Three Act Play
17 06 2006
A conventional story has three major parts to it and a common structure of plays it to have three acts. Broadly speaking we meet the characters in the first act, they encounter a problem in the second act and solve it in the third act.
In practice most stories do the introductions and discovering the problem at the same time.
I seem to remember watching an interview with George Lucas in which he explains that Star Wars: A New Hope is the first act where we meet everyone, The Empire Strikes Back is the second act where things get as bad as they can and Return of the Jedi is the final act where they make everything right.
Also, and I know this sounds obvious, but most modern stories have the problem solved by the main characters and usually the characters are somehow changed by all of this, they often discover something about themselves or the world.
I guess this might be part of why I found The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe a bit unsatisfying. The three acts were clear enough but the lion solved their problems for them which made it just a story about things happening to people rather than people doing stuff.
I wondered later if it harks back pre-renassaince stories telling where God was centre-stage rather then the cleverness of mankind. Perhaps that’s for thinking about another day.
