Three Act Structure excerpt from This was initially popularized in the book Screenplay by Syd Field and has now become the language of Hollywood. It might be useful if I first point out that there are no actual act breaks in a movie. Think about it. A movie is a continuous experience. In a play there often are act breaks the curtain comes down, the lights come up and the audience goes out to the lobby for a drink. In TV there are act breaks that are filled by commercials. But in feature films there are no actual breaks in the narrative. Instead, when we say act break we re talking about a literary concept. We use act breaks to discuss critical turning points in the story: In Act One we introduce a character with a dilemma and show what s at stake. In Act Two the character tries to resolve their dilemma but faces increasing obstacles. And in Act Three we get some kind of resolution (not necessarily successful, but final.) Since this is a literary concept it can be subjective. You and I might disagree on the act breaks in a given story. There s no way to tell who s right and who s wrong. As a writer you identify the act breaks in the way that is most useful to you in telling your story. So, we have our Dramatic Question that is introduced in the Catalyst and answered in the Resolution. Typically, the Catalyst comes around page ten of your screenplay. The Resolution should probably come in the last six to eight pages. That leaves a lot of pages in between. We could use some structural landmarks to help us out.
The First Act is the section of your story where you introduce your character, their dilemma, and what s at stake. This typically takes up the first fourth of your screenplay. The Catalyst is the point at which the main character and their dilemma are made clear to the audience. It s when the Dramatic Question gets asked. You don t have to spell out every aspect of the impending plot here, but the audience needs to understand what the story is about. It is in essence the real beginning of the story. In Star Wars, the catalyst is when Luke sees R2D2 project the hologram of Princess Leia and decides he wants to help her. The audience knows that Leia is being held by Darth Vadar and that Vadar is looking for R2D2. So the Dramatic Question becomes Will Luke beat Darth Vadar? Note that Luke doesn t even know about Vadar yet and that the audience doesn t know the Death Star will eventually come to threaten the rebel base. We don t need all these details, we simply need to understand what the core of the story is going to be about. Act One Break Sometime around page twenty-five or thirty there will be an act break. This is the point at which the character actually embarks on the journey of the story. It s sometimes known as the point of no return. I think that s a good way to look at it from here on out the character has no choice but to see this through to the end. If the character can walk away from the story without losing anything there isn t much tension. At the Act One Break you have to trap them in the story. The Act One Break in The Matrix is when Neo takes the red pill. In fact, Morpheus literally tells him that if he chooses the blue pill the story ends and if he takes the red pill there will be no going back. That s a pretty good description of the Act One break! In Star Wars the Act One Break is when Luke goes with Obi Wan to Mos Eisley to find a pilot to take them into space. In Avatar it s when Jake is welcomed into the Navi. In Silence of the Lambs it s when Buffalo Bill kidnaps Catherine Martin adding stakes and a ticking clock to Clarice s questioning of Hannibal Lecter. In all these cases if the character walks away from the story after this point they will fail in their goal and suffer for it. They are locked in.
The Second Act takes up roughly the middle half of your screenplay. This is where the character tries to solve their problem but faces escalating obstacles and ideally escalating stakes. It ends at the Act Two Break, or the point of apparent success or failure. Act Two Break: Apparent Failure/Success Whatever the Resolution to your Dramatic Question is, there needs to be a moment where the opposite appears to be inevitable. So if your character succeeds at the end, you need a moment where it appears the character will fail. And if your character fails at the end, you need a moment where they appear to succeed. This moment should come late in the story as the tension is building toward the climax. We need it so the audience can t predict how the movie s going to unfold. We may know that in a big Hollywood movie the hero will beat the bad guy and get the girl, but we shouldn t be able to figure out how they ll be able to do that. Otherwise why should we watch? In screenwriting, we call this moment of apparent failure/success the Act Two Break. The Third Act, takes up roughly the last quarter of your screenplay. It provides the climactic resolution to your story. When the audience knows the outcome of the Dramatic Question your story is over. The audience will stick with you for a few minutes of wrap up, but if you go on too long after resolving the dramatic question they re going to get restless. They ll say things like, it was anti-climactic.
Character Want and Need But Three Act Structure isn t just about plotting. It s also about character. Your character and plot need to be interrelated to have a good story. This is where character Want and Need come in. The character Want is what drives them consciously through the story. It s their motivation. The character Need is what they unconsciously need to be happy and successful in their lives. Often these two things are in conflict. I ll repeat for emphasis character Want and Need are critical parts of your plot. Even if the dilemma comes from outside the character the Want and Need are driving the story forward. They are determining what decisions the character makes at each critical juncture. Most good movies operate on two levels. These two levels derive from two elements of the main character: Want and Need. The main character s want drives the story. Sometimes this want comes out of the character themselves in Almost Famous William wants to be a rock journalist; in Little Miss Sunshine Olive wants to be a beauty queen; in Star Wars Luke wants to adventure in space. They start the story with these desires. Other times the want is thrust on the character by an event in the story in The Fugitive Dr. Kimble wants to prove his innocence after he has been wrongly convicted of a crime; in Back to the Future Marty wants to get back to the future because he s been accidentally stranded in the past while fleeing bad guys. In these cases the event that creates the want is usually the catalyst beat of the three act structure. We all want something every waking moment, even if it s just to be left alone or to take a nap. Characters may have different wants that drive them through each scene, but there will always be an overall want that drives them through the story. In most (but not all) good movies the character also has a need which is different than the want. They are usually unaware of this need. It is a change the character has to make in order to be happy. The need drives the character arc and adds depth to the story. In the best cases the need is tied to the want practically and thematically.
For example, in Almost Famous William needs to learn to be "honest and unmerciful" in order to achieve his want of becoming a good journalist. In Star Wars Luke needs to learn discipline, patience and faith to destroy the Death Star and become a hero. In Back to the Future Marty needs to gain self-confidence which he does by teaching that same lesson to his father thus undoing the damage he s done to history and preventing himself from never being born (which all makes perfect sense if you ve seen the movie!) Sometimes a character s need is to give up what they want because that want is preventing them from being happy. Structurally, the want and need generally drive two parallel stories, one internal and one external, which interact through the course of the movie. The external story is built on the character s want. This is the visible, physical action of the movie. We watch the character actively pursue their conscious goal. The internal story is built on the character s need. This is the story that s happening in the character s head/heart/soul as the character transforms to achieve (or perhaps not) their need. Our job as writers is to find ways to externalize this journey so the audience can see it. Identifying your character s want and need and then tracking the internal and external storylines will help ensure your stories and characters are rich and deep.