Three-Act Narrative Structure

    Welcome back!

    Today, I'm going to discuss a common narrative structure mentioned in Mr. Ingermanson's blog post about his snowflake plotting method. And yes, I'm linking it again, because the information on his blog is pretty cool stuff.

    The reason for this blog post is because I realized, while working on Step 2 of Mr. Ingermanson's snowflake method, that I couldn't visualize where things were going to be in my story. So I drew a rough diagram to get myself started, realized other people might want the diagram too, and made a much nicer version:

    Now, let me explain what all the little lines and arrows and explosions mean.

    First, we have the Point of Attack--which is, as my theatre professor put it, the place where the story starts. Other people call it the beginning of the story, but Patricia C. Wrede has written blog posts about beginnings on several occasions, and it is her opinion that the place where we pick up the story is not always the same as the beginning of the story. We could be starting at the beginning, or just after, or just before, or near the end, or somewhere in the middle. The events of the story have a chronology, but where the book picks up the chronology isn't necessarily where the beginning of the story really is. Hence, the point of attack, because that tells us that this is where the writer of the story decided to start.

    Next, we have something called the Inciting Incident, marked by a yellow explosion. Every story has one of these; whether or not it is seen on-page depends on where the author starts the story. It might come into the story halfway through the book via flashback, depending on how ambitious the author was. But in the chronology of the story, the inciting incident is the spot where the freight-train of plot hit the characters in question. If this is Lord of the Rings, the inciting incident is when Frodo gets the Ring. If it's the Hobbit, the inciting incident is when Gandalf shows up at Bilbo's door and puts a dent in it, because that signals the start of the long line of dwarves that really get the story going. Bilbo and Frodo can no longer sit in the Shire doing nothing; the plot has hit them and now they have to get moving.

    My next arrow says "Setup Section". This is how I have decided to call the First Act, because, under Mr. Ingermanson's personal plot structure, that's what the first act is: All the setup for the first of three disasters.

    Next we hit D1, which is an abbreviated way of notating Disaster 1 and marked by a small red explosion. Disaster 1 is what gets us into the meat of the plot--it's the first major "tension spike", if you will, and this is the point in the story where things get real. The protagonist now has to take the events of the story more seriously, and really start doing something about it.

    D2 looks a little different, because it overlaps with a yellow star labeled "Midpoint." Again according to my theatre professor, the midpoint is the part of the story, right in the center, where the protagonist starts to change the way they do things. Whether it's a mental shift, an attitude shift, or just a process shift, something changes here. I presume that the reason for this is because two disasters have now occurred, and the protagonist is starting to realize that their way of doing things isn't going to work here.

    D3 is the final disaster, and it is the disaster that hurts most of all. The other two were bad, but this is nigh-on unbearable. This is, I would say, the protagonist's darkest moment--they've just lost that one thing they care about most, or have been imprisoned by the villain and are now set to be executed, or some other extremely major disaster. Depending on the story, this might be the point where the world ends. But the most important narrative part of D3 is the fact that it gives the need for Act Three.

    Act Three, which I have also labeled the "Wrapup Section", is the part where the protagonist's final plans will either succeed or fail, permanently. The stress mounts, the final plans are laid. Whatever happens now, it is the end. This is the final section of the story; the characters will get no more chances afterward.

    Act Three also contains the Climax, marked by another yellow explosion, which is where all the mental, emotional, and physical drama that has been building up till this point comes to a head. Frodo throws the Ring into Mount Doom. After this point, everything else in the story doesn't really matter except to tie up loose ends. This is is part where the major Plot Problem that has been plaguing the protagonist is finally solved--or not, if you don't write happy endings.

    After the climax comes the falling action and denouement, which is where any final loose ends get tied up. The Hobbits go back to reclaim the Shire, Frodo writes his book, Sam becomes mayor three times, Merry and Pippin go about their adventuring elsewhere, and so on, ending with Frodo sailing across the sea to the West. Anything else that needs to be taken care of gets taken care of. Any other information the reader is missing gets revealed. This is where epilogues may be found, when we get to see the characters living in their new normal later on.

    And then the story ends, hopefully in a satisfying manner.