The Second Act

Sorry the post is a little late. I know they're usually up by Monday morning, but my laptop had been doing the slow death crawl for a few months now and it's on its last leg. Poor thing. I hope it lasts through my last two online tests. But anyway, you all are expecting a blog post, so here we go.

The second act is where most of the action happens. Have you ever heard the analogy that writing a book is like getting your character up a tree, throwing rocks at him, and then getting him back down again.

Act one is putting him up the tree.
Now we get to throw rocks at him.

Doesn’t that sound fun?

The first point I will make is that the second act is always the longest. It’s all the problems your protagonist faces along their journey. This is often when first-time writers sag the most. It’s also where I sag the most.

 

Sorry. Moving on. Anyway, making sure you have ideas planned for the middle is important. The beginning and the end are important too of course, and in fact the end and the climax is almost the most important part, but if the reader gets bored in the middle, they’re never going to read the end. Usually you want between 3 and10 big planned events in the middle. I usually go with somewhere around 5. 10 is kind of extensive, unless you’re writing a high fantasy novel, which I do not recommend on your first try.

Have fun writing everyone!

Good luck with your middle!

The First Act

Buckle up you all, it’s time for act one.

Act one is when we get to see into the world of the story. Generally, I imagine Act One to be about three chapters, although some form of conflict should occur before that, or else I’m going to be really bored and stop reading and go do homework. I have so much homework help me.

But anyway, let’s talk about Act One in a little more detail.

This act is bringing us (the reader) into the world of the story. The first chapter, especially the first paragraph and especially especially the first sentence, has to engage the reader. I’ve read a book, not going to name any names, but it was a really really horrible book. 

A horrible book.

The first sentence was something like (don’t quote me on this, I got rid of the book) “I sat tired on my bed wondering what my first day of school was going to be like.”

How boring is that?

Super boring.

You want your first act to snare the reader. Grab them by the collar and don’t let go of them until act three is over and they put your book down with a satisfied sigh and a “Wow.”

To do that, give the reader a little taste of what’s to come. Describe a little bit of the environment, but not too much. That’s called infodumping and it’s horrible.

But anyway, the first act is important because it draws the reader in and enthralls them.

Go forth my lovelies, and write.

The Three Acts

Now that we’ve gone over the five elements of story, we’re going to go over the three acts of the story. These acts will help the author sort out the different scenes they’re intending to write and make the action of the story rise at a good pace.

I’ll be posting about all three acts, and I’ll get into a little detail about each one here, but later I’ll have a post for each one.

The Three Acts

Act One

This is the one where the reader starts the story. It introduces the characters and the universe and anything about the book the reader might need to know.  Please don’t infodump though. Please. I beg of you. There’s nothing I hate more than infodumping.

Okay maybe Donald Trump, but I digress.

The conflict should be showing up by the end of act one by the way. I read somewhere (I forget where, if I remember, I’ll post the source) that the conflict shouldn’t show up any later than 20% through the book or movie.

Act Two

Act two is about building the action. In Lord of the Rings, this would be their journey across Middle Earth. Okay, maybe LOTR is a bad example because it’s so long. But the point is the tension is rising and things are getting more and more dangerous for our protagonist. In LOTR, this might be an instance like the Balrog in the Mines of Moria. It’s not the climax of the book, but it was dangerous and a lot of bad things happened. Act two ends right before the climax.

Act Three

This is the climax. The final battle. Frodo drops the ring into Mount Doom. Etcetera Etcetera. This is the part where you can’t put the book down because YOU GOTTA KNOW WHAT’S HAPPENING.

I’ll get into more detail each week, but here’s an introduction of what’s to come!

The Fifth Element: Something to Learn

 Don't you wish we were talking about the movie the Fifth Element?

Multipass. M u l t i p a s s.

High fives all around if you understand the reference. If not, go watch Fifth Element. Do it.

 

This is the last element for you all:

Something to Learn.

This is the moral of the story.

The Early Bird catches the worm.

Slow and steady wins the race.

True love is the most powerful force in the world. (*cough cough Princess Bride cough*)

Lightsabers are cool (not a moral, just something I think is true and important about Star Wars)

Etc.

Etc.

Now I know what you’re all thinking: You can’t possibly know what I’m thinking Micah!

(Did I guess)

But I’m sure what you’re thinking is something along the lines of “Morals are really preachy and I don’t want a moral in my book,” but if you think about it, even a story of that thing you saw on the internet probably has some kind of a moral. By definition, the moral of the story is the point you want to make by telling the story.

Now let’s look at modern stories to look at this.

I’m going to use Marvel’s Agent Carter as an example because I love it.

In Season 1, everyone doubted that Peggy could do anything to solve the case. Without revealing anything, I will say that she uses the fact that she is a girl to get into several places that a boy could not (for example, flirting with a male suspect) and ended up solving the case herself.  

It’s really awesome. You all should watch it.

But the moral of that show is “just because someone is a girl doesn’t mean they’re any less capable than a man.”

But was it preachy? No.

Maybe a little sometimes, but honestly, I just really enjoyed it for the characters and the humor and the action and the COPIOUS HEARTBREAK.

(It’s beautiful)

The Fourth Element: Something to Suffer

Today I’ll be talking to you about suffering. It’s a horrible subject I know, but it’s part of a story, so you’ll just have to deal. 

I have a very prime example of suffering. I have been sick all weekend. I slept for most of Sunday, which sucked. I mean the sleeping didn’t suck, but the fact that I had to sleep instead of doing fun things like watching cutthroat kitchen sucked. I’m feeling somewhat better today though, thank you very much. Also, it’s impossible to catch any kind of sickness through the internet. Or maybe it is these days, I don’t know. But I digress.

The protagonist of your story can’t have it too easy. If his fiancée is captured by pirates (kidnapped by pirates is good), it actually has to be difficult for him to get her back. He can’t just pick up the Pirate Shooter 3000 (Patent Pending), waltz onto the ship, and get her back no problem. How boring would that be?

If your protagonist’s fiancée is captured by pirates, your protagonist should have to go through a lot to rescue her. I’m talking storms at sea, sunburn, sea monsters, more sunburn, fights with pirates, peely sunburns, evil shipmates, and yet more sunburn. 

Adding things for your protagonist to suffer from makes the story much more interesting and exciting to read. Otherwise it’s super boring. Of course, your protagonist has to make actual progress, but it can’t be too easy. 

Also, I might add, making your protagonist suffer is a good way to show that he actually cares about the story goal. If he will fight pirates to rescue his love, it’s obviously he really loves her.