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emptymanuscript · 6 years

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Acts

So what is an act?

Act is originally a theater term. An act was a sequence of scenes that occurred while the curtain was up, usually with truly minimal set changes. When the curtain went up, the act started. When the curtain went down, the act ended. Between Acts came the Act Change which were the large scale changes in set scenery, such as changing the backdrop, and therefore the large scale changes in time and place.

Act evolved into a term for writing for theater to reflect how the Acts worked. It set itself up to reflect the “natural” structure that was happening both to accommodate it and take advantage of it. To accommodate, large scale changes were saved for the act change, letting people change the backdrop when they had time. To take advantage, the act change marked changes in dramatic energy, redirecting how people would feel about what was happening by letting the pause reset their emotions and start them on a new path.

Leap ahead to us writing books which don’t have curtains or players but we still use the act as a method of coherence and the act change to alter the dramatic energy in a text. Every scene within an act contributes to a single general direction of dramatic energy and every act’s dramatic energy is different from every other act.

Ok, I’ve used the wishy-washy term dramatic energy. What am I on about? Dramatic Energy is made up of: 1) Overarching Sub-Goal 2) Comedic/Tragic Probability 3) Strength of that Probability 4) Activity/Reactivity of Main Character(s) To change Dramatic Energy at least one of these factors must change.

1) The overarching sub-goal is just the general goal that your character is trying to accomplish over the course of the act. This is a significant portion of the overarching main goal or the book. For the original Star Wars, Luke’s goals are: First act: Be part of something larger/have an adventure. Second act: Aid the Rebellion against the Empire Third act: Save the Rebellion from the Death Star They all add up to the overarching goal of becoming a noble warrior: a Jedi Knight like his father before him. But each individual sub-goal functions as a story engine in its own right, powering the story for that portion.

2) The Comedic/Tragic probability is simply which outcome is more likely in a given act. Is the overarching goal of the whole story more likely to succeed (comedy) or fail (tragedy)? Because Succeed/Fail (Comedic/Tragic) is a binary (tragicomic means something just slightly different than tragedy and comedy in this case) the switch is really one to the other. So acts tend to switch: Success, Failure, Success. Or Failure, Success, Failure.

3) Strength of Probability of Comedic or Tragic Ending is changing the amplitude of how probable a Success or a Failure is. So you might start with just the prospect of Success. The next act might be that Success is Probably. The final act might be the near inevitability of Success. This is part of what people mean by RISING tension. The strength of probability almost always goes up. Even when you’re switching success and failure like: prospect of success, likelihood of failure, high probability of success. Strength almost always goes up for the same reason that you keep needing more drugs to get the same high. Lowering the strength doesn’t give a return to normal, it gives a let down, and emotions get muted.

4) Activity/Reactivity of the MC is another binary. An active MC goes after what they want. A reactive MC responds to what other forces in the story do. While both are always going on to some degree, this represents the overall balance. Because it is a binary, again, things tend to switch. Active, Reactive, Active.

When one to four of those features change in a dramatic way, readers tend to feel it as an act switch. It feels like a major change in mood. But you aren’t actually limited to changing them at the act change. In fact, modern three act structure is notorious for having an act change without an official act change. The mid point, despite still being part of the middle, changes dramatic energy more often than not. This has lead to some arguing that the modern three act story is a misnomer and it is actually four acts – the middle two just tend not to switch Comedic/Tragic.

But what may be even more true is that the number of acts is really fairly arbitrary and based around custom rather than any particular thing that acts do for story. Most books and movies are organized around the modern three act structure – which might be four acts depending on how you look at it. Shakespeare and most of his contemporaries wrote in five acts and the five act structure is still in use today. The one act is standard in short stories and many small plays. Is there a limit to how many acts you can use? None that anyone has ever told me. I suspect that changing acts too frequently helps make a piece feel overly melodramatic because there isn’t enough time to process the overall change in mood. But that doesn’t suggest a limit, it just suggests that you need a minimum number of scenes in your act, and besides the obvious of a basic sequence of three (buildup, action, resolution) I’ve no idea what that number would be. So stick to custom to make readers feel comfortable. Break custom to see what can be done.

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