Good morning everyone. I hope you had a Nice Long weekend and had the chance to look at your six points of Act 1. This is the basic set up broken out into six main points. Now here is the thing. You may have noticed that as you worked on breaking out the six parts, your thoughts started to shift. You may have added an element that you may have thought would enter the story at a later date. You may have had a thought come out of the blue that you just have to incorporate. That is perfectly normal, and likely to happen often at this stage. Now because Act 1 is the set up that leads us to act 2 it is worth reviewing.
First thing, I want you to look at your one sentence break out for each of your three acts. For Bob our three acts were…
Act 1: Bob, is working at the Garrison Family Lumber Yard and his father-in Law does not like the changes he has made to the management.
Act 2: Bob fights with his father-in law about management, he tries to pass duties onto family who don’t want the responsibility, he finds out someone is embezzling from the company and that his wife is having an affair and he gets fired.
Act 3: Bob gets divorced and leaves to start a new life.
We then out Act 1 of Bob into six parts they ended up being…
1: The start of the Story. Bob is working for his Father-in-law as he had a heart attack and there was no one else available to keep the family business afloat.
2:The issue with the everyday world: Bob went to school to be a Marine Biologist but even though he takes small jobs in his field when he can, he feels that more and more of his life is becoming about the Lumber Yard.
3: Inciting Incident: Bob had to change systems and processes when he started taking over because the business was heading for bankruptcy and now that they are in the black Henry insists on going back to the way things were and making things more miserable (actively miserable) for Bob at work.
4:Chocies: His FiL hints (in several unsubtle ways) that he should quit giving him the opportunity of walking away.
5: Second thoughts: Bob realizes that if he leaves everything will go back to being run the way it was and the business will fail in a year or two.
6:Decision:Bob decides he will train some of the others so they will understand the system and then once they can manage things competently he will pull himself out of the company so it doesn’t just collapse.
Ideally Act 1 leads you into Act 2 so if you look at the six points and realize that the one sentence break out does not entirely fit with the parts you put together for Act one, maybe take a moment and rewrite that over arching sentence so that things match up a bit better. (It is easier to do this as we go so everything matches when we get to the end. (But don’t worry we will still go over the whole thing at the end to make sure it flows together well.)
So, everyone take a moment to look it over. I for some reason have the Down, Down to Goblin Town song from the Animated version of the Hobbit that came out in the seventies or eighties running through my head for some reason. I will be singing it until we are ready to move on. Feel free to sing along…
Okay everyone ready? Good we can end the sing along and move forward. So For Bob the second Act sentence still works (even if I have to adjust my personal story).
His sentence was… Act 2: Bob fights with his father-in law about management, he tries to pass duties onto family who don’t want the responsibility, he finds out someone is embezzling from the company and that his wife is having an affair and he gets fired.
This act is all about ramping up the action and throwing road blocks at our characters. That’s right, it is time to get mean. Make those sees choppy. Make sure there is no smooth sailing and a very definite possibility of smashing upon the rocks. To keep things in order (and to make it easier later. We are going to start the numbers for Act 2’s breakout at 7. (since we have six from the first part) So…
7:Change Begins: This shouldn’t be too strange to figure out. We ended our act one break out with a decision being made. Think of this beginning as the direct aftermath of that decision. If someone decides to go on a trip, this is where they pull up flight information. If they decide on a bank robbery this is where they start to list out everything they will need to pull it off and not get caught (hopefully). Bob’s decision was… Bob decides he will train some of the others so they will understand the system and then once they can manage things competently he will pull himself out of the company so it doesn’t just collapse. So what follows after that will be…
7:Bob makes a list of the family working for the company looking at strengths and weaknesses so he can see who to pass which jobs to.
8: Is our first Obstacle. Now of course things aren’t going to go smoothly. Not for Bob and not for your characters, at least I hope not. We need our first obstacle. That’s right it is time to start messing with our protagonist’s perfect plan. Has the bank’s security been recently upgraded? Is the passport expired? Remember this is the first obstacle so make it an obstacle but don’t make it so difficult that there is no getting around it and the character decides to give up. For Bob, we will go with…
8:Obstacle #1: He finds out that most of the family wants to be seen to be in charge without actually doing the work.
This of course leads us to number nine where we have our character plan to deal with the obstacle. Notice I said plan, not overcome. They may may a plan and even solve the problem with their plan. Or their plan could go awry and get tangled up with all of the other obstacles and plans to overcome them that we have coming up. Your protagonist may work on various elements of all their plans at the same time. Some things may be unsolvable and they have to live with it. They may find they all wrap up at the same time towards the end of the story as you prepare for your dramatic conclusion, or they could solve the problem, overcoming the obstacle only to create a new problem. How you work with this is going to depend on your story. Right now, we are just listing the obstacles we are creating and then the plan to deal with them. Bob is our rather straightforward example. So…
9:Plan to deal with Obstacle #1: Bob figures if he has the system set up so that the underlings take care of things and the ‘in charge’ family only has to sign off so they look like they are the one with authority it would work best so he decides to shift the systems, protocols and checklists so it is ‘foolproof’ and easy to manage.
And so we have a plan to deal with the first obstacle. What do you think that means? That’s right, a second obstacle. And if you can make it a little bit worse then the first, by all means, ramp it up. For Bob…
10:Obstacle 2: Bob finds out one (or more) of the family is embezzling.
And you know that leads us to the plan to deal with this obstacle. It is the same deal as last time, plan for dealing with it even if the plan falls apart.
11:Plan for dealing with Obstacle 2:Bob puts in a system of checks and balances closing up the avenue for theft and will be telling FiL about it so he can decide how he wants to handle the theft now that it has been stopped.
And now we reach 12. This is the midpoint. The twist. Here we learn something that we didn’t know before. Or at least our main character might not have known before. Something that changes things, makes the character rethink their decisions and plans to move forward. In our example with Bob…
12:Midpoint (twist): Bob discovers that if his FiL fires him than according to the contract he signed there is a hefty severance package coming his way that his FiL does not want him to have and is therefore trying to make him quit instead of firing him.
Which brings us to the beginning of dealing with the twist. We will call it dealing with the midpoint. It is where our protagonist has a good rethink about what they are doing and why. Maybe they even make a new over all plan. This could be because of a shift in their emotions. New information coming to light or a personal realization. It could even reaffirm that the path they are on is really the one they want. So with Bob…
13:Dealing with the Midpoint: Bob realizes that his work will never be valued and that while he will reassign duties he will make his FiL fire him.
But I know you didn’t think we were done throwing things at our protagonist and their plans. That’s right now that they have made a new plan (or reaffirmed their faith in the existing one) it is time to add another obstacle. And so
14:Obstacle 3:Bob finds out his wife is having an affair with George.
And of course we have to have a plan to deal with the obstacle…
15:Plan for Obstacle 3: Bob confronts his wife about the affair and they decide to separate.
Do we have one more obstacle in us? I think we might (although the number of obstacles you have for your characters is going to depend on your story. You may have more, you may have less. For Bob we will add one more obstacle.
16:Obstacle 4: FiL goes in with the help of Chuck and removes the systems Bob put in place to keep them stable and the pilfering down.
And of course the plan for this obstacle comes as well. In Bob’s case he is not going to deal with it…
17: Plan/deal with Obstacle #4: Bob decides that as he is getting divorced then it is no longer his concern and he doesn’t fight them removing the system. He will be leaving anyway so let them go down the tubes.
Does this mean we end the Act here? Oh no. Because we have a crisis moment at the end of Act 2. This is the moment that threatens the plan, the change that your character started in the beginning and modified at the midpoint. For Bob all he wants to do is escape the company and never think of them again. He no longer cares if they go bankrupt as long as he is not involved. (just remember we will deal with the crisis and wrapping up all the other plans in Act 3, for now it is just the threat) So what threatens him…
18: Crisis: FiL decides that Bob is the one who is embezzling funds from the company.
And there we have it. The break out for Act 2. I know, it is a lot, but Act 2 is the big one. When you go to write it this act is twice as long as the other two sections. It can be daunting and for a first run through this act, I will often place the ideas in and then let it sit, later coming back and shifting the order of things. Sometimes you just need to see them laid out in order before coming back and going through them to adjust. But for now, that is Our task for today, to lay Act 2’s points in order. Deep breath and remember it isn’t set in stone. Just get it down on the page. I will see you tomorrow for our next task.
Ten til Midnight 