My struggle with plot structure
I feel like it’s not an unusual struggle.
When a person first starts writing, there’s a ton of information out there on how to make your sentences work, how to create characters that aren’t wooden, grammar, spelling, the art of fiction, putting your soul into it and not boring your reader, how to create a habit of sitting down and putting words on the page. All of that. Everywhere, for the choosing.
And then, once you’re no longer a beginner, all the information pretty much dries up.
You hear words bandied about like “3-act structure” and “theme” and “arc,” but what those things are and if you need them (you do!) never seems to come up. Or if they do come up, they’re very nebulous and it’s hard to get a great feel for them.
Last year, I realized I didn’t actually understand or know jack about plot, beyond the nebulous “arc is what your character goes through,” etc., so I figured I’d better get on that. “Trying to be professional” and all that jazz. It only took me four books to figure that out!
So first off, a Google search led me to a lot of articles about how many acts a plot should have. Apparently, there are a lot of choices. Every article I came across essentially said the same thing: “Shakespeare used 5-act structure, The Hero's Journey uses 7 acts, and Hollywood uses 3-act structure. Do whatever you want!”
Great. Not helpful. What IS an act? What goes into it? How does one know when one has a complete act? What’s the DIFFERENCE between the different numbers of acts in a story? If I can use anywhere from three to seven acts, why should I choose one over another?? I think the number six is pretty, should I use six acts?
So I tried Googling “what is 3-act plot structure.” I found a LOT of articles that stated “Three act structure is simple! The first act is your story’s opening. The last act is the story’s climax and end. And the middle act is everything else!”
Say what? Easy?? How is that easy? Why does so much advice on story telling have to be so damn vague? Is it because so many authors actually have no idea what they’re doing? It is, isn’t it. Ah, damn.
Interestingly, there were a LOT of articles that discussed authors complaining about the “soggy middle” of their story. Well, yeah, if they know how the story starts, they know how they want it to end, but the middle is “everything else,” what the hell is a person supposed to WRITE?? “Everything else” is not a direction! Are the characters supposed to sit around and drink coffee and smoke cigarettes and discuss the meaning of human existence? Hibernate? Run around screaming? What, what, what??
Well, silly, they’re supposed to arc. You know, what happens to your character through the course of the book.
Oh, yes, okay. Got it, got it.
(For the curious, a character arc is the world view/state of being a character starts out with, and how that shifts to something different for better or for worse through the course of the story. Usually better, but dark stories will sometimes have the main character lose all hope or something like that.)
I did manage to stumble across a couple actual books about plot. I bought them. One of them was very helpful. One of them was most certainly not. And I found one — count it — ONE article that broke plot structure down into FOUR acts AND explained WHY the authors of the article liked four acts and WHAT NEEDS TO HAPPEN in each act. HOLY SHIT!! That article has since been removed from the website where I found it. Good thing I copied and pasted it to my own computer before it vanished!
(For the curious: Act 1, we meet the MC, they are invited to adventure, they almost certainly refuse, and then they are forced into it somehow. Act 2, they strike out in a new world, making friends and enemies as they go, learning about how things work in this new place and gaining confidence until it’s shattered by something crazy happening. Act 3, they have to maneuver in a new way, figure out what they were doing wrong before and deal with the crazy thing that happened at the end of act 2, they will come face-to-face with the main baddie and they will lose. Act 4, everything has come to a head, the MC is trapped, on the run, pushed to the brink, with the baddie right on their heels, and when it finally looks like all is lost, the main thing they need to face or learn about suddenly becomes crazy clear, and they are able to defeat the baddie/situation using their new knowledge/skill/emotion.)
My favorite book on plot I found was “The Story Grid, what good editors know.” It’s not a book on act structure as much as what scenes need to do and how a book needs to flow. But man, is it helpful and insightful! It breaks writing a book down into concrete steps that you can check and follow, rather than all this woo-woo business with “the middle is everything else” and “arc is what happens to your characters.”
Armed with this new knowledge, I set about dissecting some of my favorite books and movies.
Man, four act structure and the mechanics of making a scene work is totally IT! Every book I re-read, every movie I re-watched, the acts lined up and made sense, the scenes turned and kept the plot moving, it all flowed. It all WORKED!
I feel so satisfied when someone who knows what they’re talking about can point out how things work. I hate when people offer squishy advice that doesn’t actually make any sense or that you just have to “feel.” Either it’s real and you can damn well put it into words, or it’s fake and you’re making it up. JEEZ.
I used my new knowledge to edit “The Winding Road Between,” and am very satisfied with how it shook out. I’m working on a new book called “Night Falls,” and it is coming together just slick. I’m super happy with the 4-act structure and even more happy with the leeway and wiggle room I’ve found inside of it. It’s far less rigid than it first appears, while offering a scaffolding to hang the scenes of my story on so it all makes sense. As long as it goes 1-2-3-4, and each act is roughly the same length-ish, it all comes out in the end.
I love it when a plot comes together!
