Good morning everyone. You know what time it is. That’s right it is time for a new task and today I am very excited because we get to break down the last act into chapters. The last chapter in our Act 2 left us with a new crisis but is leading us towards our final goal. So take a minute to read over the break out of Act 3. Then double back to read through the chapters you broke out yesterday.
The issues to remember when breaking out this set of chapters is that we need to satisfactorily resolve any issues for the readers. You can’t bring up an issue in an earlier chapter and then forget it existed. It will lead to unhappy readers and extra revisions on your part as you have to shoehorn a few bits and pieces to cover it later. This doesn’t mean everything has to be wrapped up neatly with a little bow. Sometimes life is messy.
If, early on in your story your protagonist has a fight with someone, you can’t just forget about it. Say for example your adult protagonist has an argument with his mother because he broke up with a woman she liked and she thinks he should get back together with her. That could even be your opening scene in Act 1 before your protagonist goes on the hunt for the missing emerald stolen from the Countess Von Stoathaven. Sure the argument with his mother may not be relevant to the mystery but it does need to be mentioned.
Even if it is resolved he could take calls from his mother who is trying to convince him to get back with Gina. How he deals with this will show his personality, but it doesn’t have to be fully resolved. At the end he might just have to accept his mother just wants him settled and so he tells her he has a date with a new person. Then you can add in her switching off of Gina to ask questions about the date. Or he could tell his mother Gina moved on. Or any number of responses, again depending on the character. The calls from his mother could be a running theme in your story or he could be too busy to take them until the mystery is solved.
Whatever issues you have raised in your chapters thus far, before you jump into breaking out the chapters for act 3 make a note of them so you can be certain to address them in one way or another. It only takes a few minutes and it can save you hours of editing later. So
Task # 38: Read over the previous chapters and then read over your final act three and break act three into chapters using the mathematical breakout from earlier and remembering to wrap up the story (or set up room for a sequel if that is what you are going for)
As always, happy writing.
Ten til Midnight 