Act II and the need for a Fatal Flaw

Everyone knows screenplays are based on a three-act structure.  That was chiseled into stone by Syd Field way back in the dark ages.  Well, at the risk of upsetting the screenwriting gods, I think Syd was wrong.  I proudly champion a four act structure.     You take that long marathon of a second act and divide it in two.  Look at many films and you’ll find a different tone and goals from the first half of Act II to the second half.  So why not recognize that reality and break that long mother of an act into two more bite-sized chunks?

For example, in “The Wizard of Oz” you could say all of Act II takes place in Oz so it’s all the same act.   But dig deeper and you’ll see that the first half of Act II (what I call Act II) involves a yellow brick road and meeting allies.   The second half of Act II (what I call Act III) involves going after the witches broom and fighting flying monkeys.

Every time I break a story, I look for a grand universal equation to help me structure that long mid-section.  One reliable component to that equation is that Act III is where things get worse for the hero, ending in the classic “Death Moment” where all hope seems lost.  What you need to create this peril is a FATAL FLAW inherent in your premise.  A lot of endeavors have a fatal flaw.  The founding of the United States was possible only by compromising on the issue of slavery, a compromise that led to the the Civil War.  Superman has powers because he’s from Krypton, but Kryptonite will weaken him.  “Tootsie” achieved success as an actor, but only by passing himself off as a woman.  You need to find the FATAL FLAW in your premise or make one up.

The film “Wedding Crashers” has a good example of a FATAL FLAW.  The hero is trying to win a woman, but is doing so by lying about his identity.  This lie will ultimately be revealed and cause his downfall in Act III.  It seems inevitable, but consider “Wedding Crashers” could have been written without the issue of false identity.  The two buddies could have crashed weddings without pretending to be other people.  It’s not like there were bouncers checking ID’s.  In fact, it would probably have been easier to crash wedding by not using a fake name.  That fake-name lie had little bearing on the execution of the first half of the film, but had the writers not included it, they would have found themselves high and dry in Act III.  It’s only by including that FATAL FLAW component to the premise of the movie that they had the complications needed to sustain the third act.

Lying and having that lie revealed in Act III is one of the all-time great FATAL FLAWS.  We are all taught from an early age that it’s wrong to lie.  Unmasking the hero as a liar is a great symbolic “death” moment and sets up a fourth act in which he/she must succeed honestly, without subterfuge.  “Working Girl,”  “Tootsie,” “Mrs. Doubtfire,” and the recent “Rango” all involved heroes passing themselves off as something they are not.

When Billy Wilder said that the problems of Act III are solved in Act I, he was talking about the need to plant the seeds of the FATAL FLAW.