I have a problem with murky middles.
It’s a common woe among writers–you hit twenty or thirty thousand words in a first draft and your plot just…fizzles out. The luster of starting a new project fades. The exciting and climactic final act is still just a glimmer on the horizon. And you get stuck, in the bewildering, unexciting doldrums of moving your characters from a good beginning to a better end.
Many a time have I foundered in those very doldrums.
Over the years, I’ve learned to structure my plots not just around a thrilling finale, but also around a high-stakes, explosive midpoint. Previously, I envisioned stories as a steady uphill climb, where characters ended on a peak of revelation. And boy, was that climb a drag sometimes. Now I envision them as an entire mountain instead–there’s the uphill striving, the summit, and then a precipitous descent towards the inevitable arrival in new territory.
My amazing friend Wendy Heard has talked more extensively about midpoints, and her thoughts on the matter have really shaped the way I now approach plotting. Where I used to break things up into three acts (a la the very well known Save the Cat beat sheet) and the second act would lag, I now break plots into four acts instead.
However, I’m a very checklist-oriented person, and love to use templates. In my travels about the internet, I’ve never been able to find an existing template for four act structure that I really love. There are some templates out there, and some comprehensive breakdowns of how four act structure functions, but none of them really worked for me on a fundamental level.
So since I couldn’t find a four act structure template that entirely suited my needs, I cobbled together ideas from a few different sources (this fantastic post by Heather Cashman, this one by Mikhaeyla Kopievsky and this one by The Magic Violinist were all incredibly helpful) and made my own. Maybe it’ll work for you, maybe one of the structures I linked to will better serve, or maybe you’ll need to forge your own path like I did. But this is the template I’ve ended up with, and I thought I’d share. I’ve provided some well-known examples for each plot point within an act, though they’re from older books so the division of the four acts is different than you’d find in modern novels.
Without further ado…
A Four Act Structure Template, by Yours Truly
ACT ONE: Setting the Scene
The Old World
This is where readers get a brief glimpse of the main character’s life and world to date. How does everything around them function before their adventure begins? This stage of the story is important because in order to appreciate changes the plot will bring, readers need to know what is being changed, and what (if anything!) will ultimately remain the same. Think Bilbo sitting on his doorstep blowing smoke rings during the opening of The Hobbit, or Alice dozing on the banks of the stream before her journey to Wonderland.
Inciting Incident
In a Hero’s Quest narrative, this stage is often referred to as the Call to Adventure. It is where something happens that beckons the main character away from their current circumstances and towards something new. It is the first whiff of change, though the protagonist may initially resist it. Again, think Bilbo unexpectedly being drawn into conversation by Gandalf, or Alice seeing the White Rabbit hurry by.
Initial Stakes
This is where the gentler invitation of the inciting incident becomes an insistent push. Something happens to tilt the scales in favor of the protagonist abandoning their old world and heading out into the unknown. There may be some distasteful quality of the old world the character wishes to escape–for Alice, the initial stakes are her current boredom versus satisfying her curiosity about the White Rabbit. Or, there may be something about the shift the inciting incident has provided that draws the protagonist in. For example, in The Hobbit, the dwarven dinner party provides Bilbo with his initial stakes–it piques the inherent adventurousness of his Tookish side coupled with wanting to be thought better of by the dwarves.
The Lock In
The lock in is where the main character goes all in. After the enticement of the inciting incident coupled with the intensification of the initial stakes, they’re fully invested in the events to come; they’ve reached the point of no return and proceeded to barrel past it. Again, this is Alice tumbling down the rabbit hole, and Bilbo tearing out of his comfortable hole to chase after the dwarves. The call to adventure has been both heard, and heeded.
ACT TWO: Heading Uphill
Hatching a Plan
This is when the protagonist first takes ownership of their circumstances. Previously, they’ve been responding to external movers. Now, as their adventure really begins they must decide what their role will be in the new realm they’ve entered. This stage will echo throughout the remainder of the story, as it involves the main character committing to a certain vision of themselves and their place in the world. The vision can be wrong or right, or a bit of both. This is Bilbo choosing to become the burglar the dwarves hired him as when faced by the trolls; it is Alice drinking her first potion and fundamentally altering herself in order to navigate the strangeness of Wonderland.
False Calm
The protagonist’s proactive planning and new sense of identity seem to be paying off. They’re coping fairly well with their changing world, and it seems like the vision of self they’ve arrived at is an accurate one. Bilbo is of great use to the dwarves along their journey to the Lonely Mountain, using his self-image as a burglar to rescue them on multiple occasions. Alice uses her shape-altering capacity to move throughout Wonderland, meeting odd and interesting creatures.
Storm Clouds Build
Uncertainty begins to mar the protagonist’s competence and confidence, and signs point towards greater conflict to come. Things are set in motion that cannot be undone, and that the main character will have to reckon with before the end. They have nearly reached the summit of their uphill climb, and conflict is looming. For instance, Bilbo’s less than friendly encounters with the goblins and wood elves foreshadow the eventual Battle of Five Armies even as he arrives at the Lonely Mountain, and Alice’s meetings with the White Rabbit and Duchess serve as a preview of the tempestuous nature of the Queen of Hearts’ court.
THE CATASTROPHIC MIDPOINT: Gains and Losses
All of the first and second act have been leading to this point. The protagonist must, for the first time, face the major conflict their journey and their current vision of self have been moving them towards. This may end in a total loss, or they may both gain and lose something from the encounter, but it will NOT resolve the plot–this is not climax of the story, but rather the thing that tips the protagonist over an edge to hurtle towards the climax. Likely at this point, the protagonist will learn their initial vision of self was flawed in some way, and requires correction. This is Bilbo successfully facing Smaug in his burglar role, only to pridefully raise his ire and indirectly cause the destruction of Lake Town; it is Alice finally getting through the little door to the beautiful garden only to find not the peace she sought, but the pettiness and danger of the Queen of Hearts’ entourage.
ACT THREE: Careening Downhill
Initial Failures
Just as initial stakes pushed the protagonist towards a fundamental change, initial failures now push them towards a need to expand their understanding of the world and their place in it. They are faced with the consequences of attempting to overcome their major obstacle while harboring a flawed or incomplete sense of self. Bilbo, until now operating primarily as a burglar, sees Lake Town destroyed and the dwarves and others consumed by greed for the treasures he’s made accessible. Alice has a terrible time at the croquet game, is unable to use her skills to succeed at it, and begins to realize that Wonderland is truly a lawless and illogical place.
Dark Night of the Soul
The weight of carrying a flawed understanding of self, and of weathering the catastrophic midpoint followed by further failures, wears the protagonist down. They are defeated not only externally but internally at this point. This is their “all is lost” and “abandon hope” moment. But is just that–only a moment, and it must cause a greater understanding of their role in the new world as they reckon with their failures. This is Bilbo’s increasing unhappiness with the decisions of the dwarves as he realizes they’re making many unnecessary enemies, but that he’s tied his fate to theirs; it is Alice thinking she’s at last found sensible and sympathetic allies in the Mock Turtle and the Gryphon only to fail to understand them at all.
ACT FOUR: Crash-Landing and Reconstruction
The Bitter Dawn
Armed with a new understanding of self that is informed by their failures as well as their successes and personal agency, the protagonist once again takes their fate into their own hands. The Bitter Dawn is the fulfillment of The Lock In in Act One: where they initially chose adventure and conflict, now they choose to move towards resolution, no matter the cost. This is Bilbo turning his burglary skills against the dwarves and attempting to trade the Arkenstone for what he now knows he truly values: peace and song and friendship. It is Alice returning to the Queen of Hearts’ court for the Knave’s trial, and attempting to bring order to the chaos at hand despite her own confusion.
Victory
The protagonist’s new sense of self is cemented by their sacrifice during the Bitter Dawn, enabling them to finally prevail over the forces arrayed against them. Frustratingly, Bilbo is robbed of active participation in the Battle of the Five Armies, but his overtures in the name of peace and his previous encounters with goblins force a victorious alliance between the humans, dwarves and elves, and his decision to leave the dwarven stronghold to seek peace arguably saves his life. Alice realizes that she does not require external agents to control her destiny in Wonderland, and that she can impose order on the looming chaos. She alters her size without help, and scatters the threatening army of cards.
The New World
With victory obtained, we are given a brief glimpse of the protagonist’s post-adventure life, mirroring our vision of the Old World in Act One. We see what has irrevocably changed, and what has stayed the same. Bilbo returns to Hobbiton, where he still enjoys his creature comforts but keeps very different company and is perceived very differently than before. Alice returns to her dull existence, but we realize that sleepy circumstances will never dampen the fire of her vivid imagination. All is as it was; all is fundamentally different. And so our story draws to a close
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There you have it! A recipe, a template, an outline for Four Act Structure and an end to saggy story middles. I hope this proves helpful to at least some of you–may all your plots be cohesive, all your pacing airtight, and all your character development flawless <3
