The Three Act Structure
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 2 ต.ค. 2024
- What makes the most popular storytelling format so effective?
Find out why the "Three Act" structure has been the staple of fiction writing since the time of Aristotle, and learn how we can use it properly.
This video makes me realize a story could be told in to sentences and those sentences can be expanded on to make a novel
let me make up a story:
Version 1.) A boy is looking for a thing. He finds it.
Version 2.) Sam is looking for the ancient sword of legend. He finds the sword in a castle, and uses it to save the day.
Version 3.) Samuel is a young boy with eagerness to be courageous, but he is a coward, he lived in a cottage with his brother. One day, after his brother called him a coward, he ran away with a swear to be a hero. However on his quest he frees an ancient evil from 500 years ago. With The evil was a girl called Amelia. She sealed the evil away with her self as a sacrifice 500 years ago. the monster could only be defeated by the ancient Sword of Legend. Which was forged from adamant, a legendary rock. Amelia did not want Samuel to come, but he would not go home without fulfilling his swear, so he followed her. Amelia hated Samuel. She found him a nuisance who would be more useful dead, but she let him live .It turned out she was a loser in over her head. She wanted to prove herself useful after she was labeled a low tier snob. Samuel and Amelia bond over wanting to prove their self. Eventually, after going many places, and meeting many friends, they make it to the Castle of Legend made of adamant bricks. Inside is a dragon, and at the top of the castle the sword lies, but no stairs or ladder are present. They are confused. they attempt to climb the walls to no prevail. Samuel falls, and Amelia reached the top but could not get to the sword.
Samuel falls on the dragon, and uses it to get to the sword. Then they fight the evil. It nearly killed Samuel with a deadly blast, but Amelia got in the way. She wanted him to live. She died. Samuel started crying he said "I set out the evil again i should have been the one where you are now. He rushed at the evil and destroyed it.
Version 4.) Just turn version 3 to a novel
P.S it took me over an hour to write this comment
Wow. Very good!
Love the story man.
People with crap comments, 2.4k likes
A Masterpiece, 56?
Thanks I watched this in school
Did a teacher show this in class? That's awesome lol
Pen & Sword yea they told us to watch this
Thank you so much! This is the most clear and comprehensive video I have come across on TH-cam!
No one:
My drama teacher: this video
The video: *pretty bad a$$ endng*
Me: :0
Trying to get back to my writing after nearly ten years of life getting in the way. I appreciate the great review of the basics.
I've been there. I abandoned my novel for at least a couple years, then rediscovered my motivation.
Dude, really good video. it feels like i just read the entire
dictionary of storytelling and every lesson in 6 minutes.
Could you give examples as valid subplots in act 2 (and useless ones)? Thanks.
When is the next video? This channel is amazing and needs more content!
I'm working on it!!!
Sometime soon hopefully!
I was wondering about the unscrupulous gap since your last release of video content.
Really busy with other jobs and writing future books. I recorded the next episode already I just need to animate it.
TH-cam doesn't pay the bills yet lol
+Pen & Sword It will soon Senpai, just wait....
Fasho bro🔥this really help me to get organized
Some films don't follow this this like "Once upon a time in Hollywood."
Shakespeare used the 5 act structure not the 3 act structure.
I think that the 3 act structure is stupid. Because no one actually can explain what an "act" is. Because every "act" is something different. So, why call them acts then? I mean it's not like a sports event where you have a first half and a second half. Which literary is 50% of the match. The 3 act structure aren't each 33% of the story.
And on top of that act 2 is usually split in two (2a and 2b). So, you get 4 acts????
So why not call it the setup, confrontation, and resolution. The 3 act structure is like the beginning, middle, and the end actually telling me nothing about the story structure....
Writing belongs to everyone, I really like that. Thanks great vid
Dude, this is seriously the best video ive seen on Three Act Structure
I struggle to really break my story up since what I would call the inciting incident doesn't really happen until chapter 14/24 with the death of the main characters mentor.
I'm loving these basic lessons for film making. You are amazing dude, please come back one day, you have a future on TH-cam!
OK, so I am reading a book on story structure by Jamie Scott Bell. He mentions the case of the author of the Stone Reader - a very talented writer who had no structure to his book. It occurred to me that I have been doing the same thing. Excellent writing, no skeleton to hang the flesh of the story on. As a result, for me, I loose the thread of the story after a chapter or two. If I ever managed to complete a book, nobody would want to read it.
It seemed logical to me that I had to learn the mechanics of fiction AKA story structure, so I could build the skeleton, something beyond the outline, to support my story. Yet you say in this video that the three plot points are not needed and some writers do not use them.
So how does one start and finish a story that others will want to read without it? What are the mechanics that I assume everyone must use in order to write a story? If a PUBLISHED, SUCCESSFUL author never uses an outline or plot points, what the heck do they use?
They use ✨The power of friendship✨
Thank you so much for this video, I have learned so much... who knows maybe thanks to this video it was the first step in me becoming a great writer! Really inspiring and educational... Thanks!
have you ever thought about doing a video about Deus ex Machina's? I think that could be interesting. Also, is the person at 6:23 about to turn into a Super Saiyan?
Yes and yes
Pen & Sword I bet that you were waiting for someone to notice
Lord of Darkness isnt that the thing that helps the plot but only occurs once and is never mentioned again?
Remix The Idiot i know this is from 3 months ago but Deus Ex Machina is when something never introduced or mentioned in a story suddenly appears to save the characters from a situation that would otherwise be unbeatable, e.g: in the book War of the worlds the Martians are defeated by a random bacteria
Now you've explained it, I only have to think of a few popular films I've watched loads of times, and they are all easily broken down into this format.
Loving the videos on this channel 😃
I really enjoy writing act two
Great video! Nicely explained.
Hallo ik ben cors lols
I'm making a comic and I have some questions. If anyone could answer them i'd highly appreciate it.
The comic will have 3 major stories and one major overarching story. We can call each story a season.
Each season is gonna have 50 episodes worth of content with each episode running approximately the same length as a 30 minute TV episode. That's just to give you an idea of how long my whole story will be. 150 episodes in total. Each section being 50 episodes long. And my question is, could I incorporate the 3 act structure into my comic?
I'm planning on having each season have it's own 3 act structure, it's own story, it's own beginning and resolution but I also want my whole story to have an overarching 3 act structure. Will this be possible? And does the middle have to mirror it's ending? Like in the middle you have a major victory and your ending is a happy one and if your middle is a failure does your ending have to be a failure too?
It's gonna be an action, adventure, fantasy story. I already have many characters, rivalries, antagonist, backstories, power system, and even world with many locations and backstories. They're all not set in stone and can be altered a bit if necessary.
So yeah, can I apply a 3 act structure to each season and also the overarching story? Any suggestions on how to structure?
I've always struggled to spot the end of one act and the beginning of the next. I hope this will help me in the future.
It would be cool if u broke down Ki Sho Ten ketsu as well
Cool, super well done video, thanks from 🇩🇪👋🏼👍🏼
Just stumbled onto this channel thanks to TH-cam algorithms and am certainly looking forward for more.
Also, I'm surprised that you don't leave any links to your works. That would be a good way to advertise it. The best way something can be advertised, actually - a high-value product that contains minor advertisement.
I’m writing a book and had no experience until this video. Thank you
What about "The darkest hour" or "lowest point".
Fantastic knowledge driven video
do movies or books that are very long have 4 acts or more?
your videos are great but the intro is far too long. it takes 20 seconds that is a lot of seconds
So tropes are like bricks for storytelling
Vote on a bunch of songs. Will be the rhythm.
I don't know if you reply to comments but something that's always intrigued me is how this might apply to TV shows with multiple seasons.
TheOnlyRoggol, most tv shows use just episode 1 as act one. Then seasons and seasons of act two. With maybe half a season or just one episode thats an act three.
Long running shows may have an overall structure but some don't have any at all, they just do their thing.
Haven't really looked at this for t.v. shows before... Humm...
the dragon warrior
my time has come
These videos are great! I look forward to more!
Thanks man! I have exam tomorrow on screenwriting. Hope your video will help me in the exam to write about the three act very clearly.
Outstanding perfect A-Z bootcamp for any screenplay writer. Thanks Ginny Monroe #Masterplayer
Usually the story blends from one act to another. There is no 'End of Act One.' The Hunger Games is an exception as it is split into three parts. There are ways to find the separate acts. A director once said that there is usually a conversation that has to happen about a third of the way through the story to direct where the rest of the story is going to go.
Thanks
also as a tip or maybe thats just how i noticed stories usually go, they're like a graph that depending on the story will start high and end either on a high or down point, the middle can be a smooth upwards curve or a downwards one or a static line if you somehow managed to do that
Thank you friend, great explanation!!!
Oh god, can someone tell me the intro song name? I love it, but i cant remember its name
Moonlight Sonata, the very end of the third movement.
All music in this show is Beethoven lol
Pen & Sword my man!
Is this the same as the 5 act structure, because they sound kinda similar.
anybody in quarentine june 2020?
Sounds a lot like tension and resolution in music. The 3 act plot would basically be the C major scale. lol
I see here, there's Aristotle and freytag really helpful...
This is awesome thank you so much for sharing
Thank you
Thank you
Watch at 1.5x speed
3:10 inception’s climax
This 3 act format is quite a dead horse already.
the better new way is to show some plotline and then provide the audience with new information about how that word operates what will change the meaning of all events that already happened.
Say that again in english
This works but is much trickier to pull off. A great example is "The Sixth Sense", which upon rewatching gives the audience a look back on what happened. Also, this is not a way to write a story, but an element. For example, imagine the sixth sense without the twist. It would be a far worse story, but the story stands. If in Harry Potter, we never found out that Snape was a good guy but instead was a villain, the story would be worse, but it would still be a story.
Good, concise advice.
im watching this for school
They killed Whatshisname! You bastards!