How To Confront The Unforgiving Nature 0f Third Acts


           My early training was as a playwright. Although most plays over the last forty years are two acts, historically plays were three acts. One of the first rules I learned was that if there were problems in Act 3 it meant that the real problem was in Act I.
            Since the 3 Act Structure is what most screenwriters use to write their scripts, the rule I learned as a playwright is dead on.
            If you’ve been writing a while and have started, but not finished, a number of scripts, chances are you walked away from them because you couldn’t make your third act work. If there’s a way to make them work it has to do with how you end your second act.
            Act 2 must end with a bang. A surprise. New information. Most films don’t have a big End of Act 2 moment. The ones that do rock! The best one ever is in The Crying Game. If you’ve seen the movie you know what I’m talking about. If you haven’t seen The Crying Game I don’t want to spoil it for you, so rent it.
            By building your second act to a big moment or reveal or twist or new information, you propel your audience into Act 3 with momentum. Say you’re writing a romantic comedy and the story is basic will boy get girl? You’re moving along and the boy is pursuing the girl and then you get to the end of Act 2 and we find out that she’s married. If we didn’t see that coming, you’ve pulled it off and made us say: “What’s going to happen now?”
            It’s important to know that you don’t necessarily need to have a humongous event happen at the end of Act 2 (like in The Crying Game). But you need to have something. Something that makes your audience (and remember, your first audience are the people reading the script) smile or nod their heads or think “Interesting.”
            Getting to that moment means doing your preliminary work. An outline. Not all that long and not for anyone but yourself. Basically you write down (no dialogue) whatever will happen in Act I, then whatever will happen in Act 2 and point out the new information that will propel you into Act 3.
What Act 3 is all about is how your main character handles whatever that new information presented to him was. What action must he take? And if he takes it, what is the risk? Or if he doesn’t take it, what are the consequences?
Act 3 can be beaten and controlled and made to work for you. But before you get there, do an outline and know where you're going.

17 comments:

  1. You're right about The Crying Game. That end of act two reveal blew me away. There's nothing better than being surprised. "Wanted" a couple years back had a good one too.

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  2. Oh yeah, I remember "Wanted". After watching it the only thing I really wanted was my money back...

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  3. I have 5 screenplays I started, but couldn't finish because of a weak third act. It's weird because I've been able to finish all the other scripts I started. As for outlines, sometimes I do fairly detailed ones and other times just a few basic cause and effect points. When I first started writing I never did an outline. It was like you said in a previous column: I just wanted to start writing the script. Big mistake. Think ahead or you'll most likely be going backward.

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  4. I thought "Wanted" was good and yeah, the end of act 2 totally surprised me. I won't start a script unless I know what the end of act 2 event is gonna be. I also need to know how it will end. I'm a lawyer so I think like a lawyer. I don't like surprises. It works for me. I've had 2 deals. One is stalled, but the other is moving forward. Fingers crossed!!!

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  5. On the three screenplays I've written I found that what I thought was the end of the script was really the end of act two. So my problem has been not understanding that my second acts need to have more complications and a stronger subplot

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  6. Sometimes the third act problem stems from not knowing what your main character really wants in act 1, having an inciting incident that doesn't really set the character on a new journey, and an end of act 1 problem that doesn't sufficiently complicate matters in regards to the main character's wants. If the "want" is fuzzy or lame, then you may not have much to resolve in act 3, which becomes a big problem for YOU, rather than the main character.

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  7. This makes so much sense. I always crash and burn when I should be sailing along into the third act. Thanks for the tip!

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  8. I always have a problem having a third act that's as interesting as the first two. I run out of steam. I'm going to give outlining a try. I like what you said about ending the second act.

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  9. I am not linear in my approach to screenwriting. I begin while the blood is hot, then when I cool down I do my 3 act breakout. For me, I can see it clearer if I've gotten a sense of the 'drift' of the story. Nice Pope quote, by the way. The changing profile pix - are you blogging from European Capitols while leading an interesting life?

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  10. I have problems building up to the third act. First acts come pretty easy for me. What messes me up is that what I think is the end of my second act comes too early. And then I don't really have a third act, but a really long second act and a wimpy three or four pages in act three. I never thought about that big new information thing you mentioned. I'll give it a try.

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  11. One solution I found is to work backwards and do the 3 acts in reverse. It's bizarre but it has worked for me.

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  12. Getting to act three hasn't so much been my problem. It's having enough stuff happen in act three that has frustrated me. I read your book and you talk about Act 3 and a half where some event occurs that is the final launchpad of the last 15 pages. That's what's been hard for me. To find that.

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  13. This is a good thing to know. I've taken online classes and nobody brought this up the way you did. Thanks.

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  14. I have a hard time with outlines. I just can get myself to think ahead...what's going to happen...what characters are thinking or going to be doing. I guess it's important to view the end of act two as a destination. If I understand you, getting there is more than half the battle.

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  15. I never met a third act that didn't break my heart. Thanks for the suggestions.

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  16. Unforgiving is an understatement.

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