Continues Finding crisis (Structure part 2).
One relationship in which contrast is applied is the one between the crisis and the ultimate story end. Whether it is a good or a bad ending, the crisis must be the opposite. A story that ends positively contains a crisis, and in the same way, a story with a negative ending has a state of ecstasy at the end of act 2.
Attempting to do the alternative would lead to a badly-told story. Continue reading Finding contrast (Structure part 3)
The real world is far more complex and ambiguous than most story universes created by an author. Take the controversial topic of cannabis, for example. So many conflicting opinions exist, and scientific findings are not absolute. Continue reading Real-World Ambiguity
Continues Finding Plot Point 2 (Structure part 1).
The crisis is the culmination of all the hero has tried so far. After a marathon of conflict, the hero seems beaten. It was too much for them. The foreign world got the better of them. The crisis can be very dramatic – and as we are close to the film’s end, it has to be.
Recently I was struggling to find the Plot Point 2 (as used by Syd Field) in a story of mine. Which is the scene that takes the story from act 2 to act 3? Interestingly, David Trottier in The Screenwriter’s Bible defines a Big Event (the equivalent to Syd’s Plot Point 1) but no corresponding point at the end of act 2. For him, the end of act 2 would be the crisis – but that’s not one distinct moment or scene, rather a sequence.
This is a storytelling model that can be applied to a protagonist’s inner journey – their growth and change. I came up with it in my own work.
Let’s look at the diagram:
