Just Effing Entertain Me

Change is Happening. Apparently.

Which is what Margaux said to me yesterday as she reported that she has several meetings coming up to be potentially staffed on a show in next year’s fall lineup. So just FYI, those of you interested in working with Margaux on your television or feature scripts – she’ll be with the Script Department no matter what, but the Wave-inatrix predicts a waiting list for her services and soon.

Change. It’s all around us. It’s all those cliches – inevitable, the only thing that’s for sure, and well, honestly, a bit of a bitch, isn’t it? But the Universe just keeps rolling and we have to evolve with it or become irrelevant.

Used to be that screenwriting was strictly thought of as a three-act construct. Now, more and more writers choose to work with four acts. The Wave-inatrix switched over several years ago and never looked back. Most of us know that the three-act structure dictates a first act that ends at approximately page 30, and a second act that ends right around page 90 and a third act that takes your script right into the 120 page range. That’s craziness.

The problem with the three-act structure is that it is archaic and outdated. Expectations in the industry have shifted toward shorter, punchier scripts in which more happens faster. Call it ADD, call it whatever you want, but times, they are a’ changin’, kids.

But change is good. From a writer’s perspective, having a second act that lies there like a hot, 60 page prairie of pain is a challenge that frankly leaves many stories lost in the desert with no oasis in sight.

Used to be that the inciting incident arrived right around page 10. And the first act break would then be at page 30. Midpoint, page 60. Second act break, page 90. That is for those of us who really tried to keep the math straight. And actually, Wavers, as geeky as it sounds, screenwriting is nothing if it isn’t elegant math.

But things are changing fast in the entertainment industry and it behooves writers to keep up with the trends and expectations that your script will be compared with.

Executives increasingly look for shorter page count. They look for the first act break to happen much earlier. And that skews the whole structure differently, doesn’t it? So are you keeping up with this, are you aware that the expectations are shifting?

Thanks to the Rouge Wave, you are. So listen up kids, and don’t argue with mama, because I know some of you will. Get familiar with these new expectations and implement them in your writing and in your grasp of structure.

The new page 10 is page 3
That’s right – that’s your inciting incident. Executives are tiring of 9 pages of set up. Go for it earlier. The earlier the better as long as your set up is still executed soundly and smoothly.

The new page 30 is page 20
Yup, move that first act break as close to page twenty as you can. I do not make this stuff up.

The new midpoint is page 50
Remember, we’re shooting for roughly a 100 page script

The new page 90 is page 75
That’s bumping your second act break back by 15 pages. Yep, that makes your third act short as hell. The acts are no longer divided evenly.

In fact, here’s what the whole structure should look like:

Page 1 to 25 – act one
page 26 to 50 – act two (a)
page 51 to 75 – act two (b)
page 76 to 100 – act three

Now, I know that for some Wavers, this is self-evident and what they’ve been doing for five years. For others who are really stuck in some kind of McKee parallel universe, this sounds as crazy as the notion that the earth revolves around the sun. Get with the times, people, expectations are changing. It goes without saying that if your first act break happens on page 28 rather than page 25, you’ll live. This is a guide and we don’t need any OCD Wavers freaking out on a slight page number difference.

But what this guide will do for you is force you to compress your story into its most elegant, efficient essence. Any writer can tell a story in 125 pages – but it takes a good writer to whittle that down to a sexy 105 page script.

So out with the old, in with the new – try it, Wavers, and see if this new paradigm can help you take your scripts to the next level.

Stuff Happens

A mistake I see very often in the scripts of newer writers is this:

Backstory/set up, a lotta talking
A lot of STUFF happens
Flashback to something in the backstory
Character talks about his/her backstory
Maybe more stuff happens

By the way, my new screenwriting book: Stuff Happens, a Technical Guide for the Amateur Dramaturge is being released by Doubleday sometime in 2012. Just FYI.

Where we were? Oh yes, in other words, new writers forget that the stuff happening should be concurrent with us getting to know your character – they are not two separate things with their own scenes or sequences. In other words, the dramatic narrative includes character development and backstory. Duh, right? But Waver, you would be shocked – SHOCKED – at how often writers fall prey to the Slow Scene in Which Nuttin’ Happens.

The dramatic narrative and the character development (i.e., backstory, quirks, the struggle with the flaw) happen at the same time. When you separate them out, you wind up with a lot of pages on which no stuff is happening. And then what happens, Wavers? You get a bored, cranky reader because nothing is moving the story forward. Remember, your character’s whole life is something they carry with them into every experience. So we don’t really need, necessarily, a flashback of not getting chosen for the team – because the result of that has given your character a level of insecurity and not being good enough that colors everything in his or her world. And, taking it a step further, your character has actually honed that feeling down and externalized it into a flaw – say for example, being an exclusive, arrogant jerk. He or she is coping – negatively. And this coping mechanism will drive the story forward. Things don’t just happen to your character, your character’s flaw is part of why they happen they way they do.
This makes your character an active participant in all the shit that is raining down on his or her head throughout the story.

There are certain milestones along the way as you grow into and become a truly adept screenwriter. You know, back in our early beginnings, when we bought our first “how-to screenwrite” book, our scripts were self-indulgent, melodramatic, self-referrential, totally unmarketable junk. We’ve all been there, you might be there now – it’s okay, it’s a rite of passage.

One of the milestones is recognizing that this script is not about you or what you like but about what moves you and what is universal. Another milestone is taking off your black beret and realizing that movies are product, meaning that there are expectations and a ton of hardwork, that this industry is about bread and circus and you cannot expect to break in without learning some of the rules of the game.

And another milestone, the one I am referring to today, is that you need to get the adventure, the main crux of the conflict MOVING and keep it moving – and that you fold your character development into that narrative rather than take breaks to explain things. Keep. The story. MOVING. Scripts are like sharks (heh) – they need to keep moving. If you have an inactive scene or sequence, get out the machete.

I scribble notes on script pages that I am reading and here is, without a doubt, the word I scribble the most often: WHY?

Why does this scene exist? How is it moving the story forward?

Here are two examples, one old and one new, of a scene in which we get some backstory but it continues to move the story forward:

JAWS: The famous USS Indianapolis scene, in which Quint, in a brilliant monologue, recounts the horrible story of the seamen aboard that doomed cruiser in WWII. And how does it move the story forward – well, thematically, of course, the crew is picked off by sharks, one by one and our group is sitting there on their little boat knowing there is a shark-monster stalking them. But in the narrative, what happens at the end of that sequence – BOOM – the shark makes his presence known again.

In a more recent example, in 3:10 TO YUMA, Christian Bale has a whispered, very powerful monologue when he’s alone with his wife in the bedroom and in that monologue he reveals just how low he has become since he was wounded in the Civil War. And he vehemently explains why he must undertake this dangerous task. And what happens at the end of this sequence? Knock, knock – time to go. You coming or not? And he goes.

Now if you are an argumentative type, you might argue that in both incidences, backstory takes up a fair few minutes of film time and these are not particularly active scenes. Yes and no. The characters are activated at the end of the scenes, the scenes highlight character flaw which will shortly become quite relevant and – here’s the biggest point I want to make – the writing of each scene is five star, home run, knock out, memorable writing. So yeah, if you have a slow-moving scene in which you’re going to sidetrack us momentarily and talk about the past or whatever – you damn well better make it THAT memorable.

If you are more of a beginner, the moral is this: Keep Stuff Happening. Don’t languish in backstory or flashbacks or scenes in which your character cries in the shower then makes a TV dinner then falls asleep in the chair – all to service the idea that he is lonely. FANtastic. Loneliness as sledgehammer. We get it. You can be lonely in a crowd – but it’s much harder to write that, isn’t it? So don’t go for the obvious, step it up. And remember – stuff needs to be happening – ALWAYS. Every scene must justify its existence and keep moving like a shark. Otherwise you wind up with a boring script, slowing suffocating in the silt at the bottom of the sea.

Four-Act Structure: The Ascendance

Ah – my own little Valentine…

Belzecue said…

Julie, I could kiss you on your cupcakes for giving four-act structure a shout-out. You’ve visited my site so you know what a four-act nutcase I am, and how keen I am to eighty-six the three-act model.

You know, Belz, I agree that the 3-act model is outdated and outmoded. In addition, I had a conversation with a manager a few months ago who quite candidly told me that he likes to see the first major plot point by page 20. Page 20?? So where did the first act go? It led to an interesting discussion of the relatively indisputable fact that our viewing habits have changed. Audiences want more giddy-up and go in their movies. Heck, you’re asking them to spend two hours watching your movie – they can go watch something for 5 minutes on You Tube and be perfectly happy. Well, come on, it’s not the same, that’s quite an exaggeration. But there’s a point in there somewhere.

Oh yes, – the point – the 3-act structure is outdated, I agree. I haven’t used it for years. It straps you in to a slower set-up, an interminable second act and too many pages overall. The 4-act structure, in my experience, parses the material down just a bit and does away with the age-old struggle to FILL the middle of the movie with something interesting. Course, that points to a different problem altogether, and one that is pretty common in new writers – they’re all idea (setup) and cool ending (third act) but don’t have a story with legs strong or interesting enough to actually spend any time in-between.

In my mind, the 4-act structure is not complicated; in fact it’s less complicated as long as you keep that midpoint smack dab in the middle, as a pivotal moment in your narrative, the good ol’ point of no return as I think Vogler/Campbell calls it. Or is that the cave? God, that book messed with my mind for years. Stupid chalice. And with that shout out to lovely Belzecue and the 4-act structure, I leave you Wavers to enjoy your weekend mightily. I know I will.

Review: Structure, Stakes & Conflict

A feature script is written in three acts and usually has about 100 pages. The three act structure of a script also includes certain points in the script when the story has some major complications or reversals for the main character. Very often, newbie scripts are linear in nature. That is to say that things happen and then more things happen and then we reach the end. There’s no tension – there’s nothing we wonder and worry about. Movies have to have something hanging in the balance – something wonderful that might not happen if the hero doesn’t get there on time OR something awful that might happen if the hero doesn’t get there on time.

Many writers (including myself) use the 4 act structure which goes something approximating this:

Act One pages 1 thru 25
Act Two pages 25 thu 50
Act Three pages 50 through 75
Act Four pages 75 through 100

One of the most fundamental tenets of drama is: stasis – change – stasis. That is to say that you establish the world of your script and then you throw something at that situation which rocks the boat. For example, here’s Jim Carrey and his lovely wife and he’s going to work but – why are people acting funny? Was that a camera following me? And we have THE TRUMAN SHOW. Another example: Here’s Roy Scheider and his lovely wife and kids and they move into this lovely seaside resort and A GIANT SHARK EATS SOMEONE. Now, in the case of JAWS when the “inciting incident” (that which rocks the boat) happens is artfully done first thing in the movie. Except that nobody saw it happen but you, the audience member. So a wonderful kind of tension is set in motion. Because we know that shark is out there but other people don’t. They still keep swimming. We’re biting our nails.

So the fundamental nature of a script is that we have conflict. How will your characters overcome a challenge? What is the “ticking clock” or time limit on overcoming that challenge? What will happen if they don’t succeed? These things are called stakes, obstacles and conflict and these are the things that create a narrative of escalating tension.

Stakes is what hangs in the balance if our hero doesn’t succeed. It’s established at the beginning of the movie and with each obstacle, the stakes become harder and harder to save. Conflict is what drives your story forward like an engine.

Now, in a three- act script, there are certain accepted points in the script when conflict rises and there are twists in the story. Those points are page 10, page 30, page 60 and page 90. Or, as you may have read, page 10 (the inciting incident) page 30 (the first plot point which leads us into the second act) page 60 (the midpoint; the middle of the second act) and page 90 (the second plot point before the big climax in the third act). See the slightly different page number indications above, in the 4-act structure.

Without conflict and without a ticking clock of some kind, your script will be totally dull. Movies are about conflict. Even if that conflict is funny. Things go wrong.

Imagine this: a friend says to you – you’ll never guess what happened today! I was headed to the grocery store and the traffic was really bad! O-kay. But try it a different way: I was headed to my wedding and the traffic was really bad! Now we are left with a pressing question: did you make it on time? Now we are interested in the outcome because something was at stake and it wasn’t the price of cantaloupe.

Stakes in your screenplay are about exciting outcomes. An outcome is not exciting unless either something bad might happen if it doesn’t work out or something really great will NOT happen. If there’s nothing at stake then we have an ordinary day in real life. Gee, hope I make it to the gym before they close. Yawn.

Real life is often quite pedestrian. But movies are about conflict. Without conflict, your script will be labeled “soft”, stamped with a PASS and tossed into the recycling bin. Verily, Rouge Wavers would be surprised how often newer writers just don’t have enough in the way of stakes in their scripts. Memorize this: movies are about conflict. Something always has to be at stake. What if the little animals in OVER THE HEDGE can’t get back to safety? Will Woody be reunited with the little boy who loves him in TOY STORY? Stakes are – tell me what happened? Did he make it? Did she find out? Did they catch the train on time?? They are why we sit in our seats until the credits roll. They are what happens in the end.

Stakes are the engine that drives your story forward toward its inevitable end. Stakes, conflicts and obstacles are always relative to the premise of your story and to your main character. The stakes, conflicts and obstacles present in PIRATES III are excitingly appropriate for that particular premise. The stakes and conflicts in FREAKY FRIDAY are relative to that premise. And BRIGADOON. And DISTURBIA.

In SOPHIE’S CHOICE, Sophie must choose between one of her two babies in a Nazi concentration camp. Stakes don’t get bigger than that. But stakes can be funny too: what is at stake for Derek Zoolander in ZOOLANDER? Only his life’s work, his identity and his ego. That’s pretty huge for Derek.

Stakes can be the end of the world, telling the person you love that you love them, saving a life, stopping a killer, restoring an important relationship, saving the nation from nuclear war. The size and scope, the bigness of the stakes in your story should be a relative match for the premise and your main character. It would be ludicrous if the stakes in DISTURBIA, for example, were the end of the world – that’s totally outside of the premise. And remember, if you execute your pages beautifully, that an old woman’s garden will wilt and die can be a huge set of stakes – for that character. Think about the genre. Are you writing an action picture? Okay the garden really isn’t going to work. But it worked beautifully (if campily) in SILENT RUNNING.

Do some homework; watch some of your favorite movies. Press the pause button in the early part of the movie and ask yourself what seems to be at stake for the main character. Is it clear to you what the main character’s goal is? Now watch for a while longer and pause again – what is the character’s flaw? What conflicts is the character facing? What will happen if he or she doesn’t reach their goal through whatever narrative is in motion?

Remember the fundamental tenet of drama: stasis – change – stasis. Movies ARE conflict. Nobody will pay nine dollars and sit still for two hours to watch a story in which nothing significant is at stake. Check your premise; it is right there, before you start writing pages, that you need to make sure you have stakes that will drive your story. How funny it was that time you and your buddies went to Vegas doesn’t sound that interesting. Unless you went there to kill yourself. Unless you went there to count cards. Unless you went there to steal a billion dollars from the casino vault. Those are stakes.

Good Answers to Good Questions

Style Bard asked some great questions about Quik-E-Structure Check, a post about structure. And the Wave-inatrix is proud and happy to pass those questions along to my resident expert Margaux Outhred, who along with Andrew Zinnes is adding a level and a layer to the Script Whisperer that is pretty amazing. So without further adieu, heeerrrres Margaux!

*************
Dear Style Bard,
I’m a bit of a structure nut, so I’m the perfect person to answer some of your questions:

What’s the length of script (page wise) is this based on? Could it be better gauged by a script percentage?

–Great question. Generally, a lot of structure points used to come from the 120 page, 3 Act script guideline. Pages, 30, 60, and 90 would have been your plot points to check out maybe 10 years ago.

However, 110 pages has really become the new standard in scripts, mostly because studios prefer movies to be shorter, especially 3rd Acts. It’s not uncommon to find scripts coming in at 105 pages these days. And family movies will come in as low as 90 pages. That is mainly to do with what studios perceive to be the attention span of their audience. However, regardless of page count, the 3 Act structure is still the primarily used structure in mainstream Hollywood, and even in most independent films.

The percentages don’t come into play as much for two reasons: One, is that page number really is a standard that people look to. What the Wave-inatrix said about studio execs and agents who will flip directly to specific page numbers to look for a significant moment is absolutely true. Even if there was a perfect formula for percentages, if you don’t have a big event on page 30 (although I would argue page 28 is the new page 30), that will tell the person reading that you haven’t nailed your 1st Act/ 2nd Act transition. Readers and executives will judge a script based on what happens in relation to certain page numbers. If they love the script and don’t even notice the page numbers along the way, then you’ve done a great job. However, these are people who read multiple scripts in a single day, so they often need the cheat of page numbers to help their judgment on the writer’s execution.

The other reason why percentages for a script wouldn’t be a good guide is that the 3 Act structure should be a bigger guiding force for you. At a very general level, you might find that the 2nd Act of your script with be twice the length of your 1st Act, but your 3rd Act would be not quite as long as your 1st Act. In the 120 page script model it works out nicely; the 1st Act was 30 pages, 2nd Act was 60 pages, and 3rd Act was also 30 pages. Now, with a 110 pg. script, people want to get into the Adventure quicker, thus the page 28 jump, and they want quicker 3rd Act also. That’s often where people trim the fat, but that goes along with having a slightly shorter 2nd Act also. Obviously, you can see, this is not an exact science. I actually don’t even want to attempt a bad percentage example because it really wouldn’t explain this any better.

The 3rd Act structure works so well because it encompasses a structure for both plot to occur and escalate, and even more importantly, a structure for your main character’s emotions to follow. Just as your plot should shift and grow at page 10, 30, 50, 75 (and even 90 if you include a battle scene), your main character’s emotional quirks should be challenged and evolving at each of these points too. I know it’s a tall order, but when this is done properly, that’s where you get scripts that are truly examples of why this system works so well.

And one other small reason why the percentages would throw you off: Page numbers equate to minutes on screen. That’s also why executives cling to the importance of page numbers. One page equals one minute on screen. If you watch movies like TOOTSIE, or even the recent 3:10 to YUMA, you can clock it with a stopwatch where the major emotional and plot points occur. While these two films follow the older timing and structure in terms of page numbers or minutes, what’s wonderful about these films is that the major emotional turns ARE the major plots points.

What can we do to make adjustments from here? I’m guessing if we have a 75th page to get to, it’s a bit tricky to relocate major action segments.

– If you have a simple outline (often a brief one-page outline will provide you a clean bird’s eye view of your whole movie), it should be easy to see where your holes are. It shouldn’t be that tricky to relocate major action segments because they should be building into a climax by the end of your script. You’re not going to put your best action setpieces up front in your film. And again, your main character should be driving this story, and learning an emotional lesson along the way. Your main character shouldn’t be capable of doing things early in your film that he/she may do later in the film. It is by going on this SPECIFIC 2nd Act adventure, that your Main Character learns his/her lessons and becomes better able to beat his/her opponent.
If you are stuck, track your character’s emotional arc first to make sure your character is learning the necessary lessons to beat his opponent. Often those small lessons help make up story beats where your outline might have been thin before.

Are action features what we’re mostly looking for here, or are important dialogue expositions (not necessarily revelations) important as well?

– Action and dialogue are one in the same here. At each of these structure points, something interesting needs to happen. If a helicopter explodes in the background, yes, that may be interesting, but is it relevant to your Main character’s journey, and does it propel your story forward? EVERY LINE, even EVERY WORD in your script must propel your story forward. These structure points will serve to reveal something about the character we didn’t know before (which still propels your story forward) and/or they may challenge your main character more. Your main character should always have a goal they want to accomplish and each of these structure points makes that goal both more important to accomplish, yet harder to achieve.

Should another approach be to write down what our major turning points and reversals are and then locate them and see how far off they are?

–Yes, that would be another way to do this. However, that can be the beginning of a frustrating, slippery slope. If you find, for example, that your first major structure point isn’t at page 10, but page 25, don’t let that discourage you. Use it as a helpful guide. At that point, it would be more helpful to play with your outline and go back to that bird eye’s view. That’s also sometimes where using index cards can be helpful. Don’t lose what you have on your pages, but, focus instead on your more general scene choices. Do you have index cards of each scene? Are there any scenes that could be combined with another, or some that can be erased completely? Sometimes if a writer tries to force structure after the fact, they can end up deleting and cutting and pasting their script into oblivion. Structure is a guide, not an absolute.

Looking at the major things that happen on these pages, I feel like I’m actually getting a different feel for where the focus of my script lies. This is not necessarily a bad thing, I’m thinking… just intimidating.

–Writing is nothing if it’s not a process. Be open to that fact that it might take writing an entire script to really learn what the script is about. (It’s happened to me.) You might stumble into a nugget of an idea, which is actually a more entertaining movie…great. At least you found it. I always advise against letting your script meander…but if it takes you somewhere, often that might be worth listening to. Yes, it’s always intimidating. I’ve heard Nora Ephron talk about being intimidated by a blank page. Just keep going and the gems will emerge.

Quik-E-Structure Check

Well, the voting on the Whiskey Tango Foxtrot competition has been highly entertaining to watch! Our 3 finalists must be biting their nails watching the percentages go up and down!

I thought I’d take this opportunity to give Wavers a quick way to check under the hood to see if the structure of your script is solid. So put on your grease-stained jumper, stick your wrench in your backpocket, turn your hat sideways and let’s put your script up on the rack:

Take your script and turn to page 10. Write down any significant event that occurred thereabouts (two pages before or after is okay too)

Go to page 30 and do it again. Again, you are looking for a significant event.

Go to page 50 and do likewise, and then again at page 75ish.

Now look at the events you wrote down. They should be the most significant turning points, reversals and complications in your story – upon which the entire plot turns. You should be able to look at these events separately, without the window dressing of the scenes in-between. And they should still work from a bird’s eye view of your script.

Well – how do the events you wrote down look? Pretty exciting? Does each one hinge on the last? Are the events causal, compelling and escalating in nature?

Sometimes when your script has made it into the “maybe” pile at a competition, a judge will glimpse at the synopsis of the prior reader and simply thumb through your script – to those significant act breaks, looking for exciting set pieces and turning points. Believe it or not – I’ve seen this done. One competition called it “the page 50 test”.

So go on ahead and test your own script by checking these turning point pages. See anything good?

The Second Act

Rouge Wavers, welcome back from a blessed three-day weekend after which the Wave-inatrix trusts that you feel uplifted, rested, renewed, restored and sick of chocolate bunnies and matzo. Today we jump in by considering the second act.

The second act can often feel like a vast, empty field with your various elements bivouacked, huddling for warmth around tiny fires. Your first act went well, you know what you want to happen in the third act, but oy, that second act – so much empty space, so many pages to fill. Have another chocolate bunny.

There are a few things to remember about the second act which will help narrow it down to something more manageable and one of them is that the bulk of the entertainment that you set up in the first act, will appear in the second act. The second act is most of the movie, in other words. The second act of BIG has lots of scenes that show a kid experiencing life inside a grown man’s body. That’s the upshot of the promised entertainment in BIG. So whatever your promised entertainment is – you’re going to pay that off in the second act. With lots of scenes that show: an unlikely couple falling in love, or nurses battling vampire doctors, or passengers dealing with snakes on a plane. SNAKES is a lesson in high concept for all of us, incidentally.

While the Wave-inatrix freely admits that calculating a tip is a task that requires ten minutes and a calculator, for the sake of argument, take the golden 100 page script. Your midpoint is on or about page fifty, yes? This means that, in rough terms, you have 30 pages in your first act, 50 pages in your second act and 20 pages in the third act.

The second act can actually be divided into two parts: the first half of the second act which is punctuated by the midpoint and the second half of the second act which is punctuated by the second plot point which leads us into the third act. Most screenwriting texts will tell you that the midpoint of a script should be a very big reversal or complication; the point of no return, the point at which your character will have to completely change tactics in order to reach their exterior goal.

The advantage of viewing the second act in two parts is that you no longer view it as a huge, sprawling part of your script during which god-knows-what-will-happen but rather as mini-acts unto themselves. We know that in a screenplay each scene builds upon the last and introduces or foreshadows the next. There is a causal relationship between scenes. Well, the second act is no different in context. Things. Must. Ramp. Up. In fact, here’s a quick rule of thumb, from page one on – tension is always building. Whether that is comedic, dramatic or anything else. It is headed up up and up just like a beautiful balloon. Which will burst right around the second plot point.

The second act is the real meat and potatoes of your movie in the sense that it is here that we will see the essential action, drama, romance or battles that you the writer promised us in the first act. The second act is where you get your writer on. The second act is where you show us your chops. How great will those battle scenes be? How snappy or funny will the dialogue be as the story escalates into wilder and wilder setpieces? How emotionally invested will we be by the second act?

Fear not, Rouge Wavers, the second act need not be a dark, barren expanse littered with the dead bodies of what would have been your script. The way is lit for you: the second act is bracketed by plot point one which concludes the first act, the midpoint and the second plot point which propels us into the third act. Those guideposts, along with understanding that the second act is divided into two parts, will help make the second act a more digestible, less intimidating part of your script. Set forth with courage and confidence into the charted territory we call the second act.