It has been a while since I’ve done a three-act analysis, so I thought one of my favorite Poe stories would be a perfect subject. Today we’ll do a three-act analysis of Edgar Allan Poe’s short story “The Cask of Amontillado”

Spoiler Alert! If you have not read “The Cask of Amontillado,” it’s in the public domain so you can find plenty of copies online. In fact, you can download this copy from the DIY MFA site. I highly recommend reading the story (it’s only four pages!) before diving into this analysis.

Let’s get started with our analysis of “The Cask of Amontillado.”

ACT 1: In this story, act 1 is fairly short: only a few paragraphs. The first two paragraphs consist of Montresor justifying his need for revenge on Fortunato. The third paragraph gives us some background on the victim himself. Apparently Fortunato thinks himself a connoisseur of wines, so Montresor decides to use that against him.

While this  brief opening focuses mostly on Montresor’s justifications and Fortunato’s background, the five promises still come through loud and clear.

Character: Montresor is our protagonist. He wants to get revenge on Fortunato because the latter has wronged him. 

Voice: We are in a first person point of view with Montresor as both the protagonist and the narrator. The story is told entirely in Montresor’s voice. At one point, he breaks the fourth wall and speaks directly to the reader: “You, who so well know the nature of my soul.” It is almost as though he wants to convince us that his decision to murder Fortunato is justified.

Montresor is a somewhat unreliable narrator—though you could argue that any first-person narrator could be unreliable. He is not quite as unreliable as the narrator in “The Tell-Tale Heart” but we know from the outset that we cannot trust everything he says. 

World: We are in an Italian city during the carnival season. (We find this out in the fourth paragraph, just at the end of Act 1 when we meet Fortunato for the first time.) Acts 2 and 3 of the story take place in the catacombs of the Montresor family.

Problem: Montresor has an annoying friend (Fortunato) and has endured a “thousand injuries” from him.

Event:  Eventually one of these injuries crosses the line and Montresor vows revenge. But, he doesn’t just want to punish Fortunato, he wants to “punish with impunity.”

PIVOT POINT 1:  This pivot point is as long or longer than all of act 1. It begins with the external event where Montresor meets Fortunato (drunk) during the carnival time. He tells Fortunato that he has acquired a bottle of Amontillado but he is not sure of its authenticity. Immediately this piques Fortunato’s interest, especially when Montresor says he plans to ask Luchesi about the Amontillado. It becomes clear that Luchesi is a rival wine connoisseur of Fortunato, so when Montresor mentions him, right away Fortunato insists on seeing the bottle of Amontillado himself.

We have quite a bit of dialogue between Montresor and Fortunato. Montresor insists that the vaults are too damp and that he does not want to impose on Fortunato. He keeps mentioning Luchesi to provoke Fortunato, making him almost desperate to be the one to identify the Amontillado. The passage ends with a choice where Montresor takes Fortunato’s arm and—almost as though he is reluctant—takes his friend back to his home and wine vaults.

ACT 2:  This act begins with a bit of world-building. Montresor tells us that he left his home, giving his servants strict instructions to stay put in his absence, knowing full well that they will do the exact opposite and that his house will be empty when he arrives with Fortunato. This is important because it allows Montresor to commit his crime with no witnesses.

This tiny detail about the servants gives us a sense for Montresor’s world. It is clear that the servants do not respect him and yet he is able to use that lack of respect to manipulate them and have his house empty as he desires.

The rest of the story takes place in the catacombs where Montresor has his wine vaults.

SUPPORTING CAST:  There is only one true supporting character in this story and it is Fortunato. His name means “fortunate one,” which is ironic because as we find out at the end of the story, he is far from lucky.

We also have another character mentioned throughout the story—Luchesi—but he never appears on the page. Montresor brings him up multiple times as a way to manipulate Fortunato and make him all the more eager to be the one who successfully identifies the Amontillado. Luchesi’s sole purpose is as a mechanism to provoke Fortunato.

WORST: In this story, Montresor’s motivations are straightforward and we can map them easily onto the WORST acronym.

Want: Montresor wants to get revenge on Fortunato by killing him.

Obstacle: He needs to plan this murder carefully so that he may “punish with impunity.” He does not want to get caught.

Risk: There is a big risk that he might get caught, so he needs to be strategic about where he commits the murder and how he lures Fortunato to his death.

Stakes: If he doesn’t get revenge, he will be forced to endure a thousand or more future injuries from Fortunato. This prospect is likely unbearable, prompting him to come up with a permanent method of revenge: death.

Transformation: Montresor has a slight change of heart at the end, but it is not sufficient to prevent him from going through with the murder. Just before he forces the last stone into the wall, he says “My heart grew sick—on account of the dampness of the catacombs.” Clearly, he is having some second thoughts about his actions and is trying to convince himself that this feeling is a result of the dampness, not of the murder.

RULE OF THREE:  The rule of three appears twice throughout the story. The first is regarding Luchesi and the second is with respect to the nitre which contaminates the vaults.

Luchesi: There are three sections where Luchesi is mentioned. The first section is during the first pivot point, when Montresor tells Fortunato that he is planning to go to Luchesi to have him assess the authenticity of his Amontillado. During that passage, Montresor mentions Luchesi multiple times and it is clear that he is trying to provoke Fortunato into wanting to see the Amontillado for himself.

The second instance is early in act 2, when Fortunato has a coughing fit in the catacombs. Montresor pretends that he is concerned for Fortunato’s health and says they should leave the vaults. He ends by saying “Besides, there is Luchesi—” and immediately Fortunato insists that he is fine and that he “shall not die of a cough.”

The third mention of Luchesi is when they have reached their destination, the place in the catacombs where Montresor plans to murder Fortunato. It is a small, dark crypt and it is difficult for them to see anything in it, even with their torches. Montresor says “Proceed… herein is the Amontillado. As for Luchesi—” Fortunato cuts him off by calling Luchesi an ignoramus and steps into the crypt, at which point Montresor chains him to the wall.

The first two mentions of Luchesi are clearly taunts from Montresor. He is using Luchesi to manipulate Fortunato into coming with him to the catacombs. The third reference to Luchesi is more of a passing mention than the previous two instances, but it is that final straw that makes Fortunato step into the crypt, thus leading to his ultimate demise.

Nitre: There are three sections referencing nitre while they are in the catacombs. Note that there is a fourth passing mention of nitre before we get to act 2, when Montresor is insisting that Fortunato should not come with him. This mention is not as significant as the others, so for the purposes of this rule of three, I only consider the mentions of nitre that occur while they are in the catacombs.

The first reference to nitre is shortly after they have entered the catacombs. Fortunato notices the nitre in the vaults and asks Montresor about it, then immediately proceeds to have a coughing fit. Ironically, he only starts coughing after Montresor asks him how long he has had that cough.

The second mention of nitre occurs just after the midpoint. Montresor points out that the nitre is increasing and “hangs like moss upon the vaults.” He uses this moment to provoke Fortunato further, saying they should turn back because of his cough. Fortunato refuses and instead takes a drink of Medoc, getting further intoxicated.

The final instance of nitre is just after the second pivot point, once Montresor has chained Fortunato into the crypt. He says: “Pass your hand… over the wall; you cannot help feeling the nitre. Indeed it is VERY damp. Once more let me IMPLORE you to return. No? Then I must positively leave you. But I must first render you all the little attentions in my power.” At this point, Montresor is no longer trying to pretend. It is clear what he plans to do, and he is saying all this as a way to torture Fortunato.

MIDPOINT: The midpoint is the moment when Fortunato asks Montresor about his family’s coat of arms. Montresor replies: “A huge human foot d’or, in a field of azure; the foot crushes a serpent rampant whose fangs are imbedded in the heel.” It is clear that Montresor sees himself as the serpent and Fortunato as the huge foot. The foot might crush the serpent but not before the serpent gets its revenge.

Fortunato then asks about the motto and Montresor tells him: “Nemo me impune lacessit” which means “No one provokes me with impunity.” The irony, of course, is that Montresor spends the entire story provoking Fortunato and his goal is to punish Fortunato with impunity. He is doing exactly what his motto threatens against. Note that we do not have a true moment of self-reflection at this point, but the midpoint instead serves as a foreshadowing of what Montresor is going to do.

PIVOT POINT 2: The second pivot point occurs when they reach the small crypt where the Amontillado supposedly is stored. Montresor taunts Fortunato by mentioning Luchesi and Fortunato steps into the crypt. Montresor immediately comes up behind him and chains him to the wall. The event at this pivot point is Fortunatio stepping into the crypt, while Montresor’s chaining him is the choice.

ACT 3: Most of act 3 is Montresor laying the bricks and closing off the crypt where Fortunato is chained. We get a detailed description of him laying each of the layers of the bricks, building up the tension. We can anticipate what’s coming and we know it isn’t good. 

CLIMAX: At the climax, Montresor has only a few more bricks to lay down and Fortunato starts laughing. He thinks the whole thing is a joke and that any moment now, Montresor will free him. He jokes that they will laugh about this at the palazzo over a glass of wine and Montresor replies with: “The Amontillado!”

Then he realizes that Montresor is not kidding and he begins to panic. Eventually he says: “FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, MONTRESOR!” and Montresor replies: “Yes… for the love of God!” After a few moments without a reply from Fortunato, Montresor calls his name multiple times and receives no answer.

There is a brief moment when Montresor hears a jingling of bells from Fortunato’s jester’s cap and his “heart grew sick” but immediately he shrugs it off as a result of the damp catacombs and pushes the last stone into position.

Ending Type: While this is a terrifying ending, according to our four-ending classification this would be a happy ending. After all, Montresor wants to get revenge on Fortunato, and he does so successfully.

DENOUEMENT: The denouement in this story is quite short: “Against the new masonry I reerected the old rampart of bones. For the half of a century no mortal has disturbed them.” This suggests that Montresor was, in fact, successful in punishing Fortunato with impunity because for half a century his crime has not been discovered. The story ends with a three-word paragraph: “In pace requiescat!” or “rest in peace.”

CONCLUSION: “The Cask of Amontillado” is a relatively simple story. Two friends meet on a street. They go into the catacombs to find a rare wine. One of the friends murders the other by burying him alive. Still, despite the simplicity of the plot and the constrained story world (we are in the catacombs most of the time) the story hits all the major plot points of the three-act structure.

The only place where “The Cask of Amontillado” deviates slightly from the three-act structure is at the midpoint. The event at the midpoint is neither a temporary triumph nor a false failure, and we do not have a true moment of self reflection on the part of the protagonist either. Instead, the midpoint acts as a moment of foreshadowing.

In fact, we have multiple moments of foreshadowing throughout the story. Early in act 2 when Montresor shows concern for Fortunato’s cough and Fortunato replies: “It will not kill me. I shall not die of a cough.” This, of course, is true. In the end, his cough is not the thing that kills him.

A little later, when Montresor produces a bottle of wine, they both give a toast. Fortunato drinks “To the buried that repose around us,” which is ironic because a short while thereafter, Fortunato becomes one of those buried in the catacombs. Montresor then replies “And to your long life.” This is, of course, further irony because Montresor knows exactly what he has in store and if he succeeds, Fortunato’s life will be far from long.

The midpoint with the coat of arms and motto is even more ironic foreshadowing. At that moment, Montresor is almost coming right out and telling Fortunato what he is going to do. Yet through it all, Fortunato is either too drunk or too oblivious to realize the hint.

The final hint comes a little later, when Fortunato asks Montresor if he is part of the masons and Montresor holds up a trowel, implying a play on the word “mason.” Throughout the story, Montresor hints at what he is going to do, yet Fortunato never figures it out until it is too late. It is only when we reach the climax, we the readers (along with Fortunato) realize the extent of Montresor’s thirst for revenge and just how twisted his motivations are.

Until next time, keep writing and keep being awesome!

P.S. For more info on Gabriela Pereira, the founder and instigator of DIY MFA, check out her profile page.

The post Writer Fuel: Three-Act Analysis of The Cask of Amontillado appeared first on DIY MFA.

Spoiler Alert! As with all three-act analyses, it’s impossible to talk about a book’s structure without giving spoilers. This book in particular has something of a twist at the end, so if you don’t want this analysis to spoil it for you, grab a copy and read the book first. It’s super-short and has lots of illustrations, so it’s a very quick read.

Without further ado, let’s dive into our analysis of The Little Prince.

ACT 1: The book opens with an anecdote where the narrator tells how, as a child, he drew a picture of a boa constrictor eating an elephant. When he showed it to adults, they all seemed to think it was a picture of a hat and they could not see the terrifying truth that it was really an elephant inside a snake. This anecdote is meant to show us the contrast between how adults and children see the world.

Many years later, the narrator’s plane crashes in the desert and he is completely alone, until a little boy—the little prince—appears as if out of nowhere. The boy asks him to draw him a sheep but no matter what the narrator draws, nothing seems to satisfy the boy. Eventually the narrator draws a picture of a box with holes in it and tells the boy that the sheep is inside. The holes are so the sheep can breathe. This is the first moment when the narrator begins to think like a child, rather than an adult.

For the rest of Act 1, the little prince tells the narrator his story. He is from a tiny planet where he lives alone, tending to the plants and trying to prevent baobabs from taking root. (This is why he needs a sheep, so it can eat the weeds and dangerous plants.) As the days pass, the little prince tells the narrator more and more about his planet.

Character: The little prince is the protagonist of this story. He begins seeming very childlike but by the end he shows wisdom beyond his years.

Voice: This book is told through the point of view of a nameless first person narrator. Like the book’s author, the narrator is a pilot, and at the beginning of the story he has a very grown-up mindset. As the story progresses, however, the narrator begins to identify with the little prince and think the way a child would think.

As with The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Little Prince is written in the first person peripheral point of view. This means that the character narrating the story is not the protagonist but a supporting character.

Note also that the voice and tone of the story shifts. At first, we are very much in the voice of the narrator relaying to us what the little prince has told him. As the story develops, however, and we get more entrenched in the story of the little prince’s adventure, the narrator begins to disappear from the picture and we slide into what almost feels like a third person limited point of view. Toward the end of the story, the narrator resumes his more prominent role and we are back in the first person peripheral point of view.

Periodically, the narrator’s voice shifts into the second person, as though he is speaking directly to the little prince (though it is clear that we are in the narrator’s thoughts). While the second person can be hard to sustain for a longer book, these short bursts of this unconventional point of view work well sprinkled throughout the story. In these moments of second person narration, we feel as though we are right there, inside the narrator’s head.

World: There are two primary worlds in this story: the harsh desert where the narrator meets the little prince, and the fanciful world of the asteroids and planets that the little prince visits along his travels. Each planet he comes to has its own quirky inhabitant and these people are meant to represent different facets of society.

Problem: The little prince lives alone and he worries about dangerous plants (like baobabs) taking root and overwhelming his whole planet.

Event: The story begins off with the narrator’s plane crashing in the desert, which is where he meets the little prince.

PIVOT POINT 1:  The little prince tells the narrator of the arrival of his flower, whose seed blew to his planet “from no one knew where.” He immediately falls in love with the flower and does everything he can to take good care of her. Yet, she is vain and selfish, and she torments the little prince with her constant requirements. Eventually, he decides to leave his planet.

The morning of his departure, he puts everything in order on his small planet. He cleans out the volcanoes and says goodbye to his flower. She apologizes for her past behavior, but he leaves nonetheless. The external event at this pivot point is first meeting the flower. The internal choice is the little prince’s decision to leave his planet.

ACT 2:  The second act has two distinct parts to it, split almost directly down the middle. The first part comprises all the planets the little prince visits before he gets to the Earth, and the second part takes place after he has reached our planet. 

SUPPORTING CAST:  As he stops at different planets, the little prince meets different men who represent various facets of society. When he meets these characters, the little prince wonders at their odd behaviors and remarks that adults “are certainly very, very odd.” These characters include:

The King: This king sits alone on a tiny planet, barely big enough to hold his throne and extensive robes. He instantly assumes the little prince is a subject because to him “all men are subjects.” He also commands the little prince to do things that he would have done anyway, simply as a way to flaunt his power. For example, when the little prince decides to leave, the king tries to prevent him, but eventually lets him go, calling him an “ambassador.”

The Conceited Man: Just as the king views everyone as a subject, the conceited man thinks of everyone as an admirer. Both the conceited man and the king are alone on their planets, which is ironic because the conceited man has no one there to admire him and the king has no one to rule over. Yet, they both believe they are the best or highest rank on their respective planets.

The Drinker: The next planet houses a man who sits alone, drinking. According to him, he drinks in order to forget that he is ashamed of drinking. As it turns out, drinking to forget is a vicious cycle.

The Businessman: This man sits alone with his ledgers and counts the millions of “little glittering objects” in the sky (i.e., the stars). The businessman insists that he owns everything that he counts and makes a distinction between kings and businessmen—kings do not own, they reign over, whereas businessmen own the things they count. The little prince tells the man that he owns his flower and his volcanoes, and that in owning them he is also of use to them, but the businessman is not of use to the stars he supposedly owns.

The Lamplighter: On this planet stands a man, alone with a single streetlamp that he must light and extinguish over and over again. He does this because it’s what he has been ordered to do. While at first the little prince admires the lamplighter’s industrious calling, thinking it a useful and beautiful profession, he soon begins to realize the futility of the man’s role. He is simply doing as he is told. “Orders are orders,” after all.

The Geographer: This man sits alone on a planet, writing in voluminous books. While the man claims to be a geographer, he does not know where anything is on his planet because he is not himself an explorer. In other words, his job is to catalogue the information related by the explorers, but he does not acquire any of that knowledge for himself.

MIDPOINT: If we look at the exact halfway point in the story, that brings us to the lamplighter planet. This chapter has a somewhat of different quality to it than the other planetary visits. Even the little prince himself says of the lamplighter: ”he is the only one of them all who does not seem to me ridiculous. Perhaps that is because he is thinking  of something else besides himself.” He goes so far as to say that the lamplighter is the only man with whom he could have been friends.

This scene with the lamplighter has a different quality to it than scenes on the other planets and we do get some sense of self-reflection in that the little prince is considering the lamplighter’s beautiful occupation. That said, this scene does not really operate as a Temporary Triumph (or a False Failure). Yes, it seems as though the lamplighter is the only person among the planetary visits with whom the little prince can be friends, but the little prince is unable to stay on his planet because it is too small.

A bit later in the story (about 60% of the way through the book), we find a more significant Temporary Triumph when the little prince arrives on earth.

The Earth is not just an ordinary planet!  One can count, there, 111 kings… 7,000  geographers, 900,000 businessmen, 7,500,000  tipplers, 311,000,000 conceited men—that is to  say, about 2,000,000,000 grown-ups.

To give you an idea of the size of the Earth, I  will tell you that before the invention of electricity  it was necessary to maintain, over the whole of  the six continents, a veritable army of 462,511  lamplighters for the street lamps.

At first, it seems like the little prince has found what he has been looking for, but then he realizes that there are no people anywhere on the planet. His Temporary Triumph quickly dissolves into failure when he realizes that he has reached this significant planet and is still all alone.

ACT 2 (Cont’d): While the little prince meets various people on his planetary visits, when he comes to Earth, his interactions are at first with other creatures of the flora and fauna varieties.

First he meets a snake who tells him he is in a desert, which is why there are no people to be found. This interaction with the snake foreshadows the ending because while the little prince says the snake is “no thicker than a finger” the snake counters that he is “more powerful than the finger of a king.” The snake says it will send anything it touches back to earth, and that if the little prince should feel homesick for his own planet, the snake can help him.

Later, the little prince crosses the desert and meets a solitary flower with only three petals. The flower tells him there are no people because men have no roots and “the wind blows them away.” Eventually, the little prince comes across a garden filled with roses that look just like his flower back on his planet. He is distraught because he had thought his flower was unique and now he has found several just like it. He is overcome with grief and he cries.

PIVOT POINT 2: The second pivot point occurs when the little prince meets the fox. The little prince is very unhappy because he has just left the garden with all the roses and he asks the fox to play with him. The fox says it cannot play with him because it is not tamed. It asks the little prince to tame it and the little prince does.

When the little prince is ready to leave, the fox is very sad and the little prince realizes that in taming something you can both do it good as well as harm. The fox tells the little prince: “Go and look again at the roses. You will understand now that yours is unique in all the world.” When the little prince goes to look at the roses, he realizes that his own rose is, in fact, unique. The little prince tells the roses of the fox: “I have made him my friend, and now he is unique in all the world” and he realizes that the same is true of his rose. His flower is unique because she is his.

The event at this second pivot point is the little prince taming the fox. The choice that he makes stems from realizing that his rose is, in fact, unique and that he is now responsible for those he has tamed—the fox and his rose.

ACT 3: In Act 3, the little prince meets a few other adults: the railroad switchman, the merchant, and eventually our narrator. Like the men the little prince meets on his planetary visits, the railroad switchman and the merchant each seem to have a futile existence.

The railroad switchman simply sends people on their way, going left and right. All the travelers are never satisfied with where they are and they also don’t seem to pursue anything. Instead, they seem to move simply for the sake of moving. Only the children seem to be interested in the journey itself, pressing their faces against the train windows.

The merchant sells pills that quench thirst, and claims the pills will save people fifty-three minutes every week. The little prince says to himself “if I had fifty-three minutes to spend as I liked, I should walk at my leisure toward a spring of fresh water.” In other words, the pills the merchant sells don’t seem to have any significant impact or importance.

The third person the little prince meets is the pilot-narrator.

CRISIS: The little prince has told the narrator his story. The narrator has run out of water and goes looking for a well. They find the well and together they both collect some water. The little prince tells the narrator that he needs a muzzle for his sheep because he is responsible for his flower and does not want the sheep to eat the rose. The narrator realizes that the little prince has plans he is not telling him about. 

CLIMAX: The little prince tells the narrator that he is going back home, but that it is too far. He says he has the sheep (in the box) and the sheep’s muzzle. The narrator realizes that the little prince is becoming afraid and the little prince says that he is.

The narrator says he wants to hear the little prince laugh again and the little prince says:

All men have the stars… but they are not the same things for different people. For some, who are travelers, the stars are guides. For others they are no more than little lights in the sky. For others, who are scholars, they are problems. For my businessman they were wealth. But all these stars are silent. You—you  alone—will have the stars as no one else has them… In one of the stars I shall be living. In one of  them I shall be laughing. And so it will be as if all the stars were laughing, when you look at the sky  at night… You—only you—will have stars that can laugh!

The narrator does not want to leave the little prince alone. The little prince says that it is too far to get home and he cannot carry his body with him. They sit out under the stars and when the little prince stands up, there is a flash of yellow near his angle and he falls to the ground. 

Ending Type: This is a Tragic Ending because the little prince starts out wanting to take care of his flower, but after he travels, his planet becomes too far away. Instead, he gets bitten by the snake and it is the only way for him to get back to his rose and his planet.

DENOUEMENT: Six years pass and the narrator still mourns the loss of the little prince. He imagines him back on his home planet, sheltering the flower under a glass globe and tending to his sheep. He worries whether the sheep will have eaten the flower. The narrator says: “no grown-up will ever understand that this is a matter of so much importance!” 

CONCLUSION: Before we wrap up this three-act analysis, it’s important to note one thing about the little prince: he never answers any questions himself, but when he has a question he refuses to let go of it. In fact, we have a Rule of 3 where three times, the narrator says of the little prince that he “never in his life had let go of a question once he had asked it.”

The first time the narrator says this is when he is speaking with the little prince about the subject of thorns. The little prince wonders whether the flower’s thorns will be sufficient to protect it from the sheep and prevent the sheep from eating the flower.

The second time this phrase comes up is when the little prince is meeting the businessman and he wants to know what the businessman is counting. While the businessman is focused on owning everything he counts, the little prince later learns that what really matters is forging a connection with something (like his flower) and feeling a sense of responsibility for it.

The third time we hear that statement about how the little prince never lets go of a question, he is speaking to the geographer about the ephemeral nature of his flower. All three instances relate to his flower in some way—truthfully, everything in the story comes back to the flower, because she is the driving force behind the little prince’s motivations.

If we look at the order of the above instances as they appear in the book, it may seem as though the cadence is inverted. But if we consider the events chronologically, the first instance is actually the last one to happen (even though it appears first in the book). That instance is different from the other two because the little prince is actively trying to do something to protect his flower.

In this scene, the narrator responds to the little prince’s question with the first thing that pops into his head and says the thorns will not protect the flower at all. When the little prince pushes back, the narrator says he is busy with “matters of consequence.” The little prince replies:

If someone loves a flower, of which just  one single blossom grows in all the millions and  millions of stars, it is enough to make him happy  just to look at the stars. He can say to himself,  ‘Somewhere, my flower is there.. .’ But if the  sheep eats the flower, in one moment all his stars will be darkened… And you think that is not  important!

This is the moment when we realize just how important the flower is to the little prince. We also understand why the little prince never lets go of a question: because the matters he is asking about are truly of grave importance, even if they may not seem so to a grown-up. In this way, this inverted Rule of 3 underscores not just what the little prince is asking, but why his questions are significant.

Until next time, keep writing and keep being awesome!

P.S. For more info on Gabriela Pereira, the founder and instigator of DIY MFA, check out her profile page.

The post Writer Fuel: Three-Act Analysis of The Little Prince appeared first on DIY MFA.

Character Backstory

This is perhaps the most common form of backstory and it relates to a character’s past. It includes things like childhood events, early traumas, successes and failures, or even secrets that the character might carry. Taken together, these all comprise the character’s history, giving us a sense for who they are and what their motivations might be.

In addition to lending context to motivations, character backstory also helps to shape character arcs. For example, a villain might have an event in their past that made them turn to evil (think Anakin Skywalker in The Revenge of the Sith). Or the hero might have experienced something that shaped their outlook on life and made them into the person they are now.

EXAMPLE: In The Hunger Games, Katniss’ father dies in a mine collapse. When that happens, her mother withdraws into herself, neglecting Katniss and her little sister Prim. From then on, Katniss is the one who has to support the family and keep them from starvation. This leads her to become especially protective of her sister and to take on a leadership role in her family.

World/Setting Backstory

Another common form of backstory shows the history of the world or setting in which the narrative takes place. This is where we learn about important world events like wars, political shifts, natural disasters, or other significant changes. Historical events, like technological revolutions, can also help shape the world. (Think of how the invention of the warp drive impacts the Earth in the Star Trek universe.) Through world/setting backstory we find out why the world is the way it is and what past events have influenced the present.

One reason why this form of backstory is so important is because it creates a sense of realism in the story world. By putting that world into historical context, it not only feels more realistic but also allows readers to understand various setting-related tensions and dynamics.

EXAMPLE: Military conflict is a subtle backdrop in Pride and Prejudice, with Colonel Forster hosting Elizabeth’s youngest sister, Lydia, in Brighton and Mr. Wickham joining the militia early in the book. While we never see any actual fighting, we are constantly reminded that the Napoleonic Wars are happening far off in the background.

Relationship Backstory

This includes past conflicts between characters, interpersonal drama, or romantic interludes. While this type of backstory is similar to character backstory, it is not specific to a single individual but rather involves the relationship between two or more.

This type of backstory adds emotional depth to relationships. When we know characters have a shared history, their present interactions take on more significance. It also opens the door for secrets and other unexpected tidbits to come to light, and it allows room for people both to have falling outs or perhaps to reconcile.

EXAMPLE: In The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby and Daisy Buchanan have had a romantic relationship in the past. This romance occurs before the action of the novel takes place and it is the primary motivation for why Gatsby pursues wealth in the attempt to win Daisy back (despite her now being married).

Incident Backstory

These are the events that have happened before the story takes place, like prophesies or past plot points. We see this type of backstory sometimes in mysteries and thrillers, where the crime might occur off the page, before chapter one. We also see incident backstory in speculative fiction, where a prophecy shared in the past reveals some aspect of the present storyline.

Incident backstory sets up the initial conditions for the plot. The story begins and it already has a certain set of “rules” or constraints attached to it. This type of backstory can also help to raise the stakes and create urgency because we know something has happened in the past that will affect the present timeline.

Be careful with prophesies, though. When done well, they can increase the sense of mystery, making the reader want to put the clues together and figure out how that prediction will come into play. But if it is too on-the-nose, that prophecy can squash the mystery out of the story altogether. Worse yet, it can feel unsatisfying to the reader when the prophecy gives us information we already know.

EXAMPLE: in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, a prophecy is revealed linking Harry to Voldemort saying: “neither can live while the other survives.” This prediction foreshadows what must happen at the end of the seventh book in order for Harry to vanquish Voldemort once and for all.

The problem with this prophecy is that it is a little bit obvious and doesn’t reveal anything new that the reader didn’t anticipate. It is clear from the start that eventually, Harry or Voldemort will have to defeat the other, and the prophecy does not add much information beyond that. In the end, we don’t need a prophecy to tell us something we already know.

Object Backstory

This type includes any lore surrounding an object, telling us why it is significant. This context might include the object’s origin story, who owned it previously, what events have transpired surrounding it, and why it is valuable, important, or dangerous.

Significant objects can play an important role in a story, adding symbolism and thematic depth. In particular, if an object becomes a thematic element—used to underscore the book’s theme—it can add substantial weight and cohesiveness to the narrative.

EXAMPLE: In The Hunger Games, Katniss’ friend Madge (the mayor’s daughter) gives her a golden pin shaped like a bird: a mockingjay. These birds are a cross-breed between a genetically engineered weapon (the jabberjay) and a mockingbird. The very existence of the mockingjay is an insult to the oppressive Capitol, which once tried to eradicate that species but failed.

We find out that, when he was alive, Katniss’ father had a special fondness for mockingjays. Later, in the arena, Katniss and her ally Rue use mockingjays to send messages through song. In the subsequent books of the trilogy, the mockingjay becomes the symbol for the revolution.

Cultural Backstory

Social norms, festivals, mythology, and ancestral lore—all these have a history explaining where they come from and why they exist. This is cultural backstory and it includes things like traditions, taboos, and anything else that shapes a society’s culture.

As with world-building backstory, this type adds a sense of realism and immersion, making the reader feel like they are there, in that world, with those characters. Cultural differences can also lead to conflict between groups, so this type of backstory can help to explain why certain tensions exist.

EXAMPLE: When Obi-Wan Kenobi first tells Luke Skywalker about his father and the Force (in Star Wars IV: A New Hope) we learn that a lightsaber is “an elegant weapon for a more civilized age.” We also discover that there are two sides to the Force, and Darth Vader was seduced by the Dark Side. All of these details—sprinkled throughout the dialogue between Luke and Obi-Wan—help to paint a picture of the Jedi culture.

Institutional Backstory

Some places or institutions—like a school, workplace, etc.—are so significant to the story that they have their own history. Institutional backstory includes any past events that occurred within an institution or organization. This might include traditions, successes and failures, secret scandals, and doctrine.

Like world/setting or cultural backstory, this type adds a sense of realism to the institution by giving it a history and context. Plus, this backstory can also help explain organizational policies or reveal hidden agendas.

EXAMPLE: In the Hunger Games trilogy, the Games themselves have a longstanding history. We learn at the Reaping in book one why the Games came into existence in the first place. We also discover the rules of the Games, like how each district must offer up two tributes (one male, one female) between the ages of 12 and 17, and once you win the Games, you are exempt from participating again in the future.

This context is important because in book two, the Capitol breaks the rules and decides to take tributes from existing victors of the Games. Without the institutional backstory of the Games themselves, that change in the rules would have much less significance.

Personal Mythology

This type of backstory includes all of those stories that characters tell themselves. This includes memories that might be re-interpreted, self-justifying narratives, or beliefs that have become ingrained in the character. This is similar to character backstory, but it focuses not on the actual events that occurred in that character’s past, but on their interpretation of those events.

EXAMPLE: In the Myrtle Clover cozy mystery series, the main character (Myrtle) has very strong views about herself and the people around her. As a former English teacher turned amateur sleuth, she thinks highly of her own cognitive abilities and is not particularly impressed with local law enforcement (including her son, who happens to be the police chief for their town).

Myrtle also firmly believes she is an excellent cook (even though her culinary experiments often take a terrible turn). Her high opinion of her own abilities means she often cooks disgusting casseroles to take to families of the murder victims—both as a condolence gesture and as an excuse to visit these suspects and try to extract information from them. 

There you have it: eight different types of backstory, how they work, and why they are important. Keep in mind that a book does not need to have all eight types represented in it. In fact, if you do include them all, you risk overloading your story with too much information and you may bore your reader. Instead, I recommend focusing on the present timeline and sprinkling in backstory as it is relevant. As I often like to say: keep the reader on a “need to know” basis. Give them only the information that they need to know, when they need to know it.

Until next time, keep writing and keep being awesome!

P.S. For more info on Gabriela Pereira, the founder and instigator of DIY MFA, check out her profile page.

The post Writer Fuel: What Types of Backstory Do You Need? appeared first on DIY MFA.

Once I saw it, the obsession grew. I got the soundtrack (both Broadway and London Cast versions) and spent hours listening to my favorite songs over and over again, until the cassette tapes almost wore out. I would compare the different versions—who was the best Valjean? Which version was the best? Overall I preferred the London version (I mean, Patti LuPone as Fantine, who could beat that?), but I liked the Broadway Javert (Terrence Mann) better and his song, “Stars,” had a much better ending. The version in the London production was anticlimactic by comparison.

In honor of introducing my daughter to Les Miserables, I thought I would do a three-act analysis to see how the framework holds up with a musical. Note that I am basing this analysis on the original Broadway version, since that is the first one I ever saw. Note also that the three-act structure has three acts in it (obviously!) but the show only has two theatrical acts. I will refer to the acts of the musical as “parts” rather than “acts” so as to avoid confusion.

Spoiler Alert! If you haven’t seen Les Miserables, please be aware that there will be spoilers. You can probably figure this out just from the title, but things end badly for just about every character, with only a few minor exceptions. Unfortunately, the show is no longer on Broadway, but there will be a concert version coming to Radio City Music Hall later this year. You can also catch the film version, which is pretty close to the Broadway rendition in terms of songs and structure.That said, this musical is a hundred times better on stage than it is on screen.

Okay, let’s dive into our analysis of Les Miserables.

PROLOGUE: Part 1 of the show begins with Jean Valjean doing hard labor in prison, a sentence he received for stealing a loaf of bread. He has served time for 19 years as prisoner 24601. The first song (“Work Song”) is where he gets paroled and meets Inspector Javert (who is then a prison guard) for the first time.

As part of his parole, he gets a yellow ticket of leave, and everywhere he goes, no one will give him honest work. When he is about to despair, he is taken in by a Bishop, who gives him a place to stay. In the night, Valjean steals some silver and tries to run away but is caught. The constables bring him back to the Bishop, accusing him of theft. The Bishop tells them that he gave the silver as a present and even gives Valjean an additional two candlesticks, saying that he left so quickly, he had forgotten to take them.

Valjean has a conversion of spirit, realizing that the Bishop has given him his freedom. He decides he must turn his life around, so he abandons his identity and reinvents himself as a new person.

ACT 1: Here we flash forward several years, where Valjean—in his new identity—has become a factory owner and mayor of a city. We see the workers in his factory, who are poor and unhappy. Still, they consider themselves lucky to have any job at all.

In the factory, the foreman wants to seduce a young worker, Fantine, but she refuses him. The other factory workers think Fantine is stuck-up, so when she brings a letter with her to work, they steal it from her and read it aloud. It turns out, Fantine has a child who is living with an innkeeper and his wife in some country village. She sends money to help support the child. A fight breaks out between Fantine and the other women. As the factory owner, Valjean steps in and asks his foreman to sort the problem out. The foreman fires Fantine, and she laments the sorry turns her life has taken (“I Dreamed a Dream”).

To survive, Fantine sells her locket and her hair, but eventually must turn to prostitution (“Lovely Ladies”) to survive and send money to her child. When a customer tries to take advantage of her and she fights back, he accuses her of attacking him. Javert (now a Police Inspector) arrests Fantine but as mayor, Valjean intercedes and takes her to a hospital

In another scene, a man is pinned under a runaway wagon and Valjean is able to lift it singlehandedly, saving the man’s life. Javert sees this work of supreme strength and thinks he recognizes Valjean. But, then another man is captured and identified as Valjean, so Javert abandons his suspicions. The Prologue and Act 1 answer the five story promises as follows:

Character: Jean Valjean is our protagonist. He begins in the Prologue thinking only of his own survival, but after the Bishop gives him his freedom, his goal shifts to protecting his identity and keeping his past a secret. What he ultimately wants is his freedom and to stop running from the law.

Voice: While there is no voice because this is a musical, what makes this show so epic is the way the various different melodies weave in and out of each other. The music clues us in, showing us which parts of the story are connected.

World: The story takes place in France in the first part of the 19th century. It begins in a prison in 1815 when Valjean is released. Next, it jumps to 1823 in Montreuil-sur-Mer where Valjean is the mayor. Afterwards, the timeline skips forward yet again, this time to Paris in 1832.

Problem: Jean Valjean is a convicted felon who has skipped parole. In order to continue in his comfortable life, he must hide his identity. He must constantly be looking over his shoulder and running from his past.

Event: At first, Valjean is very hands-off in his dealings with his employees and the poor. Then he meets Fantine among the prostitutes and realizes the consequences of him being so passive.

PIVOT POINT 1:  When the innocent man is captured in his place, the real Jean Valjean is torn between two choices. He can let this man be accused instead of himself and finally have peace of mind that no one will come after him. On the other hand, he can reveal his true identity and be imprisoned all over again. Eventually, during the song “Who Am I?” Valjean decides to reveal his true self as prisoner 24601. The event at this pivot point is the innocent lookalike being captured. The choice is Valjean deciding to reveal his identity.

ACT 2:  Valjean goes to the hospital where Fantine lies dying. While there, he promises her that he will take care of her daughter, Cosette. Javert finds him in the hospital and after a confrontation, Valjean manages to escape. He goes to the countryside and finds Cosette living with the Thénardiers, an innkeeper and his wife. The Thénardiers are con artists, stealing from their customers (“Master of the House”). They treat Cosette like a servant while their own child, Eponine, is spoiled. Valjean pays them 1,500 francs to let him take Cosette away.

From here, we skip forward again, this time to Paris in 1832. The poor are barely scraping by and General Lamarque is the only source of hope the people have for a better life. Unfortunately his death is imminent and there is much public unrest. Students, including Enjorlas and Marius, are getting ready for an uprising.

The Thénardiers have moved to Paris, as have also Jean Valjean and Cosette. Marius and Cosette see each other for the first time and instantly fall in love. At the same time, Eponine, the Thénardiers’ daughter, also secretly loves Marius.

Here we get to a point in the story where multiple things are happening at once. In “Stars,” Javert vows that he will finally find and arrest Jean Valjean. In “Red and Black” and “Do You Hear the People Sing” we see Enjorlas and the other students planning for their revolution. Finally, we get to the midpoint of the story arc.

MIDPOINT: The midpoint of the show does not line up with the division between the two parts. In fact, it comes four songs before. After seeing each other for the first time, Marius and Cosette are in love. In “In My Life,” Cosette starts by singing about her love for Marius but eventually she shifts to asking her father about the past. This section of the song is the midpoint.

This is a Temporary Triumph in that it seems like Valjean has finally escaped his past and found something resembling peace. The moment of introspection is Valjean having to confront the questions Cosette has about his past. In the end he holds fast and does not reveal his secrets.

The song “In My Life” follows an ABA format, in that we have sections about love at the beginning and end, and the middle portion is where Cosette confronts Valjean. The song begins with Cosette singing about her love for Marius. Then she and Valjean sing the next part together until Valjean ends the conversation without revealing his secrets. The last portion of the song is where Marius and Eponine are singing together, him declaring his love for Cosette and her revealing her love for Marius.

ACT 2 (Cont’d): Eponine takes Marius to see Cosette, and they are finally able to meet (“A Heart Full of Love”). Then Thénardier and his gang attempt to rob Valjean’s home, but Eponine is there and sees him. She screams, warning the house of the robbers and Marius runs away. Valjean is terrified that they have been found. He makes plans to leave Paris with Cosette. She does not want to go because she has fallen in love with Marius, but she has no choice.

At this point, we come to the last song in the first part of the show, “One Day More.” This song brings all the characters to the stage and combines several musical themes from across the show, including: “Who Am I?,” “I Dreamed a Dream,” “On My Own,” and “Master of the House.”

Marius decides to fight alongside his friends at the barricade. The students are convinced that the people of Paris will rise up and help their revolution. After joining his friends, Marius sends a farewell letter to Cosette via Eponine (“On My Own”). Valjean intercepts the letter and realizes that Cosette is in love. He decides to stay and eventually makes his way to the barricade to fight. At the barricade, Enjorlas, the revolutionary leader, asks for a volunteer to spy on the military. Javert—who is disguised as a revolutionary—volunteers. When he returns, he tells the others that there will be no attack so they can drop their guard. Gavroche steps up and identifies Javert as an Inspector and they capture him. Valjean is given the opportunity to execute Javert but instead he lets him go.

At the first attack, Eponine is fatally wounded. She dies in Marius’ arms (“A Little Fall of Rain”). The men sing “Drink with Me” and Valjean realizes that Marius is the man Cosette loves.

PIVOT POINT 2: As the men go to sleep, Valjean sings “Bring Him Home,” asking for Marius to be spared. He is reconciled with the fact that he may die at the barricade, but for Cosette’s sake, he wants Marius to survive. The event at this pivot point is him discovering that Marius is the man Colette loves. The choice is Valjean deciding that he will do whatever is in his power to help Marius survive.

ACT 3: The third act of this story is surprisingly short. The second attack happens and the people of Paris do not rise up and fight. The students at the barricade are left to fight on their own and all (except Marius) die at the end of the battle. Valjean survives the attack and is able to rescue an injured Marius and take him down into the sewers to escape. He collapses and Thénardier (who is looting bodies) finds the two and takes a ring from Marius’ finger. When Valjean is finally awake again and is able to exit the sewer, he comes across Javert. 

CLIMAX: Valjean asks Javert to let him take Marius to a doctor. Though it is counter to everything he believes, Javert lets Valjean go. Javert is shaken both by Valjean’s act of mercy in sparing his life and his own act of letting Valjean go. He cannot live with himself and commits suicide.

It is significant to note that the melody we hear in Javert’s last song is the same melody from when Valjean decides to abandon his identity after the Bishop has given him his freedom. This makes sense because both are moments that give Valjean his freedom, though they do so in different ways. In the first instance, Valjean claims his freedom by rejecting his true identity. The second time, Valjean gets his freedom more permanently because Javert has killed himself so he won’t be coming after him any longer. The irony is, of course, that Valjean does not know this. He believes himself to be a fugitive still.

Ending Type: Ironically enough, even though just about everybody dies in this musical, this show actually has a Happy Ending. At DIY MFA we define a happy ending not by the emotion, but by whether the protagonist achieves their goal. A happy ending is one where the main character gets what they want and they still want that thing by the end of the story.

Jean Valjean wants his freedom and he wants to live in peace. At first, he thinks he will achieve this by changing his identity. Eventually, he realizes that freedom is not a matter of identity but of being true to his principles. He chooses to show mercy to Javert, even though that will mean Javert will never stop coming after him. He also chooses to save Marius over running away from Javert and securing his own freedom. In the end, Javert lets him go and eventually kills himself, leaving Valjean finally free. By this definition, the show has a Happy Ending.

DENOUEMENT: Marius recovers from his wounds and grieves his friends (“Empty Chairs at Empty Tables”). Valjean confesses his secrets to Marius, and says he must leave to protect Cosette. He still believes the law is after him.

Marius and Cosette get married. The Thénardiers crash the wedding and try to convince Marius that Valjean is a thief by showing him a ring Valjean supposedly stole from a body at the barricade. Marius recognizes the ring as his own and realizes that Valjean must have been the person who rescued him.

Marius takes Cosette to see Jean Valjean, who is on his deathbed. Valjean dies peacefully, finally getting the freedom he has craved for so long. Knowing that Cosette has Marius and will not be alone allows him to die in peace. As his soul slips from his body, Fantine and Eponine appear, and he goes with them to the afterlife.

CONCLUSION: One of the things that I most love about this show is how the various melodies weave together throughout, making us associate different parts of the show with each other. “One Day More” pulls themes from various different songs in the show (“Who Am I?”, “On My Own”, “I Dreamed a Dream,” and “Master of the House”) but it is by no means the only instance.

For example, the moment where the Bishop forgives Valjean for his theft uses the same musical theme as “Empty Chairs at Empty Tables.” This is significant because when Marius sings the latter song, he is effectively asking his friends for forgiveness because he survived and they did not. Both instances deal with the subject of forgiveness, though in different ways.

Similarly, Fantine and Eponine are linked by the theme of “On My Own.” While Eponine sings the famous song, Fantine sings the same melody with different words in “Come to Me.” Then, at the end, when Valjean dies, the two appear singing that same melody again as a duet. It’s significant that Fantine and Eponine would be thus linked. Both have unrequited loves and both suffered a great deal in their short lives. Most importantly, though, they both want things they cannot have. Fantine wants to be with her daughter, Cosette, and Eponine wants to be loved by Marius. In this way, the music of the show weaves various characters and significant moments together.

Until next time, keep writing and keep being awesome!

P.S. For more info on Gabriela Pereira, the founder and instigator of DIY MFA, check out her profile page.

The post Writer Fuel: Three-Act Analysis of Les Miserables appeared first on DIY MFA.

Spoiler Alert! If you have not read A Christmas Carol, hop to it! It’s a novella, so it’s super-short, plus, you can get a free ebook copy via Project Gutenberg, or read it via your browser. Personally, I recommend the browser version because then you can see the original full-color illustrations by John Leech, which are lovely. Even if you decide to read it via a device, check out those illustrations because they are lovely.

While there have been any number of versions of this story as films, I recommend reading the original. This is because no film version quite captures the nuance and depth of the original text. This is why I have based this entire analysis on the text. Let’s dive into our analysis of A Christmas Carol.

ACT 1: In Act 1, we meet our protagonist, Ebenezer Scrooge. He is a miserly, stingy man, who doesn’t even let his clerk have coal to make a fire. He has a grumpy disposition and he doesn’t care for other people. He is a This excerpt best captures Scrooge’s character:

External heat and cold had little influence on Scrooge. No warmth could warm, no wintry weather chill him. No wind that blew was bitterer than he, no falling snow was more intent upon its purpose, no pelting rain less open to entreaty. Foul weather didn’t know where to have him. The heaviest rain, and snow, and hail, and sleet, could boast of the advantage over him in only one respect. They often “came down” handsomely, and Scrooge never did.

As Act 1 develops, we learn that Scrooge has a particular distaste for Christmas. When people (like his cheerful nephew) mention Christmas, his response is “Bah! Humbug!” Throughout Act 1 we also see examples of Scrooge’s miserly attitude. He refuses to give money to help the poor, absolutely will not dine for Christmas at his nephew’s house, and when his clerk asks for Christmas day off, he balks and says: “”A poor excuse for picking a man’s pocket every twenty-fifth of December!” 

His stinginess is not just reserved for others, but for himself as well. He eats “his melancholy dinner in his usual melancholy tavern” all alone, and even his home is not truly his, but belonged to his deceased business partner, Jacob Marley. After changing for bed, he sits down in front of the fire to eat his gruel. Clearly, while this man has much money, there is nothing about him tht is extravagant.

The five promises also get answered within the first stave (or chapter).

Character: Ebenezer Scrooge is our protagonist and we follow him throughout the story.

Voice: The novella is told entirely through Scrooge’s limited third person point of view so we have access to his thoughts, but no one else’s. Also, keep in mind that the third person narrator occasionally interjects and speaks directly to the reader. This gives us a sense of the story being told to us by someone who has seen the events unfold.

World: The story takes place at the time in which it was published, the mid-9th century. The setting is London.

Problem: Scrooge detests Christmas almost as much as he dislikes being in the company of others or spending money. Yet everyone around him is in the Christmas spirit. His nephew invites him to dine for Christmas. Two gentlemen call upon him at his office, asking for money for the poor. And even his own clerk has the audacity to ask for Christmas day off. Scrooge has jut about had it with all this Christmas nonsense. Bah! Humbug!

Event: The story begins with his partner, Jacob Marley, dead. Seven years later, on Christmas Eve, as Scrooge goes home and opens his front door, the knocker transforms to look like Jacob Marley’s ghostly face.

PIVOT POINT 1:  Scrooge locks the door and retires to his room. Suddenly the ghost of Jacob Marley walks in through the double-locked door, dragging chains and boxes of riches. When Scrooge asks about the chains, Marley says: “I wear the chain I forged in life… I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it.”

Then he continues to tell Scrooge that his own chains will be even heavier and longer in the afterlife. He says: “the weight and length of the strong coil you bear yourself? It was full as heavy and as long as this, seven Christmas Eves ago. You have laboured on it, since.” Scrooge is afraid.

The ghost of Marley tells him that there is a chance for him yet. He will be haunted by three Spirits over the course of three nights. As he says to Scrooge: “”Without their visits… you cannot hope to shun the path I tread.” Scrooge immediately resists, first saying he would rather not, then trying to bargain with the ghost that maybe the Spirits could visit him all at once. While Scrooge does not openly acquiesce, at the end of the stave, when he tries to say “Humbug!” he stops himself.

As we’ve discussed in the past, every pivot point has two components: an external event and an internal choice. In this case, the external event is the appearance of Jacob Marley’s ghost. The internal choice, on the other hand, is Scrooge complying with the visit of the three Spirits.

ACT 2:  In Act 2, we have two of the three Spirit visits: Ghost of Christmas Past, and the Ghost of Christmas Present. (The Ghost of Christmas Future arrives in Act 3) All three of these Spirits take Scrooge around to different locations, where he can see both events of Christmas in the past, present, and future. As Scrooge makes these visits, his outlook begins to change.

Ghost of Christmas Past: This Spirit is small like a child, with a candle flame coming up out of its head and a cap shaped like a candle extinguisher.

The journey begins at the school where he had been a young boy. While all the other boys cheerfully went home for the holidays, Scrooge was left stranded at the school. While he sees himself alone and neglected, he feels pity for his past self and in feeling that pity he begins to empathize with others (in particular a boy who came caroling to his office the day before).

After visiting his former self at school, the Spirit takes him a little into the future, when Scrooge was a young apprentice for Mr. Fezziwig. On Christmas eve, Fezziwig and his wife had all their employees clear away the desks and furniture in the warehouse where they worked and they threw a dance to celebrate the holiday. Seeing the sort of employer that Fezziwig was and how kindly he treated his employees, Scrooge says to the Spirit:

He has the power to render us happy or unhappy; to make our service light or burdensome; a pleasure or a toil. Say that his power lies in words and looks; in things so slight and insignificant that it is impossible to add and count ’em up: what then? The happiness he gives, is quite as great as if it cost a fortune.

Scrooge begins to realize how unkind he has been to his clerk and when the Spirit asks if something is the matter, he says: “​​I should like to be able to say a word or two to my clerk just now. That’s all.”

The third visit Scrooge makes in the past is where he sees himself talking to a young woman. As the scene unfolds, it becomes clear that they have been engaged, but she is now releasing Scrooge of the commitment because she has been replaced with an idol of gold (i.e., money.)

Scrooge’s preoccupation with wealth and greed has supplanted the love he once felt for this young woman, and even if he were to force himself to stand by the engagement, she insists that he would eventually regret it. At this, Scrooge begs the Spirit to stop and show him no more, but the Spirit insists on one more vision. This time the Spirit shows a woman and her children waiting for her husband to get home. The family is loving and kind, a clear illustration of everything that Scrooge could have had but chose to give up.

At this point, Scrooge has had it with the Spirit. He takes its extinguisher cap and plops it on its head, putting out the candle flame and reducing the Spirit to nothing. While Scrooge does have a few moments throughout this journey to the past where he begins to show a change of heart, this final action reveals that he is not yet ready to make a change.

Ghost of Christmas Present: This Spirit is a giant and is dressed in a long robe with a holly wreath on its head. It holds a torch shaped cornucopia.

The first stop on their journey is the house of Bob Cratchit, Scrooge’s clerk. Interestingly, Bob is not mentioned by name until this point in the story. It is as if, until we see him in his home environment, that Bob’s very identity is defined by being Scrooge’s employee. It is only here that we see Bob as a fully-developed character, one with a loving family and a young, disabled son, Tiny Tim.

In this scene at the Cratchit house, Scrooge sees a family that has virtually nothing, but even so are grateful for what they do have. Bob even goes so far as to toast to Scrooge and calls him the “Founder of the Feast.” While his wife is not as enthusiastic about drinking to Scrooge’s health, she eventually does, as do the children. This scene shows Scrooge that true wealth comes from kindness and love, rather than money.

MIDPOINT: During the visit to the Cratchit home, Scrooge asks the Spirit what will become of Tiny Tim. The Spirit answers: “I see a vacant seat… in the poor chimney-corner, and a crutch without an owner, carefully preserved.” This is a false failure because it looks like the worst possible outcome will happen, but it turns out not to be the case. In fact, without Scrooge believing that Tiny Tim would die, he will never reach his change of heart.

When the Spirit tells him what is to come, Scrooge begs the Spirit to let Tiny Tim live and the Spirit quotes his own words back at him: “If he be like to die, he had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.” These are the self-same words Scrooge said earlier when the gentlemen visited his office, asking him to give money to help the poor. In this moment, Scrooge starts to realize that his outlook is wrong. “Scrooge hung his head to hear his own words quoted by the Spirit, and was overcome with penitence and grief.” This is the moment of self-reflection.

ACT 2 (cont’d): The Spirit takes Scrooge to various places where they see people of meager means celebrating the holiday. Eventually, they end up at the house of Scrooge’s nephew. Here the nephew, his wife, and their friends have a jolly celebration filled with food and games. Scrooge gets so wrapped up watching the games that he does not want to leave.

Eventually, Scrooge notices that the Spirit has grown quite old. He asks the Spirit if its life is very short and the Spirit replies that its life ends at midnight that same night.

PIVOT POINT 2: Before the spirit goes, Scrooge sees a claw-like hand emerge from beneath its robes and the Spirit unfolds its robe to reveal two children. The Spirit tells Scrooge:

This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased.

Scrooge asks what can be done and again he hears his own words quoted back to him: “Are there no prisons?… Are there no workhouses?” This is the second pivot point. The external event is the appearance of Ignorance and Want, and the internal choice is Scrooge wanting there to be something that can be done..

Note that many modern adaptations (films, etc.) of A Christmas Carol omit this portion of the story, perhaps because it is the section that feels most on-the-nose and didactic. It is also, in some ways, the most visually disturbing part of the story and stands in direct contrast to the jolly, Christmas imagery in other parts of the novella. Interestingly enough, when adaptations omit this section, they are losing a crucial part of the story arc: the second pivot point.

ACT 3: As Scrooge looks around for the Ghost of Christmas Present, he sees that the Spirit has disappeared and in its place has appeared a silent, looming figure.

Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come: As with the other figures, this one takes Scrooge to various places where he sees shadows of the future. The first stop is a rundown shop where a few people are gathered. They are bringing in things to sell, items belonging to someone who has died. While we do not know the identity of the deceased (though, we can guess!), the purpose of this scene is to show how little these people seem to care about this man. They have even stolen his bedcurtains to sell!

At one point, Scrooge says to the Spirit: “Spirit!… I see, I see. The case of this unhappy man might be my own. My life tends that way, now. Merciful Heaven, what is this!” He has begun to realize that he needs to change his ways, though he has not yet made a full transformation. The scene changes and Scrooge and the Spirit are in a room where a dead man lies covered on a bed. This is the man whose belongings were being sold in the shop and he now lies alone in a room without friends or family to mourn him.

After these, the Spirit takes Scrooge to a home where a woman sits waiting anxiously for her husband by the fire. When he arrives, she asks him what the news is and he replies that the man to whom they owe a sizable sum is dead. (I wonder who that man might be…) While they do not necessarily celebrate the man’s death, they do go to sleep with peace of mind, knowing that their debt will likely be transferred to a more humane creditor.

Finally, the Spirit takes Scrooge back to the Cratchit home, where Tiny Tim has died and the family is in mourning. Unlike the mysterious deceased from the previous scenes who died with out anyone feeling sorry, this family is clearly grieving for its youngest member, in particular Bob Cratchit. This scene shows the immense impact that Tiny Time has made on his family and how much they love him and miss him. It is a stark contrast to the nameless deceased man from the earlier scene in the shop, where all people care about is how to dispose of his belongings.

CLIMAX: The Ghost of Christmas Yet to come takes Scrooge to one final location: a cemetery. The Spirit walks among the graves and points to one in particular. Scrooge approaches the gravestone and sees his own name carved into it. He is the deceased man whose belongings the people in the shop were selling. He is the man lying covered on the bed. He is the creditor whose death the young couple considers with relief. Scrooge finally understands what the Spirits have been trying to show him. He says:

“I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach. Oh, tell me I may sponge away the writing on this stone!”

Ending Type: This is a “change of heart” ending. Scrooge starts out the story wanting to have nothing to do with Christmas. He despises other people and wants only to be left alone with his money. lBy the end of the story, he does not get what he wants, but he also no longer wants it. In the climax, he chooses to embrace Christmas and also to treat others with kindness and generosity.

DENOUEMENT: Scrooge finds himself in his room and runs to the window. He calls down to a boy in the street to ask what day it is and learns that it’s Christmas Day. The Spirits have done everything in one night and he has not missed Christmas. He asks the boy to run to the local poulterer and buy the biggest turkey, which he instructs should be sent to the Cratchit house.

Next, he dresses and heads out to his nephew’s home. On his way, he runs into the two gentlemen who had asked him to give money for the poor one day prior. He makes an apology and pledges a large sum of money for their cause. Finally, he arrives at his nephew’s house for Christmas dinner, where he enjoys all the games and joyfulness he had seen on his visit with the Spirit.

Finally, the next day, when Bob Cratchit arrives at work a few minutes late, he summons him to his room and announces that he will give him a raise. Then he tells Bob to get more coal for the fire. The story ends with the narrator telling us:

“…it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God bless Us, Every One!”

I hope this holiday season brings you much joy and happiness, and that the new year gives you renewed energy and excitement for your writing. Remember: the world needs your stories, and there are readers out there waiting with bated breath for a book just like yours. 

Until next time, keep writing and keep being awesome!

P.S. For more info on Gabriela Pereira, the founder and instigator of DIY MFA, check out her profile page.

The post Writer Fuel: Three-Act Analysis of A Christmas Carol appeared first on DIY MFA.

The Importance of Reading with Purpose

When I used to interview guest authors on DIY MFA Radio, I used to end each episode with the same question: “What’s your #1 tip for writers?” Hands down, the most common answer to that question was: “Read, read, read,” and it’s no wonder why. Reading is one of the most crucial parts of a literary life. If writers want to improve their craft, they need to read.

A writer who doesn’t read is like a chef who doesn’t eat. They have no idea if what they’re creating is any good because they can’t put their work into context. Reading with purpose allows us to see how our books fit in the greater literary landscape and understand how to make our writing better. It also allows us to see how other writers solve certain problems and we can borrow those solutions and apply them to our own work.

Note that this doesn’t mean we are copying someone else’s writing, not by a long shot. Instead, think of it as like being a mechanic, looking under the hood of a car to see how it works. When we read with purpose, we analyze another writer’s work to see how they do things, then we apply the concepts to our own writing to make it better. We’re not copying the author’s actual words or ideas, but we’re looking at the way they do things and then borrowing some of those strategies.

What Reading with Purpose Entails

Reading with purpose means reading with an eye toward your writing. It means having a core set of books on hand—what I call “the essentials”—so you have ready resources when you need them. It means being strategic when you select books, so your reading will help you with your current work-in-progress. Most importantly, it means reading with an analytical perspective, so you can understand more fully how a piece of literature works, and apply some of those concepts to your own writing. There are three important components of reading with purpose:

1. Having a select group of essential books on hand
2. Compiling a reading list that servers our goals
3. Reading with a writer’s eye

Essential Books to Have on Hand

There are three books that I recommend every writer have in their library. I know what you’re thinking—only three? Yes, you only need three, and these three will be different for each writer. If you’re like most writers, you probably have more than one book in each of these categories, but at the minimum I recommend having one of each. To remember the three books, just think of your ABCs.

• A = Anthology of Short Form Work
• B = Book of Prompts
• C = Craft Reference

Anthology of Short Form Work: It’s useful to have an anthology of short stories, preferably in your chosen genre. If you write memoir, then look for an anthology of essays, and if you write poetry, get your hands on an anthology of poems. Make sure that what you choose is a true anthology with stories by a variety of authors and not a collection by a single author. This is because you want a book that represents the broadest possible range of voices. My go-to short story anthology is The Art of the Short Story, edited by Dana Gioia and R.S. Gwynn. It’s not super-new but it has the classics.

Book of Prompts: A book of prompts is always good to have on hand. I’m especially a fan of prompt books that are organized according to topic (dialogue prompts in one chapter, description prompts in another, etc.). The two prompt books I recommend are: The 3 A.M. Epiphany (and its sequel, The Four A.M. Breakthrough) by Brian Kiteley and the Now Write! series edited by Sherry Ellis and Laurie Lamson. Both series group the prompts by category, only in the Kiteley books, the prompts are by only one author, while in the Now Write! series, the prompts are from various different authors.

Craft Reference: It’s helpful to have a craft reference handy in case you run into questions you don’t know how to answer. Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style is, of course, the classic for matters regarding style and grammar. For broader craft topics, I love books by Donald Maass, Lisa Cron, and Steven James. For “small craft” (i.e., sentence-level stuff) check out Barbara Baig’s Spellbinding Sentences. And, of course, the DIY MFA book also gives an overview of general craft topics.

Building a Reading List

One of the most important parts of reading with purpose is compiling a reading list that truly serves your writing. I remember in the MFA program, reading some books that were completely irrelevant to what I was writing. I kept wondering “what’s the point?” It felt a bit like an exercise in futility. That’s why, when I started DIY MFA, one of the first things I did was develop a rubric so that writers could come up with their own reading list, their own syllabus. This rubric consists of four types of books:

1. Comps: Comparable books (i.e., comps) are similar to your book and would sit on the bookstore shelf next to yours. If a librarian were to recommend a book similar to yours, they would choose one of these comps.
2. Contextual: These are books you read for research. They may not be similar to your book in all respects, but they may have certain aspects in common, like the same setting, or a similar use of point of view. These books lend context to yours.
3. Contemporary: You need to keep your finger on the pulse of your genre or category. This is why it’s important to read a few contemporary books, so you can be aware of trends and know what’s new in your niche.
4. Classics: Everyone should read a classic at least once in a while. Keep in mind, classics don’t necessarily need to be hundreds (or thousands) of years old. Depending on your genre or category, books considered classics might actually be fairly recent.

Reading Like a Writer

I often call reading like a writer “reading like a revolutionary.” This is because when we read with a writer’s eye, we aren’t just passively taking in the story. Instead, we are actively analysing it, not just to understand, but to apply the concepts to our own writing. The key to reading like a writer is examining how the author does what they do on the page, and then considering which of those techniques you can borrow.

How to Read with Purpose

Reading with purpose is like swimming in the ocean: the swimmer is the reader and the ocean is the story. Like the ocean, the story has different layers of depth and reader-swimmers can explore some or all of those layers, depending on their inclination.

Ocean Surface: The WHAT

Most readers/swimmers skim across the surface, because that’s where the air is. At this surface level, they focus on the WHAT of the story (i.e., the logistics). At this level, the reader is con What’s happening? Who are the characters? What is the setting?

These basic, logistical considerations are what we focus on, particularly when we’re first developing as readers. These are the types of questions my kids would have to answer for homework in elementary school. They don’t require deep analysis, just a basic understanding of the facts.

There is nothing wrong with hanging out at the surface. That’s how most people read much of the time. This is the layer where you simply get carried away by a good story, and that’s a perfectly respectable way to read. But, if you want to read like a writer, you have to go deeper.

Coral Reef: The WHY

The second layer of reading is that in-between space between the ocean surface and the ocean floor. Imagine this layer as being like a coral reef with hundreds of colorful fish, lush corals, and brightly patterned shells. This reef represents the WHY of the story (i.e., the interpretation).

This is the layer where we consider deeper, more analytical questions. What does this story mean? Why did the author write this story? How does this story fit into the greater literary context? This is how we were taught to read in high school or college literature classes. We learned to go deeper than pure logistics, but still not quite all the way to the ocean floor.

Keep in mind, reading at this layer can be hard to sustain and you can’t do it indefinitely, just as a swimmer can’t stay underwater for hours on end. Instead, when we analyze literature in this way, we usually do so for contained, specific passages, rather than for the entirety of a book-length work.

Ocean Floor: The HOW

Finally, we get to the third layer. For this one, imagine you’re bobbing along on the surface of the ocean and then you spot a sparkling gem on the ocean floor. Then, you take a deep, gulping breath and you dive all the way to the bottom to retrieve it.

This is what we do when we read for the HOW. We look deep at another author’s work and we spot the gems, and we analyze what that author is doing to understand how exactly they managed to pull it off. Then, we take that gem and we see how we might apply it to our own work.

As with the coral reef layer, this deep dive is difficult to sustain for long passages. We can analyze a writer’s work at this profound level only for short passages. If we try to read an entire book at the ocean floor level, it will be very challenging. This is why reading like a writer is a delicate, aquatic dance, where we continuously shift up and down, from the surface to the ocean floor.

Personalized Anthology Project

One activity I often recommend to writers is to compile a personalized anthology. Whenever you read something and you come across a passage that captures your attention, make a photocopy and put it in a binder. Annotate each excerpt using the WHAT/WHY/HOW framework and once you have ten or more of them in the binder, sort them according to topic (character development, story structure, world-building, description, dialogue, etc.)

The idea here is that over time, you will amass a collection of excerpts specifically from books that are relevant to your writing—because they’re books you selected, not someone else like a professor. The fact that the passages are sorted by topic will make it easier for you to find what you need. Stumped by setting? Look at some of the world-building excerpts in your binder. Not only will they help you figure out craft-related techniques, but they will be directly relevant to what you’re writing.

Until next time, keep writing and keep being awesome!

P.S. For more info on Gabriela Pereira, the founder and instigator of DIY MFA, check out her profile page.

The post Writer Fuel: What It Means to Read with Purpose appeared first on DIY MFA.

I first saw this movie at a very pivotal moment in my life. I was in ninth grade and a total nerd who preferred reading to socializing. When I watched Beauty and the Beast, I felt seen. It was empowering to see a heroine who was more concerned with cerebral pursuits than pretty dresses or charming princes. This is probably why this film made such an impression on me—because I could see myself reflected in the main character.

Spoiler Alert! If you have not yet watched Disney’s Beauty and the Beast… What have you been doing with yourself? Seriously, this is an amazing film (the first ever animated film to be nominated for Best Picture in the Academy Awards) and you need to watch it. It’s part of what many call the “Disney Renaissance,” a period of time when Disney went back to making more animated films based on well-known stories.

Personally, I think Beauty and the Beast is the best film Disney has ever created and quite possibly one of the best films across the board. So, if you haven’t watched Beauty and the Beast yet, get thee to a streaming service! Trust me: it will be ninety minutes well-spent. (Also, if you’re like me and you cry during movies, bring tissues!)

Okay, let’s dive into our analysis of Beauty and the Beast.

PROLOGUE: The movie opens with a narrated sequence where stained glass windows depict the story of the young prince before he became the Beast. The music is haunting and shimmery (reminiscent of the Aquarium movement in Camille Saint-Saens’ Carnival of the Animals) and the stained glass images are striking and like nothing else in the entire movie.

In this sequence we learn how the young prince is spoiled and unkind. When an old woman comes knocking at his door seeking refuge from the cold, he turns her away only to discover that she is, in fact, an enchantress. This enchantress curses the prince (and everyone who lives in the castle), turning him into the Beast. In order to break that spell, he must fall in love, and the other person must also love him in return.

Like a true prologue, this one gives us backstory and sets the scene for what comes later, but it feels separate from the main action of the story. The movie could begin right in Act 1 and would not lose any meaning, though it would miss out on some of the best music and artwork in the entire movie.

ACT 1: We shift gears to a small provincial town where our protagonist, Belle, lives with her father, Maurice. She longs for adventure and spends most of her time either with her nose in a book or dreaming of faraway places. Maurice is an inventor and many of the townsfolk do not think kindly of his somewhat whacky ideas and inventions.

At the beginning of the film we also meet Gaston (who later turns out to be the primary villain). He is arrogant, boorish, but also handsome, and he wants to marry Belle because she is the most beautiful woman in the town.

The opening scene features the ensemble song “Belle” where we meet various villagers as well as Belle and Gaston. It sets the tone for the entire rest of the film.

Character: Because this is a romance, we have two protagonists: Belle and Beast. Most of the key landmark moments in the story involve both characters.

Voice: As with most films, there isn’t so much a voice here as there is a mood. In this case, the mood is whimsical and magical, though it also has moments where things get a little bit dark and spooky.

World: There are two vastly different worlds in this story: Beast’s castle and the provincial town. These two locations exist in stark contrast to each other.

Problem: Gaston wants to marry Belle, but she can’t stand him. She rejects him outright, but unfortunately, he refuses to take “no” for an answer.

Event: Maurice goes to the fair to sell his latest invention. On the way there he gets lost and then becomes stranded in the woods. After being chased by wolves, he comes to Beast’s castle and eventually becomes Beast’s prisoner.

PIVOT POINT 1:  When the horse and cart return without her father, Belle sets off at once to find him. She finds clues that point her toward Beast’s castle and eventually she locates Maurice locked away in the tower. Beast startles her and tells her to get out. Instead, Belle volunteers to take her father’s place as prisoner.

Struck by her sacrifice, Beast offers Belle a guest room instead of the tower. The external event at this pivot point is Belle finding her father locked in the tower. The internal choice is twofold: (1) Belle takes her father’s place as Beast’s prisoner, and (2) Beast is moved by her choice and begins to drop his beastly facade.

The pivot point ends with Beast inviting Belle to dinner. Unfortunately, it’s not a gracious invitation. He says: “You will join me for dinner. That’s not a request!” Belle in turn throws herself on the bed in her room and cries as a storm swirls outside her window.

ACT 2:  From here we move into Act 2. It kicks off when we find Gaston sulking in the local tavern. This is typical of Act 2, where often supporting characters become more central to the story.

Gaston’s sidekick, LeFou, tries to cheer him up by singing “Gaston.” At the end of the song, Maurice arrives at the tavern, raving about a horrible beast that has captured Belle. This gives Gaston an idea. He decides to pay off the head of the local asylum to commit Maurice, only releasing him if Belle agrees to marriage.

After that sequence of scenes, we move back to Beast’s palace and spend some time with the castle staff, a group of enchanted people-turned-to-objects. There’s Lumière the candlestick, Cogsworth the clock, Mrs. Potts the teapot and her son Chip, along with various other characters who play smaller roles. The West Wing of the castle is forbidden and we discover that this is where Beast keeps the enchanted rose that serves as a sort of timer for how long he has to break the spell before it becomes permanent.

After fighting with Beast and refusing to go down to dinner, Belle sneaks out of her room and makes her way to the kitchen. There she finds the castle staff, who are lamenting the waste of a good dinner. Lumière, with the help of the others, puts on a dinner show for Belle (“Be Our Guest”).

After the dinner show, Cogsworth and Lumière give Belle a tour of the castle. She wanders into the West Wing and Beast startles her. When he loses his temper and roars, she decides she’s had enough and gets on her horse to run  away.

MIDPOINT: This midpoint is a False Failure in that it seems like Belle is leaving for good and she and Beast will never end up together. After riding away from the castle, Belle gets chased by wolves, but Beast saves her, injuring himself in the process. When they get back to the castle, they argue about whose fault it was that Beast got hurt. Eventually, Belle says “Thank you… for saving my life” and Beast says “you’re welcome.” This is a moment of self reflection on both their parts because they both realize that they were partially in the wrong.

ACT 2 (Cont’d): This is where the courtship happens. Beast wants to do something special for Belle so he gives her the castle library as a present. They also play in the snow and start to see each other in a new light (“Something There”). Later, they have a romantic dinner and dance into the night (“Beauty and the Beast”). Beast is falling in love.

After dinner and dancing, Beast asks Belle if she’s happy at the castle. She confides that she wishes she could see her father again. He takes her to the West Wing and lets her use his magic mirror that will show her whatever she wants to see. She sees her father lost in the woods, struggling to walk through the deep snow, trying to come rescue her. When Beast realizes how worried Belle is, he lets her go to her father. But, the spell has not yet been broken. While Beast has finally learned to love, he has not yet earned Belle’s love in return.

PIVOT POINT 2: Belle finds her father and brings him home. There, Gaston and the head of the asylum are waiting to take Maurice away. Belle takes out the mirror (which Beast had given to her when she left) and shows everyone the Beast. She tries to convince the townsfolk that Beast is really kind and gentle, but Gaston will have none of it.

ACT 3: Gaston takes away the mirror and riles up the townspeople (“The Mob Song”). He locks up Belle and Maurice in the basement of their house but Chip (the enchanted teacup, who snuck into Belle’s satchel) helps them escape. The angry mob of villagers marches up to the castle and fights the enchanted castle staff. The castle wins!

CRISIS: Beast fights Gaston. They jump and dodge around the gargoyles and turrets of the castle. It seems like Beast has won, when suddenly Gaston pulls out a knife and stabs him.

CLIMAX: Gaston falls from the tower but Beast survives. Belle goes to him as he lies dying. Just as the last rose petal falls, she says “I love you.”

Suddenly the spell begins to break. Fireworks stream down like rain and Beast turns back into a human. At first, Belle isn’t sure he’s really Beast, but she looks into his eyes and recognizes him. Beast and Belle kiss.

Ending Type: This is a happy ending for Belle. She starts out the film wanting to leave the provincial town where she lives. She ends up getting exactly what she had hoped for and more. Not only does she leave that provincial life behind but she finds true love.

For Beast we have a change of heart ending. He starts out the film spoiled and only thinking about himself. By the end of the movie, he has shifted his priorities completely, focusing more on what makes Belle happy than what would make himself happy.

DENOUEMENT: The spell is broken and all the enchanted castle staff turn human again. They all live happily ever after. The film ends with Belle and the Prince dancing in the ballroom while all their friends and family look on.

CONCLUSION: Part of what makes this film so great is that it turns the Disney princess stereotype on its head. Up until this point, all of Disney’s princesses (e.g., Snow White, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty) are characterized by their goodness. They are sweet, beautiful damsels in distress who endure one injustice after another without complaint. In the end it’s their goodness (and also their beauty) that makes “prince charming” rescue and fall in love with them.

Belle is different. Yes, she’s beautiful, but she has a mind of her own. She knows what she wants and she’s not afraid to stand up for herself or to make her opinions known. She doesn’t let an oaf like Gaston or even a gigantic Beast push her around. In fact, she’s not a damsel in distress, and she rescues Beast, not the other way around.

You could argue that the “heroine with a mind of her own” really first appears with Ariel in The Little Mermaid (which is the film that marks the beginning of the Disney renaissance). Yet I would say that Ariel’s character doesn’t quite reach the same level of depth as Belle’s. While Ariel is headstrong and impulsive, Belle is thoughtful and confident. While Ariel becomes timid when she loses her voice, Belle grows with inner strength when she loses her freedom. Ariel might be the first headstrong heroine in the Disney canon, but that character type really solidifies in Belle, and later continues with characters like Mulan, Tiana, and Moana.

The original Disney princesses—Snow White, Cinderella, and Sleeping Beauty—don’t have much agency in their stories. They get pushed around by other characters and very few of the story events happen because of choices that they make. I think this is why Belle really resonates with me as a character. Everything that happens in Beauty and the Beast is a product of her choice. And while she never sacrifices her goodness or integrity to make those choices, she still has agency throughout the story.

This is one of the reasons why the three-act structure is so powerful. This story structure isn’t about making things happen to the main character. Rather, the plot events are a result of choices the protagonist makes. This means the character is the one driving the story. While sometimes plot events must happen where the main character has no control (think: the tornado in The Wizard of Oz), it’s how your protagonist reacts to those events that makes the story interesting.

As you work on your own writing, think about your characters’ agency, particularly that of your protagonist. Are story events simply buffeting your main character to and fro? Or is that character making active choices that shape the plot and move the story forward?

Agency is especially important when you have a character who is very meek or quiet. Just because they don’t have a big, bombastic personality doesn’t mean they can’t have agency. Belle, after all, is an introvert. She’s an avid reader who’s not particularly interested in making lots of friends or socializing with people. Yet, she still has agency and her choices shape the story, not the other way around.

Until next time, keep writing and keep being awesome!

P.S. For more info on Gabriela Pereira, the founder and instigator of DIY MFA, check out her profile page.

The post Writer Fuel: Three-Act Analysis of Beauty and the Beast appeared first on DIY MFA.

Not familiar with the three-act structure? No problem. Check out this article for a detailed discussion on this topic.

Spoiler Alert! Okay, if you haven’t read Romeo and Juliet, or seen the play, or seen a movie based on the play, then be forewarned. This discussion will, of course, contain spoilers because it’s impossible to discuss a story’s structure without mentioning the ending. At the same time, given that this play is several hundred years old (and it’s been made into over thirty films!) I have a hunch you’re already familiar with at least the gist of it.

Okay, let’s dive into our analysis of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.

ACT 1: We are introduced to the feud between the Montagues and Capulets. There is a street fight that the Prince breaks up, and he threatens them not to fight again, on penalty of death. The Capulets give a masked ball, and some of the Montagues decide to attend in disguise.

Character(s): We have dual protagonists in this story, and we meet them both in the first act. Romeo is pining for love of Rosaline, who is not interested in him. Juliet’s parents want her to marry Paris (the Prince’s relative) but she does not want to marry anyone at all.

Note that because we have dual protagonists, many of the key “landmark” scenes will have both a Romeo component and a Juliet component.

Voice: Shakespeare writes in a combination of iambic pentameter and prose. The prose passages, however, are not frequent and tend to happen when there’s more back-and-forth between characters in dialogue. Interestingly, the iambic pentameter passages do not always rhyme.

It is only in certain specific—and important—moments where the lines rhyme in quatrains or couplets. For example, Mercutio’s famous Queen Mab speech does not rhyme, while the passage where Romeo and Juliet meet does rhyme.

World: We are in the Italian city of Verona. In this story’s world, there are two feuding families: the Montagues and the Capulets. Romeo is a Montague and Juliet is a Capulet, making them star-crossed lovers.

Problem: The initial problems are twofold: Romeo is in love with someone who doesn’t love him back, and Juliet’s parents want her to marry someone, but she does not want to marry anyone at all. So essentially, they both are unhappy in love. The story becomes all the more complicated when they fall in love with each other and realize that their families are enemies.

Event: The event that kicks off the story is the masked ball given by the Capulets.

PIVOT POINT 1:  Romeo and Juliet meet at the masked ball and instantly fall in love. That is the external event that marks this pivot point. Soon thereafter, they each separately ask someone who the other one is, and they discover that they have fallen in love with their enemy. The internal choice is that they both decide to pursue the romance anyway, despite knowing that their families will not approve.

Note that the passage where they meet and fall in love is written in quatrains where the lines have an ABAB rhyme scheme. The passage begins with each of them taking one full quatrain, then their lines begin to intertwine, still keeping the rhyme. The passage ends with each of them taking half a line, as though they are finishing each other’s sentence.

This use of rhyme scheme and the way that the lines weave together is meant to show the progress of their falling in love. They start the scene as two separate entities, each taking a quatrain to express their thoughts. Then quickly come together, their lines alternating, until finally Juliet finishes the rhyme of Romeo’s line.

ACT 2:  This is where we have the courtship—albeit a lightning-fast one—as well as more feuding between the two families. During this section of the story, Romeo and Juliet each rely on an ally. Romeo has the Friar, who provides a friendly ear and also helps facilitate the marriage between the two young lovers. Juliet also has her nurse, who helps send messages back and forth between them so they are able to be together. After Mercutio and Tybalt’s death, Romeo is banished to Mantua, where he awaits news of whether he can return to Verona or whether Juliet will be able to come to him.

SUPPORTING CAST:  There are several important supporting characters who come into play in the story. These include Mercutio, Tybalt, Benvolio, and Paris. Notice that names are extremely important in Shakespeare’s plays, and many of these characters have names that symbolize their personalities.

Mercutio: His name comes from Mercury, known for speed as the messenger of the Roman gods. This name is fitting of Mercutio, who is quick-witted and very funny. In fact, most of the humor in the play comes from him, and when he dies, the story instantly shifts from comedic to tragic. As one of Romeo’s best friends, he keeps Romeo from taking things too seriously.

Tybalt: His name means “bold people” and comes from the Germanic name Theobald. Tybalt is Juliet’s hot-headed cousin who fights Mercutio in a duel and ends up killing him. He’s fiercely loyal to the Capulets and sees violence as a way to uphold his family honor. He is aggressive and quick to start fights. After Tybalt kills Mercutio, Romeo fights him and wins.

Benvolio: His name comes from the Latin “ben” (good) and “volere” (will), meaning good-natured or well-wisher. Benvolio is a peacemaker who resists fighting and does his best to deescalate conflicts. He doesn’t just try to stop fights before they start, but he also plays a role in explaining what happened after the fact. He serves as a voice of reason throughout the story.

Paris: He is a relative of the Prince and is betrothed to Juliet. This betrothal is part of what precipitates Juliet’s plot to fake her own death. Unlike Romeo, who is respectful of Juliet during their courtship, Paris is possessive and takes liberties with her. For example, he kisses her when she does not want to be kissed (after she is secretly married to Romeo). In the crypt in Act 3, Romeo fights Paris and wins.

W.O.R.S.T.: Throughout Act 2 we also see the W.O.R.S.T. acronym in play.

Want: Romeo and Juliet want to be together.

Obstacle: The obstacle is that their families hate each other.

Risk: Romeo risks death multiple times to sneak into the Capulet orchard to see Juliet. She also risks getting into severe trouble by being with Romeo. The two take the ultimate risk when they decide to get married in secret.

Stakes: What’s at stake if they can’t be together? They’ll be miserable forever. Plus, once they get married, they are now bound to each other. This means if they can’t be together, they will either be forced to be alone and never have love in their life, or they might be forced into a life of sin, if their families make them marry someone else (as is the case with Juliet and Paris).

Transformation: Neither Romeo nor Juliet seem to change much throughout the story. The change that really happens is the transformation in the Montague-Capulet feud. At the beginning of the play, these two families hate each other and are dueling in the streets. By the end of the story, they come together at the tomb, and it appears (from the Prince’s speech) that the two families have learned their lesson, albeit too late.

MIDPOINT: The temporary triumph of the story occurs when Romeo and Juliet get married in secret (Act II, Scene VI). This is a temporary triumph because it seems—for a split second—that maybe they’ll be able to be together. Unfortunately, right after the marriage scene (the marriage itself happening off stage), we have the fight scene between Mercutio, Tybalt, and Romeo, which results in the deaths of Mercutio and Tybalt, as well as Romeo’s banishment.

Mercutio’s death is a pivotal moment of the story because it shifts the story from feeling like a comedy to being a full-on tragedy. To the very end, Mercutio is cracking jokes and making puns. For example, just before he gets carried off stage wounded, he says: “Ask for me to-morrow, and you shall find me a grave man” (a pun on the word “grave”). This shows his character, always quick-witted and making quips, even at the moment of death. After he dies, the tone of the play quickly shifts.

The moment of self-reflection happens after Mercutio’s death, when Romeo says that his love of Juliet has made him soft. After all, by being married to Juliet, Tybalt is now his cousin, and it was in the moment when Romeo tried to stop the fight between Mercutio and Tybalt that the latter kills his friend. This self-reflection prompts Romeo to fight Tybalt and kill him. The Prince then banishes Romeo from Verona. 

PIVOT POINT 2: After Tybalt’s death, Lady Capulet decides that they should expedite Juliet and Paris’ marriage. Juliet panics because she’s already married to Romeo and begs the Friar to help her. The Friar concocts a plan wherein Juliet will fake her death. She will drink an elixir that will make her sleep as though she has died. Her family will lay her to rest in the family tomb. In the meantime, the Friar will send notice to Romeo to come to her. She’ll then awake after a few days and find Romeo with her and the two can go off together.

At this pivot point, the event is Juliet getting betrothed to Paris and Lady Capulet wanting to have the wedding in short order. The choice is Juliet deciding to fake her own death.

Notice how the Midpoint involves mainly Romeo, while here, Pivot Point 2 focuses mostly on Juliet.

It is not uncommon for dual-protagonist stories to have some landmark scenes that apply to both of them, and then some that relate to only one character. In Romeo and Juliet, most of the important landmarks involve both characters, but there are a few landmarks (like the fight component of the Midpoint or Juliet’s plan at Pivot Point 2) that center on only one of the two protagonists.

ACT 3: Juliet’s fake death goes as planned. She drinks the elixir that the Friar gave her, and it makes her sleep as if dead for several days. Her family, as Friar predicted, bury her in her family tomb. In the meantime, Romeo hears of Juliet’s death and is so distraught, he decides to buy poison so he can kill himself at her tomb.

CRISIS: Paris comes to the tomb first, before Romeo gets there. Romeo then arrives with his servant Balthasar. Paris and Romeo duel and Romeo wins, killing Paris. Romeo lays Paris in the tomb, then says his final soliloquy and pulls out the poison.

CLIMAX: Both Romeo and Juliet die. Romeo’s last words are: “Thus with a kiss I die.” Then Juliet awakes, finds Romeo dead and kisses him. Then she says her final words: “​​Yea, noise? Then I’ll be brief. O happy dagger! [Snatching Romeo’s dagger.] This is thy sheath; there rust, and let me die.” 

Ending Type: This is a tragic ending because Romeo and Juliet still want to be together all the way to the end, but they do not get what they want. Instead, they both die.

DENOUEMENT: The Montagues, Capulets, and Prince all arrive at the tomb. The Friar, who has been at the tomb and has seen everything, tells the Prince the whole story. He explains that Romeo and Juliet were in love and were married in secret. He explained the plan he hatched with Juliet to fake her death. Balthazar also adds some details to the story, saying he brought word to Romeo of Juliet’s death. The Montagues and Capulets realize their folly and make peace with each other.

CONCLUSION: In conclusion, I also wanted to share with you a theory I have about this play. This theory boils down to the question: is it a comedy or a tragedy? You see, up until the moment of Mercutio’s death, the play reads a lot like a comedy. We have Romeo in love with one person, then falling in love with another (Midsummer Night’s Dream, anyone?) We have mistaken identities at the masked ball (not unlike Twelfth Night and other such comedies). And we have the quick witticisms of Mercutio tying it all together. But the story ends as a clear tragedy with the protagonists (along with several supporting characters) dead.

According to the Royal Shakespeare Company, Romeo and Juliet was likely composed in the earlier half of Shakespeare’s career, not like some of his more mature tragedies (Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello, or King Lear) which were composed later in his life. In fact, along with Titus Andronicus, Romeo and Juliet may likely be one of the very earliest tragedies Shakespeare ever composed. While it’s impossible to pinpoint an exact chronology of when Shakespeare wrote each of his plays, it is clear that many of his earliest plays tended to be histories or comedies.

This is why I think it’s interesting that Romeo and Juliet reads like a comedy-turned-tragedy. In fact, I can pinpoint the exact moment in the play where the tone goes from comedic to tragic: Mercutio’s death. Up until the moment of his death, Mercutio is cracking jokes, and it feels like we are in a comedy. It is only after he dies that the story takes a tragic turn. It’s almost as if Shakespeare said: “Whoops! I just killed off my best character. Welp, might as well kill off everybody else and call it a tragedy.”

Of course, we do have the chorus passage at the opening of the play that foreshadows what’s coming down the line, but that stanza could have easily been added after-the-fact. There’s no evidence that shows Shakespeare clearly intended Romeo and Juliet to be a tragedy from the outset. It could easily have been something he decided to do on the fly because the story took an unexpected turn.

I share this theory with you because as writers, we’ve all had experiences where a character’s arc takes a left turn and throws our story upside down. We’ve all had situations where we discovered things about our characters and had to make changes on the fly. I like to think that Shakespeare had a similar experience with Romeo and Juliet and that the story did take him a little bit by surprise.

This comedy-to-tragedy blip doesn’t make the play any less popular, by the way—in fact, aside from Midsummer Night’s Dream, it’s probably one of Shakespeare’s most performed plays. This theory makes me feel a little better as a writer, because it makes me think I’m in good company. If Shakespeare had a story go sideways on him and he didn’t let that stop him, then maybe all is not lost for regular writers like me.

Until next time, keep writing and keep being awesome!

P.S. For more info on Gabriela Pereira, the founder and instigator of DIY MFA, check out her profile page.

The post Writer Fuel: Three-Act Analysis of Romeo and Juliet appeared first on DIY MFA.

If you need a quick review of the three-act structure, check out this article for an in-depth discussion of this framework.

Spoiler Alert! As with all our three-act analyses, I like to give a spoiler warning. This book in particular has a significant surprise at the end. If you’ve never read it before, you might want to do so before diving into this analysis because it will ruin the ending for you.

Okay, let’s do our analysis of The Great Gatsby.

ACT 1: The book starts with Nick Carraway telling us the story. He takes great pains from the outset to establish himself as an objective and truthful narrator. Nick moves to the fictional town of West Egg on Long Island, and spends time with Tom and Daisy Buchanan (who live on East Egg), as well as their friend Jordan Baker. At one point, Tom takes Nick to meet his mistress, Myrtle Wilson (wife of George Wilson), who lives in the valley of ashes between West Egg and the city.

Throughout the first act, Gatsby barely appears. In fact, it feels as though the story is really about Nick. Gatsby is mentioned several times, but we don’t actually meet him until the first pivot point. 

Character: We meet everyone but the protagonist. Nick is the narrator and we also meet Tom, Daisy, Jordan, Myrtle, and George (as well as several other minor characters) but Gatsby barely appears.

The only contact we have with Gatsby in Act 1 is at the end of Chapter 1, when Nick sees him walk out onto his dock to look at the green light on Daisy’s dock across the water. Aside from that one instance, Gatsby is only mentioned but never shows up on the page in Act 1.

Voice: This book is a classic example of the peripheral first-person point of view (POV), in that the character narrating the story is not, in fact, the protagonist. In this case, the protagonist is Gatsby, but Nick is the one telling the story.

I think Fitzgerald structured it using this POV for a few reasons. The peripheral POV gives us a “way in” with Gatsby. He’s not a particularly relatable (or even likeable) character, but Nick Carraway is. By putting the story in Nick’s POV, we can relate better to Gatsby.

Fitzgerald withholds Gatsby in Act 1 as a way to build up the mystique around his character and to create anticipation. If we were in Gatsby’s POV from the beginning, it would be hard to create that kind of mystery.

World: This story is set on Long Island and in New York City during the roaring twenties, with all the glitz and glamour that this time period entails. We have a subtle distinction between the two primary locations on Long Island: West Egg (“new money”) and East Egg (“old money”).

Social class is a big factor in this story. Tom comes from old money and Daisy is married into it. Gatsby is new money, and despite his attempts at extravagance, he never quite manages to belong. Nick is somewhat of an outsider. He comes from more humble origins (though still with a fair amount of privilege), allowing him to have a more outside perspective on the other characters.

Problem: The immediate problem is that Nick wants to make his way on the East Coast, having moved there from the Midwest. He’s trying to belong, much in the same way that we see Gatsby trying to belong later on.

Event: The story kicks off when Nick moves into the small rented house next door to Gatsby on West Egg.

PIVOT POINT 1:  Nick is invited to one of Gatsby’s fancy parties. While there, he speaks to an unassuming man who turns out to be Gatsby. The external event is Nick going to the party, while the internal choice is Gatsby deciding to reveal his identity.

Identity is an important element in this story. It’s interesting to note that until Gatsby reveals his identity, nobody knows that it’s him. His guests at the party have all sorts of theories about who he is, but no one really knows the true Gatsby. In fact, you could say that by the end of the story, Nick might be the only person who comes close to figuring out who Gatsby really is, and even then, Gatsby still remains something of a mystery.

ACT 2:  In Act 2, we move into the world of the extravagant Gatsby parties. Nick starts to put the pieces of Gatsby’s past together and Gatsby and Nick become friends. Throughout Act 2, we learn details of Gatsby’s past and slowly we are able to get a full picture.

Gatsby and Daisy have a past and once knew each other. He courted her before she was married to Tom, but he had no money, so when he left to go to the war, Daisy ended up marrying Tom instead. After the war, Gatsby did whatever he could to rise up in society, even some questionable business activities. Now that he’s living across the water from Daisy, all that he wants is to get her back.

W.O.R.S.T.: One of the best ways to understand the evolution of a story’s conflict is by examining the character’s desires and understanding their motivations. To do that, we use the acronym W.O.R.S.T. and ask the following questions:

• W = What does the character want?
• O = What obstacles are in their way?
• R = What are they willing to risk to get it?
• S = What’s at stake if they don’t get it?
• T = How do they transform in the process? 

Want: Gatsby wants to be with Daisy. He wants to reclaim what he had in the past, when he and Daisy were together.

Obstacle: When Gatsby went off to seek his fortune, Daisy decided to marry Tom. Now she’s married and has a young child.

Risk: Gatsby is willing to risk just about anything to get Daisy back. He does whatever it takes to make his fortune because he knows that money is a factor in wooing Daisy. He tries everything he can to fit in with the wealthy class of New York, even though he always remains something of an outsider. He even keeps a secret about Daisy at the end of the story (a secret that winds up costing him his life).

Stakes: If Gatsby can’t have Daisy, then everything he’s ever done in his whole life would have been for nothing. His entire adult life was motivated by this one desire: to be with her.

Transformation: This is where things get interesting. As a protagonist, Gatsby doesn’t really change on the page. Most of Gatsby’s change happens off the page, in parts of the story that happen before we meet him in Pivot Point 1. He changes his name, his identity, and his social status. He does all this in the effort to win Daisy.

While he changes almost everything about himself, in some ways, Gatsby’s entire mission in life is the antithesis of change. What he really wants is for everything to go back to how it was when he was with Daisy in the past. So, even though he has had to change himself in order to do it, what he really wants is the opposite of change: he wants to relive the past.

All of these above elements—want, obstacle, risk, stakes, and transformation—come into play as we learn more about Gatsby’s past in Act 2.

MIDPOINT: Gatsby wants Nick to invite Daisy over so he can happen to stop by at the same time and run into her. Nick invites Daisy for tea on a stormy afternoon. Gatsby stops by and, while at first things are awkward, eventually he and Daisy reconnect.

In fact, they hit it off so well that Gatsby offers to give Nick and Daisy a tour of his mansion next door. This moment is a Temporary Triumph for Gatsby because it feels like he might be on the road to winning Daisy back.

While at the end of the mansion tour, Gatsby brings Nick and Daisy into his bedroom and shows them his closet with shirts “piled like bricks in stacks a dozen high.” He begins flinging his shirts out of the cabinet. Suddenly, Daisy begins to cry.

“They’re such beautiful shirts,” she sobbed, her voice muffled in the thick folds. “It makes me sad because I’ve never seen such—such beautiful shirts before.” 

Of course, we know that she’s not really crying about the shirts. It’s what the shirts symbolize that makes her sad, because they are proof that Gatsby was able to make his way in the world and—had she only waited for him—maybe they could have been together.

This is the culmination of the Temporary Triumph because in this moment, it’s clear that Daisy still has feelings for Gatsby. Note that because we are in a peripheral first-person POV, we can’t really get a moment of self-reflection from Gatsby because we don’t have access to his thoughts..

ACT 2 CONT’D: Before we get to Pivot Point 2, we have one more significant sequence that helps to ramp up the story’s tension and propel us toward the climax. Tom, Daisy, Gatsby, Jordan, and Nick decide to go to the city. Tom wants to drive Gatsby’s ostentatious, yellow car, so he lets Gatsby and Daisy drive together in his blue coupe.

On the way into the city, Tom, Jordan, and Nick stop by Wilson’s garage in the valley of ashes and Tom learns that Wilson intends to move West with Myrtle. This information leaves him very upset.

The group meets up in the city and they head to the Plaza Hotel, where they take a suite and plan to drink mint juleps to cool off in the hot afternoon. Tom and Gatsby get into an argument over Daisy and eventually Gatsby says: “Your wife doesn’t love you… She’s never loved you. She loves me.”

Daisy admits that she would leave Tom. In response, Tom reveals some of Gatsby’s shady business dealings and Daisy loses her resolve. She and Gatsby get into his yellow car and head back out to Long Island. Tom, Jordan, and Nick follow in the coupe.

PIVOT POINT 2: When the coupe reaches the valley of ashes on the way back out to Long Island, Nick and his friends are met with a commotion. Myrtle Wilson has been the victim of a hit and run accident, and she has died. The car in question did not stop, but there are witnesses who say that it was yellow.

Back on Long Island, Nick confronts Gatsby about the accident and it turns out that Daisy was the one driving the car. Despite the severity of the consequences, Gatsby insists he will not reveal that Daisy was driving. In this pivot point, the external event is Myrtle getting killed, while the internal choice is Gatsby lying to protect Daisy.

ACT 3: Suddenly, we’re in the point of view of a man named Michaelis, who is a friend to George Wilson and is with George at the garage after Myrtle has died. The effect of this POV shift is that it seems as though we’re hearing this account third-hand (Michaelis telling Nick, who in turn tells us readers).

This POV shift is essential because as George begins putting together the truth about his wife’s affair, he wouldn’t be open with someone like Nick, who’s of a different social class and barely an acquaintance. We have to hear this part of the story through Michaelis, who is his friend and who he would trust enough to discuss this subject.

CRISIS: From here, the story picks up momentum. We learn that Wilson has figured out that his wife was having an affair, and he assumes the person driving the yellow car is his wife’s lover. He goes looking for the yellow car and winds up in West Egg. He learns that Gatsby has a yellow car so he goes to his house.

Meanwhile, Gatsby has decided to use the pool (which he has not used all summer). He lies on top of an inflatable mattress on the water.

CLIMAX: The butler hears shots fired. Gatsby and Wilson are both found dead.

Ending Type: This is an example of a tragic ending. The character (Gatsby) does not get what he wants (to win Daisy), but he still wants it, right up to the end.

DENOUEMENT: In the denouement, we see the aftermath of the shooting. Nick tries to contact Daisy and Tom, but they have gone away, leaving no forwarding address or any indication of when they might come back. Nick is left on his own to manage Gatsby’s funeral and he learns a few last pieces of information about his friend. The day of the funeral arrives. No one comes.

RULE OF 3:  There is one Rule of 3 that begins in Act 1 and ends in Act 3, and this is the eyes of Doctor T.J. Eckleburg. In the valley of ashes, right near Wilson’s garage, there is a billboard that shows a huge set of eyes. As Nick says:

“The eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg are blue and gigantic—their retinas are one yard high. They look out of no face, but, instead, from a pair of enormous yellow spectacles which pass over a non-existent nose.”

These eyes come up three times in the story. They first appear in Act 1, when Tom takes Nick to Wilson’s garage to meet his mistress and they all go into the city together.

The second appearance of the eyes is when Tom, Jordan, and Nick stop by the garage on their way into the city, and Tom learns that Wilson wants to take his wife and move West. Nick notices the eyes just as he realizes Myrtle has been watching their conversation the whole time.

The third and final appearance of the eyes is when Wilson talks to Michaelis and reveals that he knows about his wife’s affair. Michaelis looks up and sees the eyes looming and Wilson says, “God sees everything.” This third instance is different because it is the moment where Fitzgerald connects the dots and makes it clear that the eyes in the billboard symbolize the eyes of God.

In this book, the characters are constantly trying to be something they’re not or do something they’re not supposed to do. Gatsby changes his identity and tries to become a new man. Daisy loves Gatsby, but doesn’t have the guts to leave her husband. Tom has a hidden affair with Myrtle. Even Nick tries to fit in with Tom, Daisy and their set, despite not being nearly as wealthy. Everyone is trying to pretend, but ultimately, nothing escapes those all-seeing eyes.

CONCLUSION: The Great Gatsby is an excellent example of the peripheral first-person POV. The trickiest thing about this technique is being able to show certain events that happen when the POV character (i.e., Nick) is not there. What Fitzgerald does is he uses subtle shifts in POV, where other characters recount their version of events to Nick, giving us (the readers) access to that information.

For example, in Chapter IV, Jordan tells Nick about Daisy’s past because she and Daisy grew up together. Later, in Chapters VI and VIII, we have passages where Gatsby tells Nick things about his life. And, of course, there’s that Michaelis section at the end of Chapter VIII where we jump completely from Nick to Michaelis’ POV and it’s barely implied that Nick is recounting that event to us (the readers) because he learned that information after the fact.

These point of view jumps may seem drastic, but they ramp up slowly. Each incidence of a shift in POV is a little more daring than the last, so that by the time we get to the Michaelis passage, we’ve learned to trust the narrator and we take that dramatic POV jump in stride. In this way, The Great Gatsby is an excellent study in first-person peripheral POV and how to build up to bigger, more dramatic POV shifts throughout the story.

Until next time, keep writing and keep being awesome!

P.S. For more info on Gabriela Pereira, the founder and instigator of DIY MFA, check out her profile page.

The post Writer Fuel: Three-Act Analysis of The Great Gatsby appeared first on DIY MFA.

Up until now, we’ve done analyses of the novels Pride and Prejudice and The Hunger Games, the movies Die Hard and Star Wars IV: A New Hope, as well as the short story “The Story of an Hour.”

Today we examine the fairytale adventure, The Princess Bride, which follows the three-act structure to a T, showing that this story structure works across wildly different genres.

As always, if you need a refresher about the three-act structure, check out this article for an in-depth rundown on this framework.

Spoiler Alert! This movie came out in 1987, so I feel like the statute of limitations on spoilers has long-since expired. That said, if you haven’t seen The Princess Bride yet, get thee to a streaming service, stat! It’s a great movie that’s fun for the whole family and has a little something for everyone (action, adventure, humor, romance, you name it!) Alright, let’s dig into our analysis of The Princess Bride.

DUAL PROTAGONISTS: One of the things that I find particularly interesting about this film is that—like many romances—there are two protagonists: Westley and Buttercup. And because it’s a dual-protagonist story, different significant plot points focus around one or the other of the two main characters.

While Westley eventually becomes a slightly more significant character than Buttercup—particularly in Acts 2 and 3—we still have certain moments where a landmark scene seems to revolve more around Buttercup than Westley.

In a lot of dual-protagonist stories, we usually have twice as many landmark scenes (i.e., pivot points, midpoint, and climax), one for each of the two protagonists. But in some cases, the characters pass the baton from one to the other. The latter is true of The Princess Bride, where we have some landmark scenes focusing around Westley and other landmark scenes centering on Buttercup.

In novels, we often see double landmark scenes because books have more space to accommodate twice the number of significant moments. It makes sense, though, that a film would alternate between the characters, otherwise the story would become too long and the pace would drag.

ACT 1: Westley and Buttercup live on a farm. Buttercup loves to ride her horse and torment Westley, the farm boy who lives and works on the farm. What she doesn’t realize at first is that Westley is in love with her. Eventually, she falls in love with him.

Character: In this case, we have two characters: Westley and Buttercup.

Voice: From the beginning of this film, we can sense that the mood is whimsical and there’s a feeling of magic and adventure. The camera shots have a golden glow, giving the film a feeling of warmth and comfort. It feels like we’re watching a fairytale.

World: While this opening takes place exclusively on the farm, we already get the sense that we are in a magical world. Later, we realize that the world of this story is truly an enchanted place, where people have swashbuckling duels and face off against strange monsters (like screaming eels and giant rodents).

Problem: Westley and Buttercup want to be together, but Westley has no money. He decides to leave the farm and go off to seek his fortune.

Event: His ship gets attacked by the Dread Pirate Roberts, who never takes prisoners. Westley is presumed dead.

PIVOT POINT 1:  This point in the story is interesting because we never see the decision happen. The true moment of choice occurs completely off-screen.

After finding out that Westley is presumed dead, Buttercup is distraught and decides she will never love again. Some years pass and Humperdinck, the prince of Florin, decides he wants to marry Buttercup.

On the eve of their wedding, she is kidnapped by three bandits and gets carried off to the shores of Guilder. The external event is Buttercup getting kidnapped, but the choice comes from Westley—AKA the masked man—who decides (off-screen) to follow and rescue her.

ACT 2:  Now we get to the adventure. The kidnappers climb the Cliffs of Insanity and one by one, Westley faces off with each of them. First, he duels with Inigo the swordsman, and wins. Next, he bests Fezzik the giant.

Finally, he engages in a battle of the wits with the leader Vizzini. Of the three kidnappers, Fezzik and Inigo both do not seem to want to destroy Westley, so when he wins, he merely knocks them out and continues his search for Buttercup. Only Vizzini dies, and that is mostly because of his own hubris.

After being reunited, Westley and Buttercup run into the Fire Swamp, where they must face off against multiple dangers, including the flame spurts, lightning sand, and ROUS’s (or Rodents of Unusual Size). Finally, they make it past the Fire Swamp and it looks like they have escaped.

RULE OF 3:  We see two Rules of 3 in play in Act 2 of the story: the three kidnappers and the three dangers of the Fire Swamp.

With the three kidnappers, Westley does not kill the first two (Inigo and Fezzik) and they come back to help him later in the story. Only the third, Vizzini, who is holding Buttercup at knifepoint, dies because he loses the battle of the wits against Westley. Later on, Westley takes Vizzini’s place as the leader of the group.

In the Fire Swap, we have three dangers: the flame spurts, lightning sand, and ROUS’s. The flame spurts and lightning sand are dangerous but they are inanimate objects. Only the ROUS’s are living beings and Westley fights a significant battle against one of these creatures.

WORST-CASE SCENARIO: What Buttercup and Westley want most is to be together. Their greatest obstacle changes as the story evolves. At first it seems the main thing holding them apart is Westley dying. Then the kidnappers appear to become the main thing preventing them from being together.

Eventually, we realize the true obstacle between them is Prince Humperdinck and his scheme to start a war between Florin and Guilder. From the midpoint on, Prince Humperdinck becomes the primary obstacle that Westley and Buttercup must overcome.

In terms of risk, Westley is willing to do whatever it takes to be with Buttercup and she is determined to hold fast to true love (at least that’s true after she decides never to doubt again).

What’s at stake if they can’t be together is that the mythology around true love will be broken. If true love can’t save these two individuals (who so clearly embody everything that true love is supposed to be) then true love loses all its meaning. 

The two also transform throughout the course of the story. Westley goes from being a simple farm boy to being a swashbuckling pirate-hero, and Buttercup goes from deciding she will never love again to fully believing in true love and holding fast to it.

Notice that most of Westley’s transformation happens off-screen before he reappears as the “masked man.” In terms of on-screen transformation, Buttercup’s is far more significant.

MIDPOINT: The midpoint is broken up into two separate sections. In fact, we have two Temporary Triumphs, a smaller one followed by a more significant one. The first Temporary Triumph occurs when Buttercup pushes Westley down the hill and he calls out, “Aaaaaas yooooou wiiiiish!” She immediately rolls down the hill after him and the two are reunited.

When he asks her why she didn’t wait for him, she says “Well, you were dead.” To which, he replies: “Death cannot stop true love. All it can do is delay it for a while.” She then says: “I will never doubt again.”

This is the moment of introspection for Buttercup, where she realizes that she had been wrong to doubt Westley and not fully believe in the power of true love. This scene happens a little bit prior to the real middle of the story, but it sets us up for the next Temporary Triumph at the exact middle of the film.

When Buttercup and Westley escape the Fire Swamp, it looks like they are in the clear and will be able to run off into the sunset together. Suddenly Prince Humperdinck appears with a bunch of soldiers. They are about to shoot Westley with arrows when Buttercup intervenes and says they will surrender, so long as Humperdinck does not hurt Westley.

This moment is the true midpoint of the story and a more significant Temporary Triumph because until Humperdinck and his men show up, it feels like Buttercup and Westley are in the clear.

The earlier moment (“Aaaaaas yooooou wiiiish” and “I will never doubt again”) is significant because it gives us introspection. That moment is what allows Buttercup to intervene on Westley’s behalf. If she didn’t fully believe in true love, she would not have been nearly as confident in trusting Humperdinck with her beloved’s life.

But she does now believe in true love, and she no longer has any doubts. For this reason, she can intervene and allow herself and Westley to surrender, because she knows that no matter what, true love will conquer all. If we didn’t have that earlier, smaller Temporary Triumph (with the moment of introspection) this true midpoint would not have nearly as much significance.

ACT 2 (CONT’D): Humperdinck sends Westley to the Pit of Despair, where Count Rugen tortures him. In the meantime, Fezzik finds Inigo drunk in the Thieves’ Forest and nurses him back to health. Fezzik tells Inigo that Count Rugen is the six-fingered man (who killed Inigo’s father) and Inigo insists that they must find the “masked man” (i.e., Westley) to help them hatch a plot to storm the castle.

Inigo follows his father’s sword like a divining rod and it leads him to the entrance of the Pit of Despair. Inside they find Westley, dead. Together, they take Westley to Miracle Max.

PIVOT POINT 2: Miracle Max reveals that Westley isn’t all dead, only mostly dead. He pumps air into Westley’s lungs and asks,” What’ve you got here that’s worth living for?” and Westley croaks out, “True love.” Miracle Max and his wife make a magic pill and give it to Westley. Then Fezzik and Inigo carry Westley out to storm the castle.

In this pivot point, the external event is that Westley is apparently dead. The choice is Westley refusing to give up on true love. His choice to hold on (and not become “all dead”) is the choice that propels us forward into Act 3 of the story.

ACT 3: From here, the pace picks up considerably. Westley wakes up and the three hatch a plan to storm the castle. Then they execute the plan by scaring away all the armed guards and taking the castle gate key from Chief of All Enforcement, Yellin. Once inside the castle, Inigo finds Count Rugen and fights him, eventually winning.

CLIMAX: At the end of the film, Westley engages in another battle of the wits, this time with Prince Humperdinck. While lying on a bed (because he is still weak), he tells Humperdinck that he will fight him, not to the death but “to the pain.” He then describes in great detail the gruesome way he plans to destroy him.

Humperdinck, not realizing that Westley is weak, gives in. Westley and Buttercup tie him up, then meet up with Inigo and Fezzik, who has brought four white horses for them to ride off into the sunrise.

Ending Type: This is an example of a happy ending. Westley and Buttercup want to be together. They get what they want and they still want it at the end of the story.

FRAME: In addition to this perfectly plotted structure, The Princess Bride also has a frame, or a story-within-a-story. In this case, the framing device is a grandfather coming to visit his grandson who is home sick from school. The grandson is sitting in bed, playing video games, and the grandfather brings a book to read to him.

He tells his grandson that the book is filled with adventure, but when he starts reading the story, the boy immediately cuts him off. “Is this a kissing book?” he asks, clearly not enthused. The grandfather promises that the adventure sections are coming and tells the boy to be patient.

A little later, when we get to the section about the screaming eels, the boy is clearly afraid so the grandfather interrupts his reading to let me know that Buttercup will be alright. Later, when Westley and Buttercup reunite after falling down the hill, the boy again doesn’t want to hear about the romance and says: “Do we have to hear the kissing part?”

As the story continues, the boy becomes more and more invested and interested. When Buttercup supposedly marries Prince Humperdinck, the boy becomes furious and insists that his grandfather is messing up the story.

Then, when Westley dies, the boy is convinced that Westley is not dead and that Humperdinck will be defeated. He asks, “Who gets Humperdinck?” and doesn’t want to believe it when his grandfather tells him that Humperdinck survives at the end.

Finally, when the four friends—Westley, Buttercup, Inigo, and Fezzik—escape on the white horses, the boy doesn’t mind hearing the kissing part. In fact, when his grandfather tries to skip over it, he says it’s okay for him to read it. After his grandfather is finished reading, the boy asks him to come back tomorrow and read the book again. The grandfather replies, “As you wish,” and the movie ends.

This frame is important for a couple of reasons. First, just because it’s a frame doesn’t mean it doesn’t have its own structure. In fact, this frame has a neat little rule of 3 where we have three “kissing parts,” and the boy rejects the first two, but is willing to listen to the last one.

We also see a clear arc in the boy’s character development from being skeptical about the book at the beginning, to being swept up in the emotion of the adventure with the screaming eels, and finally with being convinced that the story needs to turn out a certain way (i.e., that Buttercup can’t marry Humperdinck and that Westley can’t be dead).

And at the very end of the film, we see the boy asking his grandfather to come back and read the book again. The grandfather’s “As you wish” brings us full circle, to the beginning of the story when Westley was saying those same words to Buttercup.

CONCLUSION: The phrase “As you wish” is a recurring thematic element in this film. In fact, there are two neat Rules of 3 surrounding “As you wish,” one nested inside the other.

The first Rule of 3 takes place at the very beginning of the film, when Westley and Buttercup are interacting on the farm, Buttercup makes three requests of Westley and each time, he says that famous phrase. The first time, she tells him to polish her horse’s saddle because she wants “to see [her] face shining in it by morning.” He responds with, “As you wish.”

The second time is when she realizes that every time Westley says “As you wish,” what he really means is “I love you.” This time she asks him to fill some water buckets, but it’s no longer a demand. She says, “Please.”

Finally, the third time is the moment when Buttercup realizes she loves Westley back. She makes an almost silly request—for him to hand her a pitcher that’s right in front of her. He says, “As you wish,” and does as she asks. That third instance is different from the first two in that Buttercup has finally realized she’s in love with Westley. From here on, the two are joined by the bonds of true love.

This phrase—”As you wish”—also comes up at three significant points throughout the entire story. The first time is at the beginning, with those three instances of “As you wish” while Westley and Buttercup interact on the farm.

Next, the thematic element returns when Buttercup pushes Westley down the hill and he calls out, “Aaaaas yooooou wiiiiish!” and she immediately tumbles after him. This is a crucial moment in the story because it’s when Buttercup has her moment of introspection and says, “I will never doubt again.”

The third time that element appears in the story is at the end when the grandfather says, “As you wish” to the grandson in the final scene of the film. This third and final instance is different from the first two because it’s not said by Westley but by the grandfather. In this way, it not only comes full circle and hearkens back to the beginning of the story, but it also serves as a bridge between the fairytale and the frame.

Until next time, keep writing and keep being awesome!

P.S. For more info on Gabriela Pereira, the founder and instigator of DIY MFA, check out her profile page.

The post Writer Fuel: Three-Act Analysis of The Princess Bride appeared first on DIY MFA.