Let’s talk about the vaunted “three act structure”, spectre of much beginner writer advice. It posits that you must have “setup”, a “confrontation”, and “resolution”. Or wait, maybe it’s “setup”, “build”, and “payoff”? Or maybe “setup,” “build,” and “climax”? Wait, is the biggest baddest moment in act 2 or act 3?
The fuzziness about exactly what actually is the three act structure belies the fact that it’s, uh, tautological. Necessarily true. Not useful. If there is something useful within its framing, it’s in its equally fuzzy overlap with the concept of “conflict-based storytelling”, which is a subject for another blog post.
See, all stories have to have a beginning, in that they must begin. They’ve also got to have an ending, because they end. All the stuff between is obviously the middle. And bam, now you’ve got a three act structure.
This is perhaps overly glib, but not by much. There’s a logic to picking where a story starts. Too soon and it’s boring and/or irrelevant, too late and you’ll confuse your readers. As for the end, obviously you have to have finished telling the story, and you’ve also got to go through and make sure your ends are tied up and think about what sort of feeling you want people to leave your book with.
This leaves the rest of the book, aka the middle. And this is where all the story structure stuff like Save the Cat and the monomyth/hero’s journey all wimp out. “Fun and Games?” “Sundry trials and adventures?” May as well have said “idk, figure it out”. Anyone who’s tried to write a book knows that the middle is by far the hardest part. These story structures help by breaking the problem down into more manageable chunks, but none of those chunks are mandatory. In fact if you follow them too closely, you’ll very likely arrive at a story that feels formulaic, maybe even generic.
(Aside: my recommendation if you find yourself in this situation is to look for an intriguing subplot or set piece, important moments, something that ties deeply to your characters’ goals or insecurities, and figure out how to weave that into your story. Fill the middle of your story with cool, meaningful things, and you’ll avoid most of the pitfalls of story middles.)
Thus, we arrive at the true three act structure:
- Begin story
- Fuck about
- End story
Guaranteed to be applicable to all stories.
Bonus Content: Okay, smartass, I’d like to see you try.
Alright, fine. I’ve written stories. What sort of structure am I working with?
Well, I don’t even outline so don’t ask me. But if I were to guess what my subconscious is up to:
- Set up issues
- Build suspense
- Have issues come to a head at a pivotal moment
- Change in response to issues
- Conclude
It's got ye olde "the rest of the fucking owl" problem but at least it's not pretending that it doesn’t. It's probably better expressed as a list of dos/don'ts than this sequential thing, as in:
- do tell your readers everything they need to know to understand the story
- don't just drop em straight into the pivotal moment or it won't hit as hard
- make sure there's a pivotal moment
- something should change
- be intentional about what the last thing the reader reads is.
Another thing I won’t pretend is that this pivotal moment / change structure is some sort of sacred good. I like stories about change, about how and why it happens, how it feels when it does. Writing towards one or two extremely cool moments also works well with my process and I think makes for a good story as well.