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I’m slowly outlining a series where every book has a 4 Act structure. It’s rather defined too with a ‘mini-climax’ occurring at the end of each section. This has been the style for this series for a while, but I’m finally getting a closer look at it. In fact, I’m seeing how my other books have acts in some form. Take Beginning of a Hero (you can for 99 cents!):
Act 1– Luke gets to the academy and starts his adventure.
Act 2– Luke deals with the Hellfire Elf.
Act 3– Luke deals with the Lich.
Going by this division, I can see a few things about writing a story with ‘acts’ that I never noticed before. So I’m going to list them here and see what people think.
- Not every act is the same length. Some are big at 6 chapters while others can run only 3. It’s not the size that should matter, but the content.
- You don’t have to define the acts or make them obvious, but you should have some type of ‘action’. If an entire book has mild cut-offs for legs of an adventure then it’ll come off as one long act. This could lose readers.
- It doesn’t hurt to give titles to your chapters when working with acts. This can help define them more and you can give big titles too. Right now I’m thinking of not putting titles on my chapters because I have multiple events happen in each one. For example, a chapter in Legends of Windemere can have Luke talking to Kira, Delvin exploring Bor’daruk, and Nyx battling a demon in a volcano.
- There’s probably a limit on how many acts you can have in a story. I’d go with 5 only because of Shakespeare. Then again, I could easily be wrong here.
- Acts is a tough word to say while paying attention to your voice. It sounds like ‘axe’ when I say it, but I know there are other ways. Definitely a word that one should say quickly and not linger on.
So, what do you think about acts in stories? Do you do it without noticing?
Legends of Windemere 
I do it on purpose, and outline with it in mind. Three acts for me.
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I unintentionally do about 3-4. The future series I’m outlining is an attempt at an intentional 4 acts, but I’m already seeing it shift. Heavily influenced by Final Fantasy when you had multiple disks.
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Sounds like fun.
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Acts are essential when setting up your story arc. It’s what I was missing in RC&R. I didn’t outline that book, but I do with all my work now.
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Kind of like episodes too. I never really set out for acts though. Ever think there are acts in RC&R that are more subtle than people realize?
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I’m sure there are the way the story is told. Act I is learning of the good doctor through others. Act II is Althea’s tragedy and resolution, Part Two has two Acts, the first being Sybil and Nathan’s relationship, the second her life without him. I supposed the conclusion is also another Act. I wrote it linearly, without an outline. It’s a natural progression of events…never really thought of it’s divisions. Naked Alliances certainly was structured differently. I outlined it.
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I remember being told that it’s like growing up. Childhood, adulthood, and senior years. Even smaller divisions there too.
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I’m a big proponent of the four act structure, but having all the same length. 25% each. Have you ever read Story Engineering by Larry Brooks? He goes into this in detail. I think you’d find it interesting. I know it helped me a great deal.
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To be honest, I’ve never read any books on how to write and story structure. I kind of take stuff from the fiction I’m reading. Not sure I can do a 25% across the board thing with this series. Some might be longer than others. Depends on how it comes out. Not by much from the look of a few of them.
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That book changed me as a writer. It’s that powerful and resonated so deeply. Definitely worth a read.
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I started using a beat sheet designed for three acts. Really helps me keep on track.
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Interesting. Never heard of a beat sheet.
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I read about them in a Pub Crawl post – go to this website and you can download them for free. http://jamigold.com/for-writers/worksheets-for-writers/
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Thanks
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Reblogged this on Chris The Story Reading Ape's Blog and commented:
AUTHORS & Readers – What do YOU think of what Charles is doing? 😀
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Thanks for the reblog. 🙂
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Welcome Charles – I’ll be interested to see what responses you get 😀
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I don’t do detailed outlines before starting to write, but I always have a definite climax in mind. As I go along creating the scenes, I do a sketchy mental outline for the next few scenes. My chapter divisions are inserted by “feel,” so sometimes need to be adjusted during the revision process. Just for fun, I applied your illustration to the plot of my first book (The Friendship of Mortals), and indeed it does seem to follow that structure. Which suggests that books are organic entities that develop by structural laws, whether their authors know it or not. Interesting post!
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I was leaning toward the organic entity idea too. Seems very natural and can be broken down even further sometimes. In another comment, I mentioned seeing it compared to human life stages. That really rings true at times.
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I.l.l.u.m.i.n.a.t.i.n.g. Thank you. 🙂
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You’re welcome. 😀
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Now I’ll have to start counting. 🙂
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Hope you don’t run out of fingers. 😉
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That will be a lot of acts. 🙂
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Very interesting. I swear by “Save the Cat,” by Blake Snyder for story structure. You example has similar points.
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Thanks. I’m seeing that there are a lot of books out there on the topic.
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I’ve never thought about this before but I might take some time and do it for each of my books so far. Mostly I’ve been keeping track of the up and down of tension and excitement, trying to keep people hooked.
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I do that with most of my books. This one series seems to be the anamoly. Have fun with your stories.
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I still like three axes. Good conversation.
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And a risky juggling act. 🙂
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Yeah, juggling axes can be dangerous.
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Right up there with chainsaws, bowling balls, and cats.
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Because of the occult theme of my latest work I deliberately split it into three acts with thirteen chapters in each act. I’m going to compare your diagram with how the acts shaped out, and with three protagonists it should be quite interesting.
Chris
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Definitely an interesting them. I’m going to guess with 13 chapters per act, you’ll have more ups and downs.
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I’ve been careful to make sure the three protagonist approach doesn’t create an over-complicated set of highs and lows. There is still a general rhythm that the character arcs must stay within.
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I use a 3-act structure, trying to keep it at roughly the same size. However, I also add a prologue and epilogue. The former allows me to break the rather rigid time frame (often by narrating events that happened much earlier) and introduce the book’s theme, while the latter sets up the next book.
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Excellent points on prologue and epilogue. They aren’t as common as they used to be, but I still see them a lot in fantasy.
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Many advise against it, but I love them. They have to be very brief, though, to be effective; a single chapter, and not a long one at that.
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I use prologues a lot to have scenes with villains and gods who are working behind the main events. Slipping them in throughout the story seems to break the flow of the heroes’ actions.
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Exactly! I fine-tuned the idea from Martin’s work, although he’s taking it a bit too far, IMHO. In the later books, the prologue seems to have no relation to the rest of the book whatsoever. The last one felt like it was a prologue to an as yet unwritten one… 🙂
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Hate to admit that I haven’t read them. It does get weird if there’s no connection to the rest of the book.
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Sure does 🙂
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