try to use them for red herrings and misdirection.
  • Make sure each successive goal in your story gets bigger. Most amateur stories start out big then fizzle. How do you prevent this? By making each successive goal for your characters bigger than the last.