Dale Kutzera.com

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.

Billy Wilder once said the problems you face in the last half of a script are typically solved in the first half of the script.  The nature of writing is re-writing and laying track in the first half to justify the complications you want to happen in the second half.  It would be so much easier if there were some sort of formula to help determine what those Third Act complications are.  (And I’m referring to the third of a four-act structure.)

I have a feeling there is no single formula.  There is no one ring to unite them all.  The formula would depend on the type of story you’re telling.   The late Blake Snyder listed a variety story-types in his worthy “Save the Cat” books.  I think they all boil down to about five, and each is based on a very basic human need.  Go back 50,000 years, when our ancestors were scrapping out a living in small villages and I bet the stories they told boiled down to these five desires:

SAFETY:  One thing all people have in common is our lack of natural defenses.  We have no claws or horns, can’t spit venom, and can’t even growl very convincingly.  So it’s no surprise many stories deal with humans under attack from man or beast.  The goal is simply survival.

SECURITY:  Once you’ve escaped from that sabre-toothed tiger, you’re probably cold and hungry.  Comfort and security are next on the list of human desires.  Stories in which the hero seeks to achieve something or earn a prize fall into this category.

A MATE:  If you have a full belly and a nice cave to keep you dry, you’re thoughts may turn to finding a mate.  It’s no surprise there are a lot of stories about romance and finding the perfect match.

FANTASY:  If you have all of the above satisfied, your thoughts may turn to flights of fantasy.  Once human societies get their basic act together, they started asking the big questions of life.  Why are we here?  What’s it all mean?  Wouldn’t it be cool if I could fly?  Religion falls into this category.  So do stories in which the hero is blessed with extraordinary powers.

REVENGE:  The darker primitive desire is for bad guys to pay some price.  Stories in which the hero hunts a villain range from cop-procedurals to revenge films.  The objective is not simply catching the bad-guy, but restoring order.

These are the five main story-types as I see them.  Each could be broken down into sub-genres.  It’s hard not to become anal about this sort of naval gazing.  The goal here, however, is to understand how Act III varies in each story-type.

SAFETY:  These stories feature the hero chased and harassed.  The audience will eventually grow tired of a hero reacting to circumstances out of his control.  That’s why the general pivot in Act III is to a more proactive hero.

SECURITY: If the hero is working toward a goal – a quest for treasure, a job promotion, a sporting match – then he can only strive for so long.  One type of pivot is having the hero achieve this goal at the midpoint, only to learn it’s not what he hoped it would be.

A MATE:  The cliché of all rom-com clichés:  Boy loses Girl.  That’s what typically happens in Act III.

FANTASY:  Stories in which a character gains great powers almost always turn to the negative aspects of those powers in Act III.  In “Bruce Almighty” it was fun being God for a while, but then it became really hard.

REVENGE:  This is a hard one, but perhaps it relates to the SAFETY story type.  In both cases a chase is played out.  The hero’s goal is to restore order by bringing a wrong-doer to justice.  It could be that Act III is where he must risk what order still exists to carry this out.

Like I said, each story type hold different expectations for the third act.  There may be a common denominator, however, and more on that next time.

Let’ say for the sake of argument that a screenplay has four acts, not three as all those screenwriting books claim.  Why then is Act Three so hard to write?  For that matter, why is Act Three so hard to watch?

When I watch a film on DVD, I often find myself hitting the pause button around the hour mark…right when Act III begins.  I think there are a couple reasons for this.  One is that the fun and games of Act II are winding down.  Playtime is over.  Another is that Act III is typically where things get worse for the hero, and that’s no fun.  Typical screenplay structure demands things get worse (the stakes raised)  to lead us to the Death Moment in which the hero seems to have lost everything.

The reason for the Death Moment is that we need to knock the hero down in order to have the satisfying resurrection at the film’s climax.  This is all pretty basic stuff.  Resurrections are satisfying, but they require the hero to be knocked down a peg or two…or ten.  The difficulty I have with Act III peg-knocking is that it’s often done in a convenient, pro-forma manner.  Far too often the hero makes a flawed, illogical decision that leads to his downfall.  The writer may also resort to some orchestrated convenience to put the hero in the dog house.  I’ve watched a lot of movies and find such machinations tedious, and I can’t help but wonder if the larger audience feels the same way.

Of course, audiences are very forgiving.  They don’t scrutinize plotting the way a writer does.  If there is some surface-level entertainment value (laughs, action, romance), the audience will typically forgive convenient plotting, if they notice it at all.  Consider the “Wizard of Oz,” and it’s third act side-trip to obtain the witch’s broom.  Have you ever considered why the Great and Powerful Oz wants the broom?  Does it serve some larger purpose?  Did he just want to get rid of this pesky girl and her side-kicks?   Why send her on this errand and imperil their lives?  No answer is given and we are swept up in the story and go along for the adventurous ride, but if you stop and think about it, that Oz is a real asshole.

On the most basic level a story has to last a certain length of time.  In the case of a feature film it’s 90-120 minutes.  If the makers of “Oz” were running short on time, they could have sent Dorothy and company on a couple more side trips.  Maybe Oz wants Glenda’s tiara, or the heads of twelve flying monkeys.  Any number of tangential adventures could have been set up…all connected to Dorothy’s larger goal of getting home.   In some respect, Act III can be expanded or contracted like an accordion, based on the length of the other acts.  Novels and other long-form stories can have an almost endless string of tangential adventures in Act III.

In the ballet world, the third act often has nothing to do with the rest of the story.  It’s called a Divertissement which I’m assuming means “diversion” in French.  Here the lead characters may stop and watch a ballet-within-a-ballet as dancers entertain them.  It’s as though ballet-makers threw up their hands and said “Listen, I really don’t have any plot here, so we’ll just suck up some time with some eye-candy.”   So out come the jugglers and acrobats and peasant dancers.

Some films seem equally off-handed about the Third Act.  A director may orchestrate a big car chase or stunt that serves no real plot purpose.   These can be entertaining in the moment, but are quickly forgettable as they really don’t impact the main plot.  If you can excise the scene and still tell the story, then it’s probably just padding.  I would like to find some sort of formula that helps me design third acts that are as integral to the overall story as the first or second acts.  Wish me luck.