Three-Act Structure: Difference between revisions

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{{quote|“I took a master class with Billy Wilder once and he said that in the first act of a story you put your character up in a tree and the second act you set the tree on fire and then in the third you get him down.”|''[[Star Wars]]'' and ''[[The Empire Strikes Back|Empire Strikes Back]]'' Producer '''Gary Kurtz''', [http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/herocomplex/2010/08/star-wars-was-born-a-long-time-ago-but-not-all-that-far-far-away-in-1972-filmmakers-george-lucas-and-gary-kurtz-wer.html ''LA Times'' interview]}}

{{quote|“I took a master class with Billy Wilder once and he said that in the first act of a story you put your character up in a tree and the second act you set the tree on fire and then in the third you get him down.”

|''[[Star Wars]]'' and ''[[The Empire Strikes Back|Empire Strikes Back]]'' Producer '''Gary Kurtz''', [http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/herocomplex/2010/08/star-wars-was-born-a-long-time-ago-but-not-all-that-far-far-away-in-1972-filmmakers-george-lucas-and-gary-kurtz-wer.html ''LA Times'' interview]}}

The Three Act Structure is a typical and frequently-used narrative structuring template. Most of the mainstream movies released by Hollywood conform to this template, but it can be found in other story-telling forms as well. The idea is that the story is structured so that all of the action falls into one of three acts, with regular plot-points (or reversals) used to bridge each act, and send the narrative into a different direction than it had previously been going.

The [[Three-Act Structure]] is a typical and frequently-used narrative structuring template. Most of the mainstream movies released by Hollywood conform to this template, but it can be found in other story-telling forms as well. The idea is that the story is structured so that all of the action falls into one of three acts, with regular plot-points (or reversals) used to bridge each act, and send the narrative into a different direction than it had previously been going.

The '''First Act''' is the '''Setup'''. Generally speaking, it lasts the first quarter of the story, and is where the main characters are introduced and the dramatic premise (i.e. what the story's about) and the dramatic situation (i.e. the setting and context in which the story's taking place) are established. At some point in the First Act (usually half-way, but not always) the [[Call to Adventure]] (or in more mundane settings, an [[Inciting Incident]]) occurs to set the plot of the film in motion. Whether the protagonist [[Jumped At the Call|accepts it]] or [[Refusal of the Call|not]], it doesn't matter; [[The Call Knows Where You Live|events are set in motion]] causing the protagonist to follow the path of the narrative, whether they want to or not.