Tag: Three Acts

Magic Number 3

Lane Number Three on TrackHave you ever noticed that three is truly a magic number? I’m not talking numerology or anything like that, but the number three keeps coming up in everything I’ve been reading lately. The Classic Three-Act form. A hero must pass 3 tests to get his reward. Three cheers. Make sure you highlight a setting with at least three things that would be noticed by your POV character. Hey, 3rd person. The list just goes on and on and on.

Three is a useful number. It is a symbol of the unity of body, mind and spirit. You can split the difference between two extremes. You can accurately describe a position relative to an initial point – above or below as relative to on. If you can break something down into three parts, you can also likely split those down into three parts each as well.

This last one is the one that strikes me as important today. Reading Dunne’s Emotional Structure is making me think about symbolism and look at the importance of making connections between actions of the plot as they are used to dredge up the protagonist’s emotions from the past. He recommends breaking the Second act into 3 parts — a movie within a movie. Looking at what I have so far, it strikes me that even the set up might be constructed in a similar fashion.

One of Dunne’s exercises is to condense your idea in three sentences and then expand them into three pages. Hmmm. There’s that three again. Writing three sentences sounds simple, doesn’t it? It’s one of the hardest things I’ve ever attempted. Working from the previous exercise of writing a set-up including the inciting incident, three tests for the protagonist to face, and the climax and resolution, I tried to do this with the story for Revealed. I know I’m going to have to expand the scope of the story – it ain’ta gonna be short when it’s done with me.

I’m going to have to settle in and really think about this one a bit more. I’m finding one of the most difficult requirements is to have thought everything through before I start typing. There’s just too much to juggle in my head to keep it all straight and meaningful. That’s another great quote from Dunne: “Organizing your artistic effort only makes it better.” The other phrase I find myself chanting a lot lately is “That which does not kill us serves to make us stronger.” I can only hope those are both true.

If you’d like to read more about the significance and the prevalence of the number three in American culture, you can visit The Book of Threes. If you’re looking for a wider scope, you can read about The Symbolism and Spiritual Significance of the Number Three which doesn’t limit itself, but explores most of Western culture.

Revealed

As promised, I’ve posted the first of the stories based on the exercise of telling a story in the traditional Three ACT form. Revealed is set in the Regency Period and runs about 2400 words. The idea was pulled from an abandoned novel opening and might work as the opening chapter some day.

If you do read it, please take the time to leave a comment. Thanks!

I’ll go back to being a nervous Nelly now.

More on Structure

Character Arc and Story Structure
Ref.: Peder Hill at http://www.musik-therapie.at/PederHill/index.htm

I neglected to find a pretty image to go along with today’s post. I chose the image and post to serve as a focal point. The diagram is very familiar to me by now. Books on plot and structure obligingly include at least one variation when discussing the Classic Three Act Structure and overall story arcs.

Today, I stumbled across Peder Hill’s take on how a novel is written. I haven’t dug through all the sections on his site yet. I’m still immersing myself in learning how to construct a story that doesn’t just meander aimlessly as it explores characters and conflict. I’m probably too methodic in my approach, but my brain works that way. Learn the rules, color inside the lines, and play along with the sheet music firmly on the stand in front of me. That sort of rigidity keeps me in my comfort zone while I’m learning new concepts.

I decided that I need to set aside another 30 minutes out of my day and practice writing extremely short pieces that include a set up, several increasing tests and crises that build to the climax and then wrap everything up. I will probably also sit and brainstorm these beforehand instead of trying to do them off the cuff. To make this work, I will need some accountability, so I’ll try to post the best one of these each week. So if you don’t see any, ask me what happened and make me go write one!