A couple of days ago I told you that three of the most useless words in a writer’s lexicon were beginning, middle and end. I’m going to backpedal slightly today and explain why that’s a bit of an exaggeration.
Yesterday we learned that plot is basically a chain of linked events. However, you could write a story with a perfect chain of events and still have it be a terrible story. I’ve written many of those. What makes a plot good, i.e. accessible and engaging to the reader, is its structure.
A disclaimer here: pretty much everything I know about plot and structure is presented in the book Plot & Structure by James Scott Bell. If you struggle with plot, or even if you think you don’t, read his book. What I’m about to present is little more than a summary of his work rendered in my own words, with my own experience and opinions sprinkled in.
The truth of the matter is, all stories do have beginnings, middles and ends, and where these terms become useful is using them to label the three parts of a plot structure. They are often referred to as the Three Acts, as in a play.
Read any book, watch any movie, and you can break it down into these three sections. The reason they are useful to writers is because they reveal that not all plot events are equal.
Every single story in human history can be reduced to a single sentence: someone wants something, and someone or something else stands in the way of getting what they want.
But in order for a reader to be engaged and fully immersed in the story, they have to relate to the characters. So you can’t simply start with the conflict and end with the conflict. If you did that, every story would be like a one-sentence headline. You have to structure the story to pull the reader in, build up the conflict, and end with a resolution.
In the beginning, you set up the characters, reveal their motives, and show them in opposition. You show the storyworld as it normally is, but you hook the reader with a disturbance to that normalcy–some kind of threat.
The transition from beginning to middle is a point of no return. A plot event happens that commits the main character to a course of actions through the middle of the book.
The middle is the building battle between opposing forces. It does not have to be a physical battle; in many books it is a battle of wills. The middle of a book should also deepen and develop the characters, make the reader care about them, and build toward the final battle.
The transition from middle to end is the second point of no return. A plot event happens that catalyses the final conflict. It could be a discovery, or a major change like a death or a betrayal.
The end is the final battle (again, it doesn’t have to be physical) or conflict, the climax which ends with the main character either getting that they wanted or losing it. Or getting it and not having it be what they really wanted. Or losing and realizing they didn’t need it. And so on.
Can you write a story without using this structure? There are about as many types of plot structure as there are stories (for some interesting examples, visit this amazing blog), but I’m pretty sure you could simplify them all down to this three-section, two point structure. You could certainly write a story with this structure without ever being aware of it. I did, for years. But being aware of this structure, and knowing clearly what needs to happen in each section of the story, gives you a far greater control over the writing process, from drafting to revision.
When you don’t use a simple structure like this to organize your plot, the chain can end up a tangled mess, like the rollercoaster pictured at the beginning, with all kinds of dips and loops that take the reader for a dizzying ride and leaves them confused and slightly nauseous. pegging your plot events into a simple three-act structure can help you avoid this snarl while getting the chain to follow a curve of rising tension like this:
As you can see, the first big bump of tension occurs at that point of no return between beginning and middle. The tension builds until the final climax. No tangled plot here.
Tomorrow, in 101 TIWIK #15: Start at the Beginning, I’ll start laying out how to make your beginning, middle and end the best they can be.
This post is part of a series of 101 Things I Wish I’d Known Before I Wrote My First Book. Start reading the series at the beginning.
One thought on “101 Tiwik #14: Three Acts, Two Points”