Five Act Structure

I’ve been reading John Yorke’s book ‘Into the Woods: How Stories Work and Why We Tell Them’. I’ve read a few screenwriting books before, but I’m enjoying this more than any of them. Not only is it engaging and full of examples that I actually have seen, but he does a great job of pulling together many different theories, looking for connections and baking everything together in one delicious story-flavoured cake.

One thing he talks about is how well-told stories tend to fit into a classical five-act structure, and how each act has a unique part to play in forming a cohesive whole.

To be brutally honest I’ve found structure really hard to get a grip of in my own writing, and plotting has often felt like, well, almost like guesswork to me, so it finally feels great to start understanding properly how beats, scenes and acts fit together within the story as a whole. The acts (as I understand them) are as follows:

Act 1 Our protagonist (let’s call her Jane) is made aware of a life outside her own experiences. Something will happen that will force her to make a decision. This ‘something’ forms the ‘what happens’ in the story, and is a foreshadow of the final climax (Luke Skywalker is a timid farm boy who is shown a message by R2-D2 from Princess Leia. His curiosity is awakened)

Act 2 Jane has doubts about this new world, before coming to acceptance. The first ‘something’ is not enough to shake her. She prevaricates because of her flaw (whatever it is). She needs a further push to change her, and she takes her first steps on the journey. (Luke at first is compliant when his uncle tells him to get R2’s memory erased, but R2 forces him to act when he escapes to find Obi-Wan. Leia’s message is revealed and Obi-Wan tries to convince Luke to join him on his quest. Only when Luke’s aunt and uncle are brutally murdered is Luke motivated to take real action)

Act 3 Jane experiments with her new knowledge. A key action defines a shift in her character – she will never be the same again from this point. She starts to experiment with her newfound knowledge. It is at the Midpoint that we uncover the key shift in a character – the one which changes them completely… Eg. Hamlet proving Claudius’s guilt; Macbeth having Banquo slaughtered (Luke and Obi-Wan look for a spaceship that will take them to Alderaan. At the Midpoint two things happen: Luke starts to train in the ways of the Force, and Alderaan is destroyed by the Death Star. From here they are captured by the Death Star, where Luke faces the critical decision whether to rescue the Princess or to run away. He chooses to save her, and in their escape almost gets them all killed [in the garbage disposal of all places])

Act 4 Pressures mount on Jane and she feels out of her depth as her doubt creeps in once more. It looks like everything might fail for her. ‘Death clouds everything’ in this act, as the biggest test faces the protagonist and all hope may be lost (In Star Wars the Empire bears down on the gang, and they start to fight among themselves. As they flee back to the ship, Luke sees Darth Vader kill Obi-Wan, killing Luke’s mentor and his hope in one fell schwannnng)

Act 5 Jane has a concrete objective – to defeat the antagonist and become a better person in the process. The ‘what happens’ of the fifth act is parallel to that in Act 1 (Luke becomes a key player in using the plans that were inside R2 against the Death Star. During the final showdown Luke learns the importance of the Force, and gains full knowledge in the faith as he destroys the Empire’s Death Star… cue funky choppy ceremonial music and general merriment)

One message I get from Yorke’s book is not to get too bogged down with trying to force stories into a five act structure – some stories have more. For the next few films I look at I’ll probably try to fit them into five acts to see if fit this paradigm.

Plus I’m only half-way through the book, so I might learn more and this post may become redundant. I’ll keep you posted!