The 2nd Act

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  • The 2nd Act

    Long time listener, first time caller. Love the boards, great place to learn about the craft.

    It seems with my writing the second act is always the hardest to perfect. First act is simple enough, setup, proper introduction of characters, flaws, complications, etc. But the second act, and this seems to be the common understanding, is the one where scripts go to die.

    In the script I'm currently working on I have a solid first and third acts but the second act just doesn't get it done. I think the tension is there, the stakes keep getting higher, and I feel I have a good final scene that properly sets up the third act. But it just doesn't feel right. I think my second act has the right scenes, its a high-concept romantic comedy, but the characters don't seem to come together the way they should. After reading a second act you should feel like you've been through alot with the characters. A journey. Seen their good and their bad and then come to a deeper understanding of who they are. I don't know if mine has that 'journey' feel to it.

    Any comments or suggestions on how to get that second act into proper shape? I'd love to see what everyones approaches are.

  • #2
    Re: The 2nd Act

    The second act is always the hardest. No matter how good you are or how many scripts you have written, act two is always your toughest battle.


    I like to give the hero a goal or task to keep act two focused and the action unified.

    Act Two Tasks

    Star Wars - deliver the Death Star plans to the rebels.
    Back to the Future - Get parents to fall in love.
    Sixth Sense - Learn Cole's secret.
    Pirates of the Caribbean - Rescue Elizabeth from Barbarossa

    A common technique (which I often use) is to have the hero achieve the objective goal at the end of act two which causes the story and conflict to be re-framed, forcing the hero to go into act three in order to achieve the subjective goal.

    The subjective goal is the underlying reason for the objective goal.

    It is because Luke wants to fight the empire and save the rebels that he decides to deliver the plans. Once the objective goal of delivering the plans is accomplished the story and conflict is re-framed by the Empire finding the rebels as a result of Luke delivering the plans so now the only way to achieve the subjective goal of saving the rebels is to fly an x-wing fighter and blow up the Death Star. That is what sends him through act three.

    HTH

    Good luck!


    Fortune favors the bold - Virgil

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    • #3
      Re: The 2nd Act

      It helps to think of the Second Act as a ladder. You look at your scenes and arrange them in a way that builds tension. Then just when your hero/heroine gets to the top, the antag is right there to shake the ladder. The hero doesn't want to admit defeat because he's come so far, but he'll have problems going up because the antag isa formidable opponent. The opposing forces and what makes the journey worth fighting them are two elements that have to be set up or at least alluded to in Act One. You'll run outta steam otherwise.
      "I ask every producer I meet if they need TV specs they say yeah. They all want a 40 inch display that's 1080p and 120Hz. So, I quit my job at the West Hollywood Best Buy."
      - Screenwriting Friend

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      • #4
        Re: The 2nd Act

        Think of your protagonist as being slightly dysfunctional. Instead of dealing with the main problem, plot a, he runs around and trys to deal with all the little problems, plot b, that were caused by plot a.

        Then, finally, when the chaos caused by plot a is more than he can ignore, or stand, he must go deal with it.

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        • #5
          Re: The 2nd Act

          Billy Mernit has a useful book, Writing the Romantic Comedy.

          Over on Wordplayer.com, Terry Rossio has helpful things to say in a column on tasks, and in the discussion board archives on creating situations.

          Creating situations means, you tell us certain things about what's going on with one or both characters, so when you bring them together, we already know he plans to break up with her but she's expecting him to propose, so we can't wait to see what's going to happen.

          Or they're in an expensive restaurant, but we know he is trying to impress her, but his wallet was stolen, so again, we wonder how he's going to deal with it. We understand the subtext of their conversation, but we know she doesn't understand what he means because she doesn't know what we know.

          Those sorts of situations, combined with tasks, and combined with a good obstacle keeping the characters apart, yet you've made us really care about them and want them to get together, and you've got a head start on an involving romantic comedy.

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          • #6
            Re: The 2nd Act

            Probably you knwo everything about the importance of a strong first turning point to provide enough momentum to keep the second act going.

            To me, it seems that your problem has to do more with the characters. As mentioned, subjective and objektive goals are really important and, for some reason, this seems to be missing in many scripts/movies. Don't make that mistake!

            My suggestion: Fokus on backstory, character biographies and "circle of being". It doesn't mean you should show so much backstory, but it deepens your understanding for your characters and makes them more complex and interesting. And their goals will feel more solid, true and strong in some way...

            In the script I'm writing I suddenly realized that my characters weren't interesting enough. The goal was clear, turning points strong and the ending was good, but my characters were flat and boring. I had only been focusing on structure and almost nothing on characters. I was afraid of letting them be interesting, strong and complex in some strange way - I didn't know enough about them! After focusing on backstory, creating character biographies and a circle of being for each of them I created more interesting scenes during three weeks than I had done for half a year. Especially, this knowledge made the dialouges came out much more interesting and the conflicts felt more genuin.

            /H
            'Media is the evil of all evils, they tell you only what
            they want the story to be'¦'

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            • #7
              Forced Structure

              I like Zarakow's answer. Forcing the structure is like forcing the dialogue--it doesn't seem natural. I'd worry more about making the characters and their actions fun and interesting all the way through than trying to fit some 30-60-30 formula.

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              • #8
                Re: The 2nd Act

                It sounds to me like you've got your draft written, but you're too close to see it. It sounds like the perfect time to get feedback on what you've done. I've been struggling through my second act and one of the things that's motivating me to get it done is so I can finally post a completed draft on Zoetrope and get some good feedback.

                (There are some amazing people at Zoetrope and I'm lucky to have found 3 or 4 who always read and tear apart my scripts in ways that are thorough and relevant.)

                I would post it and get feedback on specific issues by people who have read the script rather than hypothetical responses from those who haven't. I'm not implying the responses here are anything but amazing, but wouldn't you love to hear someone give actual feedback?

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                • #9
                  Re: The 2nd Act

                  2nd acts are hard in any genre. But I think it's even harder to write the second act of a good romantic comedy -- you can't rely on earth's-fate-hangs-in-the-balance tension to keep the momentum. That's why so many rom-coms drag in act 2.

                  If one has a good high concept rom-com, then protag's have interesting yet opposing exterior goals while their interior mutual goals (coming to terms with their attraction to each other) gets in the way. And therein lies the tension. Will they go for the exterior or sacrifice it for the interior goal?

                  One of my fav rom-coms is French Kiss -- both protag's have clear exterior goals and get in ecah other's way at first. At mid-point they, join forces to help each other achieve their goals but now their attraction to each other gets in the way of doing just that.

                  But you say you have a high concept rom-com, so I'm guessing that perhaps -- and this is just a wild guess - - perhaps you're relying too much on your concept to drive the second act and not layering in tension created by their attraction to each other as this attraction sabotages their individual exterior goals.

                  Just my opine. :-)
                  Advice from writer, Kelly Sue DeConnick. "Try this: if you can replace your female character with a sexy lamp and the story still basically works, maybe you need another draft.-

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