The 3 Act Structure

Story structure is essentially the blueprint of your story. It’s the framework that organizes the events of your plot, guiding readers from the beginning to the end. Think of it like the skeleton of your story — it provides the shape and support for all the other elements, like characters, setting, and themes, to come together in a way that makes sense.

You can structure your story in any way that you like, but there are some tried-and-true structures that can help you tell stories that have resonated with readers, listeners, and viewers for centuries.

You can read all about the five best-selling structures here. If you look at that article, you will notice a lot of similarities between some of the structures, along with a few differences. The writing world has also developed countless structures for individual genres, many of which you can find through a quick internet search.

Today, let's look at the Three-Act Structure, which provides a basis for many of the other structures you'll find.

The three-act structure is used frequently in narrative fiction. It divides the story, not surprisingly, into three main parts: the Setup, the Confrontation, and the Resolution.

But wait! Each act can typically be broken down into three subsections. Let’s take a look, with some examples from The Wizard of Oz:

Act 1: The Setup

Act 1 is all about setting the stage for your story. It introduces your characters, their world, and the initial conflict that will drive the rest of the narrative. This is where the audience starts to understand who the key players are and what’s at stake.

Key Elements of Act 1:

1. Exposition:
   • Brief Definition: The exposition is how you introduce your audience to the ‘before' of your story. It's the background information that your readers need to understand the world, characters, and what life is like for your main characters before the adventure starts. Think of it as showing your readers the ‘starting point' before things get interesting.
   • Purpose: It establishes the status quo, or the character’s normal world, setting the stage for the changes and challenges to come. It will show the normal life your character lives in, and their world.
   • Example from Wizard of Oz: Dorothy living on the farm, her relationship with her aunt and uncle, and her life in Kansas before the tornado.
2. Inciting Incident:
   • Brief Definition: The inciting incident is the event that disrupts the normal world of your character and sets the story in motion. It's the event that hooks the audience, makes them question things, and forces the characters to act, making it clear the story has begun.
   • Purpose: It kicks off the main conflict and propels the protagonist into the main story. This can often come with a question, such as “What will happen next?” or “How will she fix this?”
   • Example from Wizard of Oz: The tornado sweeping Dorothy away to Oz, which pushes her from her normal life and world to an entirely different world with new possibilities.
3. Plot Point One:
   • Brief Definition: Plot Point One is the moment at the end of Act One when your protagonist commits to the main adventure. It's the first major point where your main character begins to actively participate in the main conflict, and when the original story goal comes into being.
   • Purpose: It solidifies the goal of the main character and pushes them fully into the central conflict. From this point forward, the character is active in the main story.
   • Example from Wizard of Oz: When Glinda tells Dorothy about the Yellow Brick Road and the Wizard, and Dorothy begins her journey with a clear objective to find the Wizard and go home.

Act 2: The Confrontation

Act 2 is where the meat of the story unfolds. It's the longest act, and it's all about your protagonist facing obstacles, developing, and working toward their goal, while learning more about the conflict they are in. This is where the tension builds, the stakes increase, and the character is tested.

Key Elements of Act 2:

1. Rising Action:
   • Brief Definition: The rising action is the series of events and challenges that build tension and momentum in your story, pushing your protagonist towards their goal, while making their goal seem ever more difficult to reach.
   • Purpose: It escalates the conflict, introduces obstacles and supporting characters, and reveals new information about the world and the protagonist. It builds on the inciting incident, creating ever-larger difficulties for the character to overcome, and raising questions in the reader's mind.
   • Example from Wizard of Oz: Dorothy and her companions face a series of obstacles on their journey to the Emerald City, such as the poppies, the apple trees, and the winged monkeys, each of which serves to build tension.
2. Midpoint:
   • Brief Definition: The midpoint is a pivotal moment in the middle of Act 2, where the story’s direction shifts and the stakes are raised. It often involves a significant event or revelation that changes the protagonist’s perspective, and it usually raises the stakes of the story.
   • Purpose: It serves as a turning point, altering the protagonist’s understanding of the conflict, raising the emotional stakes, and pushing them further toward the climax. It is often a moment where the protagonist gets what they think they want, but it isn’t the entire solution or it has an unexpected complication.
   • Example from Wizard of Oz: When Dorothy and her friends finally arrive in the Emerald City and meet the Wizard, where they are asked to face the Wicked Witch of the West.
3. Plot Point Two:
   • Brief Definition: Plot Point Two is the moment at the end of Act 2 when the protagonist commits to facing the biggest challenge and decides on their new strategy to overcome the problem. This is often accompanied by the lowest point in the narrative for the protagonist, where they are pushed to their limit, and may even be in despair. However, they are not defeated.
   • Purpose: It sets up the final act by creating the last challenges for the character and raising the stakes even more. Often the protagonist has now learned what they need to overcome their challenges, or they think they have.
   • Example from Wizard of Oz: Dorothy defeats the Wicked Witch, but still can not go home and thinks the Wizard will solve her problems. Dorothy then goes back to the Emerald City to face the Wizard.

Act 3: The Resolution

Act 3 brings your story to its conclusion, focusing on resolving the core conflict and showing the changes in your main character. We can further break down the third act into three parts: the pre-climax, the climax, and then the falling action/resolution. These three elements will show the audience what happens as your character comes to the end of their journey.

Key Elements of Act 3:

1. Pre-Climax (aka “Dark Night of the Soul”):
   • Brief Definition: The pre-climax, often called the ‘dark night of the soul,' is the moment right before the final confrontation where your protagonist experiences their lowest point. It’s the moment where it may seem like all hope is lost, or that they will not achieve their goal, as they face some sort of loss, setback, or disaster.
   • Purpose: It creates a moment of intense despair or vulnerability, making the subsequent victory or change all the more powerful. It is also meant to emphasize the obstacles the characters have to overcome, and to make the character feel that they have nowhere left to turn but inside themselves. It provides the motivation for the next step.
   • Example from Wizard of Oz: Dorothy is captured by the Wicked Witch and imprisoned, and the witch taunts her by telling her she will die when the hourglass runs out of sand. Dorothy’s companions also seem unable to help her. This is the lowest point for Dorothy in the story.
2. Climax:
   • Brief Definition: The climax is the peak of tension and action, where the central conflict is directly addressed and resolved. It is the turning point of the story when the protagonist confronts their antagonist (or their internal demons) in a final, decisive way. This often involves a moment where the protagonist discovers a new power, uses a new skill, or has a complete change in how they see their world.
   • Purpose: It is the moment that the story has been building towards. It is the moment that the character learns a crucial lesson and can use this new knowledge or skill to achieve their goal.
   • Example from Wizard of Oz: Dorothy, in her panic, accidentally throws a bucket of water on the Wicked Witch, and she melts. Dorothy has learned that sometimes a simple solution is enough to overcome a big problem, which is related to her overall arc of believing she needs to go outside herself for help, when, in fact, she had everything she needed all along.
3. Falling Action/Resolution:
   • Brief Definition: The falling action and resolution occur after the climax. The falling action quickly ties up the loose ends and prepares the audience for the resolution, where the story concludes. In the resolution, the reader gets to see the long-term changes in the main character and the themes that the story was trying to convey.
   • Purpose: It provides closure, showing the consequences of the climax and leaving a final impact on the audience. The story will now show a return to the status quo, or will show a new normal based on the main character's changes.
   • Example from Wizard of Oz: Dorothy and her friends meet the Wizard and find out he is a fraud. Glinda tells Dorothy that she had the power to go home all along and always had it. She clicks her heels and wakes up back in Kansas, safe with her loved ones and with a newfound appreciation of where she came from.

So what's next? You have a an idea of how a book is organized using the 3-Act Structure, but how do you put that into practice? If you'd like to take an even deeper dive into the specific of each piece of each act, along with examples from other books and movies such as Star Wars: A New Hope, The Hunger Games, The Proposal, and The Shawshank Redemption, then you should check out our Fiction in 30 course:

Meanwhile, if you feel that the three-act structure isn’t right for you, we have a full training on narrative structures, and you can send us a message with the genre of your story and we can help you research genre-specific story structures.

Hopefully, you now feel you have a reasonable understanding of character arcs and story structure. These tools should help guide you and move your story forward so you can accomplish your goals.