Structuring Your Book in Three Acts
You may not be a structure geek like me. You may enjoy the flow more than the control. Me too, sometimes. I adore the experience of flow in my writing, the randomity of creative ideas popping in.
But facing the mountain of a manuscript in progress? Then, it helps to have scaffolding.
Good structure, to me, provides something to build on.
So many templates exist. So many craft books on how to structure your writing. The job is finding out what structure works for you and your story. If you flinch at the word structure, imagine it like a loose form that you can bend anytime. Or break completely if you can still keep the reader involved.
Structure to some means a cookie-cutter story without spirit or uniqueness. But I view structure as only the underpinnings, not the flair and freshness each of us brings to our creative work.
For instance, I've long used the storyboard for structure testing. Its beauty is in its flexibility--it uses both random and linear thinking as it builds. So if you suddenly want to bring in another idea, you can. You're not bound tight to a certain progression, as an outline requires.
Still with me? Read on. We’re going to dive into a very practical yet easy structure tool I’ve worked with for years: the three acts.
Three-act beauty
When I’m facing that mountain of words, it’s always helpful to consider the purpose of it in three sections: beginning, middle, and end. Or, the classic three acts. Each has a reason for being, certain “rules” of what it must achieve, if you want to call it that. I prefer thinking of these rules as tests for strength. If my beginning, middle, and end do their work well, they pass the tests.
Vladimir Nabokov famously said: "The writer's job is to get the main character up a tree, and then once they are up there, throw rocks at them."
So if you look at your manuscript as three separate sections, following Nabokov’s three steps, you know that you’ve done your job in the first act when your character is up the tree. I consider act two as the rock-throwing stage, when the hapless narrator is up the tree and can’t get down. Act three, usually, is how they either get down from the tree (or die trying , if your story is a tragedy).
What this formula does is help us see how much got crowded into in each act in those early free-for-all drafts. Maybe we’ve lingered too long in the opening act. Maybe the middle is bloated. But until you break them apart, they blur and their purposes are not clear.
So here are some tips for each act, learned from years of working (loosely or firmly, depending on the need) with this idea.
Act 1
Act 1 is the beginning. Your story’s job is to get that narrator up the tree, and that’s really all you have to do. Of course, we readers may need to know why they climb the tree in the first place, so backstory can help—but not too much in act 1! We’re really all about getting them into that tree.
If I’m working with the three acts using a storyboard, act 1 takes up about 25 percent of the manuscript, running from point 1 (the triggering event) to point 2 (the first turning point at the bottom of the first leg of the W). Here’s a refresher on storyboards if you are interested.
If your draft runs about 60,000 words, 15,000 or so words will make up act 1.
That’s not a lot! But if you make your goal, of getting the narrator up that tree, you’re golden.
So what does “getting them up the tree” mean? To me, it’s basically about conflict—whatever problem is going to be presented for this narrator, whatever drives their story, whatever longing they have that forces them to change, this is the thing that gets them into trouble. They act because of this internal or external conflict. And because they act, more trouble happens. That’s the tree.
So if the purpose of act 1 is to get them up the tree, you know act 1’s needs are satisfied if they are well up that tree. That’s true for fiction and memoir—the main character or you (the narrator in memoir) are the ones up the tree. In nonfiction, like a how-to book, it’s a little different. The first act presents the need for your material--it establishes the conflict or dilemma that causes readers to seek out your book. This might include case studies, client stories, your own stories, anything that sets up the problem.
So we consider act 1 as the part of your book that sets up the problem.
Act 2 makes it worse.
Act 2
I find in most books, when looking purely at structure, that act 2 takes up about 50 percent of the total word count. It’s the real meat of your book. The problem is developed, often made worse. The situation changes, deepens. The topic gets more complex.
Act 2 also becomes the logical way to stall out.
In so many books I have edited, the story will flatline in act 2. It gets bogged down in too much inaction, dialogue, backstory, or history. (The storyboard's genius, here again: act 2 runs from point 2 to 4, first turning point to second turning point, represented by an upside-down V. That V visually reminds us to move to a second climax midbook and create new problems.)
The goal of act 2 is the rocks getting bigger, in other words.
In a 60,000 word manuscript, that means about 30,000 words comprises act 2.
Some stories have layers of problems. Perhaps the problem that starts us out gets solved by the end of act 1. The writer’s job, then is to present a new problem. Why? Simply because problems create plot and tension, which keeps readers reading.
Another quality of a classic act 2: helpers or mentors. Many stories bring in new blood in act 2, in the form of friends, family, a stranger, a mentor who helps the narrator in some way. It can also come in the form of new information to solve the problem. This shows up in nonfiction as specific techniques, a method, or research—steps to make changes.
As I said above, I am VERY careful about act 2 bloat. It’s so tempting to keep things status quo. Using that upside down V from the storyboard has saved my books more than once.
A successful act 2 leads naturally into act 3, the climax and finish.
Act 3
The final 25 percent or so is your finale. About 15,000 words of the 60,000 total. The purpose of the final act is to get that poor character or narrator down from the tree.
Nabokov doesn't tell us this, though. But if you study his writing, he never leaves the character up the tree, beaten by rocks. And from my study of his and other story structure, I could add that act 3's purpose is twofold:
get the character down from the tree
AND show the changes that have come from sitting up there being hit by rocks
Act 3 usually involves a final crisis. On the storyboard, there’s a major turning point at point 4, the lowest point in the story structure. In classic fiction and memoir structure, there’s a final crisis near the very end, often one or two chapters from your final page. Most common in commercial fiction but also appearing in many memoirs now.
How will you fulfill the second purpose of act 3, to demonstrate change? I find that working backwards from the end helps me figure this out. I make notes about the difference in the narrator at the last page, what action or situation might show this, then work backwards through the three acts to find ways to show the gradual unfolding.
Run from rigidity
Some writers take the geek approach too far. They get so hooked into a structure or formula that they don't allow the stories to flex and grow.
So, be easy on yourself.
So what if your act 1 is a bit longer than my suggested word count? Or your act 3 runs shorter? No worries. Many exceptions to the rules in writing! Ours is a living language that changes constantly and stories (hopefully) take us into unexpected places as we write them.
Your Weekly Writing Exercise
This week, grab a favorite book in your genre and skim it to see if you can find the separation of the three acts. Then see how the word count falls within those lines. If it breaks the rules, can you tell why?
Then look at your own manuscript, story, or essay draft. Can you find the “tree” and the “rocks” and where the two come together?