Six Acts for the Win

Over the course of my now seventy-two-day battle with blinding headaches, I've gotten many ideas for a rewrite of my long-time writing project, my "baby" if you will. I would get a ton of ideas, then when my head didn't hurt too much, I'd type them up so I wouldn't lose them.

I've written five drafts of this book. The first three, no one saw but me because they just weren't right for the story. I couldn't figure out why. In the fourth draft, I hit on a story I felt was great. But it didn't get a good reception. I used comments I got from two beta reads of that draft and wrote a fifth one, drawing elements from all my previous drafts to put together what I felt was a solid plot.

Nope. I got compliments on everything but the story itself. Details like character, description, dialog, sex scenes, action... All the details that make a book come alive. But the plot fell apart. The biggest comment I received was that my story needed structure.

I didn't know what that meant. But I knew I needed to do something.

For six months last year, I read every writing book I could get my hands on at the library. Ebooks, of course—this is a pandemic. I read Jessica Brody's Save the Cat! Writes a Novel, and it showed me exactly what structure was and why I needed it. It also helped clear up confusion I had about character arcs tying into the storyline.

The book was impressive. I bought it and used it to write a novel, but it was clunky and hard to use. At least for me. I got turned around and confused a lot. It was just hard to wrap my head around what I was trying to do, so the novel didn't work. I wound up abandoning it for this and other reasons.

Then I stumbled across a video overviewing a six-act structure on YouTube. It's based on a book that I'm hoping to buy soon—Actions and Goals: The Story Structure Secret by Marshall Dotson.

The structure revolves around changing goals for the character during the story—goals that change as the plot throws more curveballs at the character. This helps to build the character's arc, though more is needed for it, and it's more realistic that a character having a single goal throughout an entire novel. When stuff happens, goals shift. Maybe the end goal remains the same, but how to get there may change dramatically. It also covers how as each act comes to a close, something happens to the character to trigger a decision that takes them into the next act with their next goal.

For me, it just makes so much sense. It clicked in a way no other structure I've studied has. It resonates with me, and I think it can produce a strong, fast-paced story. In the videos, he gives examples from popular movies to show how each act plays out in different stories. Just the videos gave me a firm hold on what to do with the structure and how to apply it. The way he explained things was clear. They were well-made videos with excellent teaching.

Here's Marshall Dotson's series of videos. The first one is an overview and the other three are his three dramatic phases, each including two acts.

After watching these videos and taking detailed notes, I was able to plot out my "baby." I took all the ideas I'd been having, plot elements from previous drafts, new elements I had to come up with to produce a strong story, and wrapped it all up on a general plot where I included all the elements Marshall describes in the videos.

Once I did that, I plotted out the first act in detail, wrote it, plotted out the next act, wrote it, etc. I just finished the fourth act a few days ago, and I'm taking a bit of a break before plotting act five because I wrote over eighty thousand words in three weeks. My brain is blowing a bit of a raspberry right now. That's okay, though. I'm not upset.

I feel like I'm producing my first truly strong story. This story structure makes sense to me, and it's been relatively easy to use. Hopefully, that means I'm understanding it, not doing it all wrong. But I feel like I'm understanding it. 

I hope the novel turns out as good as I feel it is, though I'm sure most writers are a bit overconfident in their stories at first. Then the critiques start coming in. Or the rejections. The critique process will be long and possibly painful, but I'm looking forward to seeing how I did. I have to finish the novel first, then edit it. After that, I can put it up for critique. Cross my fingers it does well.

All the same, I'm glad I found Marshall's structure. I hope to buy his book soon. He has an upcoming book about character development that will include more videos. I hope that happens soon.

Photo Credit Vintage RS