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.

This book (along with Pride and Prejudice) has been a classic DIY MFA example and one that I use when talking about lots of different aspects of the craft. I like to put The Hunger Games side-by-side with Pride and Prejudice in particular because it shows that these craft elements are not arbitrary and they apply to vastly different types of literature.

I’ve been talking about the three-act structure a lot lately, but if you’re not familiar with the framework (or want a refresher on how it works), check out this article.

Spoiler Alert! Okay, since this book was published in 2008, I think the statute of limitations on spoilers has long since expired. But just in case, let me say this: there will be spoilers. It’s impossible to talk about a book’s story structure without giving away key plot twists or the ending. So if you’ve been waiting to read The Hunger Games and you don’t want spoilers… well, you have been warned.

Alright, let’s dive into our analysis of The Hunger Games.

ACT 1: The Hunger Games has one of the shortest first acts in all of literature. The entirety of Act 1 is compressed into the first chapter. By the time we get to chapter two, we are already at the pivot point and well on our way into Act 2. But just because Act 1 is short doesn’t make it incomplete or ineffective. Act 1 of The Hunger Games fulfills all five promises that the reader expects, and it does so with laser-sharp efficiency.

CHARACTER: Katniss Everdeen is our protagonist. We don’t know much about her in Act 1, but we know she’s good at hunting and she cares deeply about her younger sister Prim. She and her best friend, Gale, talk about running away to someplace where they (and their younger siblings) could be safe.

VOICE: The story is narrated in first person present tense, so we feel like we are right there in the middle of the action. There is an immediacy to the first person present tense that draws readers into the story.

WORLD: We learn a lot about the world of Panem in that first chapter. We learn that there has been a revolution during the “Dark Days” where the districts rose up against the Capitol. Twelve of these districts were defeated and returned to Capitol rule, while the thirteenth district was destroyed and eliminated altogether. Now, as a way to celebrate the peace (and remind the districts of who’s in charge) they have the Hunger Games, a televised fight to the death in an outdoor arena where each district sends one male and one female tribute to participate. The games continue until only one tribute is left standing.

PROBLEM: It’s Reaping day and the odds are definitely not in Katniss’ favor. In order to keep her family fed, she had to put her name in the tribute jar extra times, meaning that it’s quite possible she will be chosen as tribute. The other, bigger problem is that her younger sister, Prim, is eligible for the reaping for the first time. Her name is only in the jar once, but Katniss is still worried.

EVENT: All eligible young people go to the town square for the Reaping ceremony.

PIVOT POINT 1: Primrose (Prim) Everdeen’s name is chosen from the tribute jar. Katniss gets turned into a tailspin. All she has ever wanted to do is protect her sister and now her sister has been chosen for The Hunger Games. In a moment of panic, not knowing what else to do, Katniss volunteers to take her sister’s place.

ACT 2:  Katniss is thrust full-speed into the world of the Games. After barely being able to say goodbye to her family, she boards a high-speed train to the Capitol, where she is introduced to her stylists and mentor, as well as the other tributes. After a few chapters in the Capitol, Katniss is sent to the arena, where most of the rest of the story takes place.

SUPPORTING CAST:  There are several key characters in The Hunger Games who we meet in Act 2. First we have Peeta Mellark, Katniss’s fellow tribute from District 12. We learn that Peeta has always been secretly in love with Katniss and at one time he saved her (and her family) from starvation.

In addition, we have several mentor-like characters including Effie Trinket (the Capitol liaison with District 12), Haymitch Abernathy (the only living Hunger Games victor from District 12), and Cinna (the head stylist and trusted friend to Katniss). While these mentor characters cannot come with Katniss into the arena, the short span of time she spends with them in the Capitol has a strong influence on her.

Finally, we also have other tributes who play important roles in the story. The career tributes—in particular, Cato—are the primary antagonists when Katniss enters the arena. Plus, Rue (the young tribute from District 11) becomes an important ally for Katniss. Rue reminds Katniss a lot of her sister Prim and serves as a stand-in character who fills the same role, even though Prim is back home in District 12.

RULE OF 3:  There’s a Rule of 3 where Katniss faces off against the career tributes (the most vicious tributes, those from districts 1 and 2). The first incident is when she cuts down a branch that has a tracker jacker’s nest on it and it falls right on top of where the career tributes are sleeping. In this case, Katniss is just trying to survive because the careers had her cornered in a tree.

The second time she faces off against the career tributes is when she and Rue plot to destroy their supplies. Here, Katniss doesn’t actually deal with any career tributes directly. She waits for Rue to cause a distraction and when the careers leave their supplies unattended, she destroys them by setting off a landmine.

The third incident where she faces off against the career tributes is at the very end, when she, Peeta, and Cato are at the cornucopia. Katniss and Peeta have formed an alliance, and Cato is the only other tribute remaining. They are on top of the cornucopia, surrounded by muttations (mutant monsters). Katniss and Peeta fight Cato and Katniss finally vanquishes him. 

W.O.R.S.T.: Katniss wants more than anything to survive and also to protect her family, especially Prim. The primary obstacle getting in her way is that she’s stuck in the Hunger Games, having to fight with the vicious career tributes who want nothing more than to see her dead. Despite starting out not wanting to harm any other tributes, Katniss is willing to do anything to protect her family—even kill. If she doesn’t survive the Games, she can’t go home to her family and there’s a good chance her mother and sister will starve. Katniss starts out a loner in the games, but eventually starts forging alliances (first with Rue, then with Peeta) and those alliances are what ultimately help her survive.

MIDPOINT: Katniss is injured and trapped up in a tree, with the career tributes down below, waiting to kill her. She sees a tracker jacker nest on one of the branches and cuts it down. In the process of doing so, she gets bitten by the insects and starts to hallucinate. She’s able to knock down the branch and the tracker jackers drive away the career tributes, killing one. In the chaos of the moment, Katniss gets down from the tree, grabs a bow and some arrows from the dead tribute, and runs into the forest. She runs directly into Peeta, who up until that point she thought was in cahoots with the career tributes. Peeta tells her to run, showing that he’s still on her side. Katniss runs until she collapses in a hallucinatory stupor. This is her first real victory against the career tributes and it serves as a Temporary Triumph.

PIVOT POINT 2: After destroying the career tributes’ supplies, Katniss regroups with Rue, when suddenly Rue is shot by a spear from one of the career tributes. Katniss quickly retaliates and kills the career tribute, but Rue is far too wounded to survive. Katniss sings to her as she dies, then does a burial ritual surrounding her with flowers. Finally, Katniss gets up and gives a peace signal to the camera televising the Games.

This is the first time Katniss has stood up to the Capitol in any way. Up until now, she has tried to keep her head down and survive so she can go home to her family. But losing Rue feels almost as if she’s lost her sister. She reaches her lowest point when Rue dies, and once she pulls herself together she takes her first step toward standing up to the Capitol.

Interestingly enough, this Pivot Point 2 for book one of the series also serves as Pivot Point 1 for the entire trilogy. It is the moment when Katniss goes from being “the girl on fire” to becoming “the mockingjay” and symbol of the revolution.

ACT 3: After Rue dies, the Gamemakers change the rules and state that two tributes may emerge as victors, so long as they are from the same district. At this point, Katniss realizes she needs to find Peeta because they can now survive the games together.

Katniss finds Peeta badly injured and she hides with him in a cave. They have a tender moment where they kiss, and Katniss begins to have feelings for him. Peeta is still very sick from his injuries, and the Gamemakers announce that there are “gifts” for each of the remaining tributes at the cornucopia. Certain that this “gift” is medicine for Peeta, Katniss risks her life to get it. 

CLIMAX: Once Peeta has recovered, the tension of the story begins to rise. The Gamemakers let loose muttations on the remaining tributes, driving them toward the cornucopia for the “grand finale.” Katniss and Peeta fight Cato (the one remaining tribute) atop the cornucopia and they win. Suddenly the Gamemakers change the rules again and say that only one tribute can be a victor. Katniss refuses to let the Gamemakers have their way. She has poison berries in her pocket and she divides them between herself and Peeta. Just as they are about to eat the poison berries, the Gamemakers announce that they are, in fact, the victors after all.

ENDING TYPE: Despite all the dark, painful moments, this story has a “happy ending.” Katniss wants to survive and that desire carries her through to the end of the story. She gets what she wants (survival) and she still wants it, making this a happy ending.

DENOUEMENT: After the climax, the story concludes rather quickly. There’s a short interview where Katniss and Peeta appear on a talk show with Cesar Flickerman and discuss their experience in the games. Then they head back to their home in District 12.

The important consideration with the denouement is that Katniss has to mask the reason why she pulled the poison berries stunt. We readers know that it was her way of making the Capitol look bad, but both she and Peeta insist publicly that they did it out of pure love for each other. They couldn’t stand the idea of being without the other and would have rather died than lose one another.

While this is a small detail in this book, it becomes increasingly important for book two of the trilogy. In Catching Fire (book 2), Katniss has to work hard to convince the authorities in the Capitol (especially President Snow) that she is not trying to cause trouble. The relationship between Peeta and Katniss continues to develop, becoming more and more important as the trilogy continues. In Mockingjay (book 3) Katniss and Peeta are separated with Katniss in a district and Peeta imprisoned in the Capitol, and the Capitol uses Peeta as a pawn, a way to get revenge on Katniss by harming someone she loves.

CONCLUSION: Many people talk about the three-act structure and how much of the story should occur in each act. The typical framework is 25% of the story in Act 1, 50% in Act 2, and 25% in Act 3. This book is proof that you don’t have to follow the framework to a T for your story to work. In The Hunger Games, Act 1 is only the first chapter, and after that we dive right into Act 2. This goes to show that, as long as you set the scene right and draw in the reader, you don’t have to follow the typical framework to the letter. 

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 Hunger Games appeared first on DIY MFA.

For the last few months, we’ve been doing three-act analyses of various books and films. Today I thought I’d do an analysis of this fantastic short story. If you’re not familiar with the three-act structure (or want a refresher on how it works), check out this article.

Spoiler Alert! Thankfully, this time around I don’t have to warn you of spoilers because the story is so short that before you read this email you can click the link at the top and read it for yourself. There is a fabulous surprise twist at the climax of the story, so if you don’t want the analysis to ruin the ending for you, read the story first.

Alright, let’s dive into our analysis of “The Story of an Hour.”

ACT 1: The first act of this story is no more than two and a half paragraphs long. It begins with a line that hooks the readers and draws us in. “Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble, great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible the news of her husband’s death.” This opening line is essential to the story, as it makes the stakes very clear.

As with most stories, “The Story of an Hour” makes five promises to the reader. These promises are: character, voice, world, problem, and event. Let’s look closer.

CHARACTER: Mrs. Mallard is the main character. Notice how she doesn’t have a first name, at least not at the opening. Her entire identity is wrapped up in being her husband’s wife and she has no identity of her own. As the story progresses, we eventually learn her first name is Louise, but at the end of the story, she goes back to being “his wife.”

VOICE: The voice here is typical of stories written at this time. It’s a third person narrator, who starts off feeling rather distant and omniscient in Act 1, but the author plays with narrative distance and eventually moves closer to Mrs. Mallard’s point of view in Act 2. That closer perspective continues until we get to Act 3, where we shift back into a more distant, omniscient narrator.

WORLD: The world of this story is not very expansive. We are in Mrs. Mallard’s house and the story begins with us downstairs in a parlor or some other such room. In Act 2, Mrs. Mallard retreats upstairs to her room where she sits and contemplates. We come back downstairs in Act 3 where the climax occurs just as she has descended the stairs.

PROBLEM: This is the substance of the opening sentence. Mrs. Mallard has a heart condition, making her fragile. This means that great care must be taken to break the news of her husband’s death.

EVENT: The event that kicks off the story is that Mrs. Mallard’s husband has died in a train crash.

PIVOT POINT 1:  After receiving the news from her sister (Josephine) and a family friend (Richards), Mrs. Mallard retreats upstairs to her room and she “would have no one follow her.” As with all pivot points, this one has both an external and internal component. The external factor is the breaking of the news; Josephine and Richards tell Mrs. Mallard that her husband has died.

The internal choice is how she reacts to the news. At first, she “wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment.” The narrator makes a point of saying that she does not receive the news as many other women would “with a paralyzed inability to accept its significance.” She gives in to grief right away. Then, once she has composed herself, she chooses to go to her room alone.

ACT 2:  Most of Act 2 is Louise Mallard sitting alone in her room. Now I don’t know about you, but writing a character alone in a room is just about the most challenging thing there is. There’s no one else in the scene for the character to interact with, and they are confined to a small space so there is little room for exploring the story’s world. Yet, the bulk of Act 2—and of this entire story, in fact—is Louise Mallard alone in her room, contemplating her future.

This second act starts with some ambiance. The window in her room is open, with an armchair in front of it. She sits down and looks out the window. Even though it’s a quiet moment, there is a fair amount of activity. There is a feeling of anticipation, like something big is brewing.

She could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees that were all aquiver with the new spring life. The delicious breath of rain was in the air. In the street below a peddler was crying his wares. The notes of a distant song which some one was singing reached her faintly and countless sparrows were twittering in the eaves.

As she sits alone in her room, a thought begins to materialize. She realizes that without her husband, she will have a greater degree of freedom. Even though she at first tries to fight this notion “striving to beat it back with her will,” when she finally lets go of her self-restraint she says again and again “free, free, free!” She looks ahead to her future and sees “a long procession of years to come that would belong to her absolutely.”

The narrator makes it clear that it’s not as though Louise Mallard dislikes her husband. She would likely cry again at his funeral and she had even loved him at times in the past. But what matters to her in this moment is the realization of her future freedom. As the narrator says: “There would be no one to live for during those coming years; she would live for herself.”

MIDPOINT: Interestingly enough, we can look at this story as one giant midpoint. The majority of the narrative takes place during Act 2, where Louise Mallard is up in her room. And the bulk of that second act is taken up with her coming to grips with her future freedom. The midpoint begins with the section:

There was something coming to her and she was waiting for it fearfully. What was it? She did not know; it was too subtle and elusive to name. But she felt it creeping out of the sky, reaching toward her through the sounds, the scents, the color that filled the air.

Later, when she says the words “free, free, free!” under her breath, the midpoint realization comes into focus. Remember, the midpoint is a moment of self-reflection, a place in the story where the character examines their own life and asks themselves do I like what I see? Eventually, she recognizes that her husband’s death means her freedom. The pinnacle of that realization is when she whispers: “Free! Body and soul free!”

The end of Act 2 is rather interesting because we get the only piece of true dialogue in the entire story. Louise’s sister, Josephine, comes to her door and begs to be let in. There’s a nice rule of three where she says “open the door” three times. The first time she simply says “Louise, open the door!” The second time is a little more forceful, where she brings up Louise’s health: “I beg, open the door—you will make yourself ill.” Finally, the third iteration is the most forceful of all: “What are you doing, Louise? For heaven’s sake open the door.”

Of course, to all of this, Louise tells her to go away, saying she is not making herself ill. In fact, as the narrator says “she was drinking the very elixir of life.” Louise looks ahead at her life, at all the days in front of her that would be her own and the midpoint culminates with: “She breathed a quick prayer that life might be long. It was only yesterday she thought with a shudder that life might be long.” In other words, now that she has her freedom before her, she wants to enjoy it for as long as possible, whereas before, when her husband was alive, she shuddered at the idea of a long life.

PIVOT POINT 2: The second pivot point is a mirror image of the first. In the first pivot point, Louise Mallard walks up the stairs to her room, now in the second pivot point, she opens the door and, together with her sister, walks back down the stairs. As she descends the staircase, she carries “herself unwittingly like a goddess of Victory.” In other words, she is a very changed woman from the one who ascended the staircase at the first pivot point.

ACT 3: At this stage of the story, the point of view telescopes back out to a more omniscient, distant perspective. In Act 2, we are deeply entrenched in Louise Mallard’s thoughts, but now we are back with a more bird’s-eye-view perspective of the scene. There’s someone at the door. We find out it’s Brently Mallard, Louise’s husband, and that he had been nowhere near the scene of the train crash when it happened. Josephine screams. Richards tries to intercept Brently and Louise. All of this action happens in a single paragraph.

A note about Richards: Aside from Louise, I find Richards to be the most fascinating character in this story. In Act 1, he takes it upon himself to be the one to deliver the news, and “had hastened to forestall any less careful, less tender friend in bearing the sad message.” He seems to take a certain level of pride in his relationship to the family, and I can’t help but wonder at his motives. Is he really just a friend, or does he want to be something more now that Brently Mallard is out of the picture?

Interestingly enough, at the end of Act 3, when Brently Mallard arrives back at home, what does Richards do? He steps between Louise and Brently, trying to “screen him from the view of his wife.” Notice how that’s phrased. Is he trying to screen Brently from seeing Louise or the other way around? It’s deliberately ambiguous. The only thing that’s not ambiguous is Richards’ choice to step between them. If his motivations were open to interpretation before, they now seem a bit more clear. He tries to appear as a dutiful friend, but there’s more to his true motivations than first meets the eye.

CLIMAX: The climax of the story is fascinating because it’s the only beat that doesn’t happen on the page. Every other moment (the pivot points, midpoint, denouement) all happen within the compressed scope of the story. The climax, on the other hand, is merely implied.

At this crucial point, Louise Mallard dies. We don’t actually see her die on the page, but we know it has happened because of the final sentence: “When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease—of the joy that kills.”

The fact that Louise Mallard’s death happens off the page creates all sorts of ambiguities. Does she die from the “joy that kills” when she learned that her husband is still alive? Does she die from a sudden pang of grief at losing her freedom? Does she throw herself down the stairs in a moment of sheer desperation? We don’t know. We can infer—based on everything that has passed in Act 2—that the most likely cause of her death is her lost freedom, but we can’t be absolutely certain.

DENOUEMENT: The denouement, of course, is that final sentence when the doctors arrive on the scene. We don’t need much beyond that sentence because the story ends when Louise dies. After everything the reader has seen of Louise in Act 2, we don’t really need to know how the other characters carry on without her. All we need to know is that she is dead. That is all that matters.

Notice, also, how that closing sentence pulls back into a truly omniscient point of view, almost as though the narrator is telling us all of this after the fact, after the action has already happened. This final sentence, by necessity, has to be distant and omniscient. This is because with our primary, focal character dead, there is no other way for the point of view to work. It would be too jarring to jump suddenly into Brently’s head (or Richards’ or Josephine’s for that matter). The only option is to pull back into an omniscient point of view. 

CONCLUSION: If you take only one thing away from this analysis, it’s that in only two pages, this story covers all components of the three-act structure. Sometimes, writers complain that they need more room to tell their story in full. And yet, this short piece manages to do it all in a compressed space. (In fact, the irony is not lost on me that this analysis is longer than the story itself.) So, when you struggle with word count and you need to keep your story tight, just think of “The Story of an Hour” and channel your inner Kate Chopin. If she could tell a full story in just two pages, you can do it, too.

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 Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin appeared first on DIY MFA.

Spoiler Alert! Okay, I always have to do one of these spoiler alert warnings, because the last thing I want is to ruin a book or movie for someone else. So consider this your spoiler warning. If you haven’t watched Die Hard (for shame!) go stream it now.

Okay, let’s dive into our analysis. But first, here’s a quick diagram showing the key components of the three-act structure. For an in-depth look at the three-act structure and how it works, check out this article on our website.

ACT 1: On Christmas Eve, NYPD officer John McClane arrives in LA to see his estranged wife, Holly. They’re still married, but his wife has moved to the West Coast for a fancy job and has taken the kids with her. McClane gets picked up in a limo by a driver called Argyle who takes him to Nakatomi Plaza. When they get to Nakatomi Plaza, Argyle offers to stay and wait for McClane, in case the reunion with his wife doesn’t go well and he needs a ride elsewhere. Let’s run through the five promises.

CHARACTER: John McClane is your typical tough guy action hero character. He’s a great cop and the kind of person you want to have on your side in a crisis, but when it comes to matters of the heart, he’s a bit clueless.

VOICE: Since it’s a film, we don’t really have a voice per se, but we do have a mood. It starts out very Christmas-y with holiday music, decorations, and people having fun at the Christmas party… but we get the uneasy feeling that something evil is brewing. Even the music in some spots turns a bit dark. We also see snippets of the bad guys starting to put their plan into action.

WORLD: With the exception of a couple of short scenes, the bulk of the movie takes place in Nakatomi Plaza, a large, fancy office building in Century City. At the start of the movie, the employees of the Nakatomi Corporation are having their Christmas party.

PROBLEM: McClane’s wife has moved across the country, but he’s a New York cop through and through. How can they possibly make this relationship work? When McClane arrives at Nakatomi Plaza, he discovers his wife has been using her maiden name (Holly Gennaro), further cementing that their relationship is on the rocks.

EVENT: Upon arriving at Nakatomi Plaza, McClane goes up to his wife’s office. He meets his wife and one of her coworkers, Harry Ellis, who brags about the Rolex Holly got from the company as a holiday present. McClane washes up, takes off his shoes and squishes the carpet beneath his feet, making “fists with [his] toes.” (This is something a fellow passenger on his plane recommended to feel better after a long flight.)

PIVOT POINT 1:  Thieves—who behave like terrorists—enter the building and take all the Nakatomi employees hostage, including McClane’s wife. McClane is still in the bathroom and when he hears the commotion, he manages to stay hidden and escape to another floor. At first he’s unsure of what to do—after all, he’s a lone, unarmed cop while the bad guys all have machine guns pointed at the hostages—but then he has an idea. If he pulls the fire alarm, he’ll also summon the cavalry because the fire department will have to respond. He pulls the alarm, thereby alerting the bad guys to his presence.

ACT 2:  The bad guys manage to convince the emergency responders that there is nothing wrong and they turn back. Now criminal mastermind Hans Gruber and his goons know that someone is there in the building with them and the cat-and-mouse game begins. Throughout Act 2 McClane manages to hold his own against the bad guys. He sneaks into various places, trying to collect as much intel as he can about them.

One of the things that keeps the story moving throughout Act 2 is the supporting cast, which becomes increasingly more important as the story evolves. Let’s take a closer look at the supporting characters who come into play in Act 2.

HANS GRUBER & HIS CREW:  The most significant supporting character in the story is our villain, Hans Gruber. We don’t know much about Hans except that he’s a criminal mastermind and his focus is 100% on getting the job done. He doesn’t have any grand political purpose—all he wants is to steal the bearer bonds that are in the vault at Nakatomi Plaza, and he will do whatever it takes to make that happen.

Throughout Act 2, he continually sends one or more of his goons after McClane, but McClane thwarts them and starts to pick them off one by one. In addition to decimating the ranks of the bad guys, he also managed to take a radio (so he can now communicate with the outside world) as well as a machine gun and other supplies.

At one point (late in Act 2), Hans separates from his men and goes to the roof to check on some explosives. While he’s there, he comes across McClane and pretends he’s a hostage who also managed to escape. He and McClane talk for a bit and McClane gives him a gun, at which point he turns on McClane and tries to shoot him. But McClane has tricked him and the gun isn’t loaded. Hans manages to escape when his men arrive and go after McClane. They shoot through glass partitions leaving shattered fragments everywhere, forcing McClane to walk over them in his bare feet to get away.

HOLLY GENNARO: While she is captured by Hans Gruber and his men, Holly Gennaro (McClane’s wife) is not particularly active, but she does take on an important role. After Hans kills the office head, Mr. Takagi, she becomes a leader of sorts among the hostages, negotiating with Hans for certain necessities. She also keeps her identity as John McClane’s wife a secret because if Hans is aware of their relationship, he could use her to get to McClane.

AL POWELL: Perhaps the most important new character in Act 2 is Al, a sergeant who gets called in to Nakatomi Plaza to check things out. At first, when he gets there it seems like everything is fine, but then McClane gets his attention by dropping the corpse of a bad guy onto his car. McClane and Al form an alliance as they talk over the radio. Al becomes a liaison between McClane and the outside world. We later learn that Al refuses to pull his gun on anyone because he once shot someone by mistake. 

ARGYLE: We don’t see much of Argyle throughout the beginning of Act 2, but periodically we get snippets of him in his limo, listening to music and talking to his girlfriend on the phone. At first, he is completely oblivious to what is happening in the building above the garage. It is only when he sees a news report about Nakatomi Plaza on the limo TV that he realizes what is going on. Unfortunately, he can’t get out of the garage because all the gates are closed, so he quietly waits in the limo.

MIDPOINT: The police finally realize there’s something serious going on. The deputy chief arrives with the SWAT team and they prepare to attack the building. Both Al and McClane know that an attack would be a disaster because the criminals are too well-armed. The deputy chief refuses to listen and the SWAT team attacks anyway. They get completely destroyed by the criminals and in the middle of the fight, McClane asks Hans to let the SWAT team pull back but Hans orders his men to fire again.

McClane is furious. He takes some explosives he got off one of the criminals and builds a makeshift bomb, throwing it down an elevator shaft. It creates a massive explosion and kills two of the criminals. For a moment it seems like McClane has had a small victory, but when he calls on the radio, the Deputy Chief gets angry at him.

This midpoint is an example of a temporary triumph. The character has a moment of victory where it seems like they’ve gotten what they want, but that triumph is short-lived. In this case, because it’s an action movie, we don’t have much of a moment of self-reflection. The emphasis is on the temporary triumph and we get right back to the action afterwards. 

PIVOT POINT 2: This plot point occurs over the course of a series of tightly woven scenes. McClane is wounded and his feet are bleeding from the broken glass. He and Al talk over the radio and Al confesses to him why he had a desk job. This sequence of scenes is a moment of vulnerability for both Al and McClane. At this point, McClane is at his lowest and it looks like the thieves have won. In his darkest moment, McClane asks Al to give his wife a message:

“She was the best thing that ever happened to a bum like me.  She’s heard me say I love you a thousand times, but she never got to hear this…Honey…I’m sorry.”

This is just about as classic a Dark Night of the Soul monologue if there ever was one. After giving Al this message, in true action hero fashion, McClane rallies his strength and continues to go after Hans and his crew.

Interestingly enough, McClane and Al have opposite trajectories for their stories and they are almost mirror images of each other as characters. Al is a super-supportive husband, stopping at the convenience store on his way home to pick up snacks for his pregnant wife. At the same time, because of his accident on the job, he’s afraid to draw his gun on anyone and needs to regain his confidence as a cop. McClane, on the other hand, has the cop thing down and is taking on a building full of criminals all by himself. His problem is that he needs to be more supportive of his wife. It’s no surprise that both Al and McClane verbalize their weaknesses during this sequence of scenes at the second pivot point, or Dark Night of the Soul.

ACT 3: As the crisis for Act 3 builds, we get more and more quick cuts from one scene to another. This gives us the sense that multiple things are happening at the same time. Here’s a summary:

A few of Hans’ men take the hostages up to the roof but the roof has been rigged with explosives. McClane, thinking his wife is among the hostages, heads to the roof as well. Meanwhile, Hans now has Holly and he takes her away from the roof to the (now open) vault. At the same time, a couple of Hans’ goons have been loading the bearer bonds from the vault into a truck. 

Karl, whose brother was killed earlier in the film (and now has a particular vendetta against McClane), goes after him in the stairwell to the roof and tries to kill him. He and McClane fight and it seems like Karl is dead. McClane goes to the roof in search of his wife.

McClane gets the hostages off the roof, but he’s cornered by an FBI helicopter and he knows the roof is about to blow. Just in the nick of time, he jumps off the roof tied to a fire hose and manages to break in through one of the windows on a floor below.

Just before the climax, one of the criminals takes a truck (now loaded with bearer bonds from the vault) and gets ready to get away. Argyle, who has been hanging out in the garage all this time, crashes the limo into the truck and foils the escape.

CLIMAX: McClane comes after Hans to get his wife. He surrenders and it looks like everything is over when he pulls a concealed gun he has duct taped to his back and shoots Hans. The wounded Hans falls out a window, hanging onto Holly’s watch. He pulls a gun, trying to take Holly and McClane down with him, but McClane unlatches the watch clasp just in time and Hans falls to his death.

ENDING TYPE: This is a happy ending because McClane gets what he wants (to stop the thieves and save the hostages) and he still wants that at the end of the film.

DENOUEMENT: As McClane and his wife walk out of Nakatomi Plaza, Karl (who didn’t die previously) ambushes them and tries to kill them. Al shoots Karl and saves McClane and Holly, thus tying up the loose end of his story. Then Argyle comes tearing out of the garage and takes McClane and Holly off in the limo.

RULE OF 3: There is a Rule of 3 that spans the entire movie, starting at the beginning of Act 2 and going through to the very end. There are three instances where an individual hostage is in peril and McClane wants (or tries) to save them. The first is Mr. Takagi, who gets taken by Hans right at the start of Act 2 so that the criminals can get the code to the vault. When he doesn’t reveal the code, Hans kills him. At that point in the story, McClane has not yet pulled the fire alarm and revealed his presence to Hans and his crew. He’s furious at himself for not trying to stop Takagi’s murder but he also knows there’s nothing he could have done.

The second instance is with Harry Ellis, one of Holly’s co-workers, who tries to negotiate with Hans by saying he and McClane are old friends. In the process, Ellis gives up information to the criminals about McClane, including his name and the fact that he’s a police officer. Knowing that this is not going to end well for Ellis, McClane insists he doesn’t know him but Hans doesn’t believe it. Ellis tries to smooth-talk his way through the situation and ends up getting killed.

The third and final instance is when Holly gets taken by Hans at the end of the film. At that point, Hans has put together that Holly is McClane’s wife and he kidnaps her as added insurance so he and his crew can get away. Unlike the two previous instances where McClane was unable to save the hostage, in this case, he successfully saves his wife.

CONCLUSION: It’s indisputable that Die Hard is one of the tightest, most perfectly plotted films out there. The three acts are well-paced and the two pivot points include both external events and internal choices from the protagonist. The only thing it might be missing is that moment of introspection at the midpoint, which plays out purely as a Temporary Triumph without much self-reflection. That said, because this is a high-action film it makes sense that McClane does not have time to pause and reflect because he has to go after the bad guys and save his wife.

This film also adheres closely to Chekov’s gun, a principle in which every element must be significant to the story. Notice that not a single detail gets introduced that doesn’t have payoff later in the film. For example, the Rolex watch that we see mentioned briefly at the beginning becomes a key detail in the climax of the film. Also, Argyle, who all but disappears for most of the film, only to reappear at a key moment when one of the bad guys is about to get away and he thwarts the escape. Finally, when McClane makes “fists with [his] toes,” it means he’s barefoot when the criminals attack. This means he spends most of the film running around barefoot and later when they shoot the glass, it injures his feet. As you can see, not a single detail is added to the film that does not have follow-through later.

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 Die Hard appeared first on DIY MFA.

To understand the three-act structure, we need first to consider its origin. Aristotle wrote about this framework in his Poetics, using it to explain specifically how Greek tragedy was put together. Over the years, many other writers and thinkers (particularly in Western culture) have expanded on this structure, applying it more broadly to all types of storytelling.

At the same time, it’s important to acknowledge that there are many cultures where the three-act structure is not the predominant form, so we need to recognize that while this framework applies to a lot of fiction, it is far from globally universal. That said, this structure is compatible with a broad range of stories across many different genres, so it is useful to understand how it works.

In fact, I’m thinking of doing a series of newsletters where I analyze different films or books according to this structure, showing just how broadly it applies. I thought for today, it would make sense to start with a discussion of what the three-act structure actually is. Then we can come back and apply it to different works in later installments.

The Three-Act Structure

When I think of the three-act structure, I use a simple formula: 3 + 2 = 1. There are three acts, plus two pivot points (where one act transitions to the next), and together these components equal one classic story structure. Most stories have three additional components: the midpoint at the center of Act 2, the climax in Act 3, and the denouement at the very end of the story. Let’s walk through these components step by step.

We begin the story in Act 1. This section needs to accomplish a couple of things. First, it must establish the status quo, where we learn what “normal” looks like in the character’s world. Think of this as being like the “before” picture in an infomercial. Without it, the “after” picture has no context and we have no basis of comparison. The same thing is true with storytelling. If we don’t establish the status quo, we have no sense for the transformation that comes later in the narrative.

Act 1 is also where you make five promises to your reader. These are: (1) a character to root for, (2) the voice of the narrative, (3) the world where the story takes place, (4) a problem, usually hinting at the central conflict, and (5) an event that prompts the story to start at that specific place and time. Most stories establish these promises within the first chapter, but there are some cases where an author might delay one or more of them to create a specific effect.

For example, in the book The Wainscott Weasel by Tor Seidler, the main character doesn’t appear until chapter 2. In fact, during the whole first chapter, the reader comes to believe that a different character might be the protagonist. It’s not until we’re deep into chapter 2 that we realize who the main character really is.

I had the pleasure of having this author as my professor in the MFA program, so when I read this book, I asked him: “What was that about? Why did you delay the appearance of that main character?” He explained that the protagonist for the story was extremely shy, and it would not have been true to his personality to put him front and center in chapter 1. Instead, it made more sense to hold him back and wait to introduce him when the story was more underway. This is an example of a story that artfully breaks one of the five promises.

When we get to the end of Act 1, we reach the first pivot point in the narrative. This is a point where an external event occurs to shake things up for the main character, and then that character must make an important internal choice. Usually, that external event is easier to spot, but the internal choice is much more important. Think of it this way: a story is not a series of things that happen to your character. It’s a series of decisions your character makes in response to these external events. If the character is just buffeted to and fro, it does not make for a compelling story. Instead, the character should have agency and should drive the story forward. In the case of this plot point, it should operate as a “point of no return,” where—once the character makes their choice—there is no way back to the way things were.

After the first pivot point, we are now firmly planted in Act 2. This is often the longest of three acts and the hardest to get through, which is why many writers call it “the muddle in the middle.” One way to help keep Act 2 moving forward is to bring new supporting characters into play or build up subplots. Think of Act 2 in the film The Wizard of Oz, where Dorothy has landed in Oz and is exploring this magical new world. Here she meets her three new travel companions: the Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Lion. She also has several run-ins with her new nemesis, the Wicked Witch of the West. Had the film been nothing but Dorothy and Toto exploring Oz by themselves, it would have been horribly boring. Adding these supporting characters keeps Act 2 moving forward and gives the story momentum.

Another way to make progress through Act 2 is to use the Rule of Three. This technique groups similar elements together in threes. The number three is important because it is the smallest number where you can create a pattern and then break it. You can use the Rule of Three in any number of ways, for example: three supporting characters, three obstacles the protagonist faces, three different locations in the story’s world, or three significant items they discover on their journey.

The Rule of Three usually has two different flavors to it, and I call these the (1) Three Little Pigs and (2) Goldilocks. In the Three Little Pigs version, you have two similar things followed by a third that breaks the pattern. The first two pigs build their houses out of flimsy materials (straw and sticks) and the wolf easily blows them to the ground. The third house, however, is made of bricks, so it withstands the wolf’s huffing and puffing. In the Goldilocks version, you have two elements that are polar opposites of each other and a third one that is “just right.” The first two elements are similar to each other in that they are extremes, while the third element is the happy medium. When you find that Act 2 is beginning to stall, ask yourself: is there a way to use the Rule of Three to keep the momentum going?

Another important component of Act 2 is the midpoint. Often called the “mirror moment,” the midpoint is a moment of self-reflection where the protagonist looks inward and decides whether they like who they’ve become (and if not, what they’re going to do about it). The midpoint is different from the pivot points that occur where one act transitions to the next. It does not emphasize the character’s choice, but their inward state. If the character does make a choice at this juncture, it’s usually one that has to do with how they see themselves and who they want to be going forward. If the protagonist does not like who they have become, they can choose to make a change and the second half of the story becomes like a reversal—a mirror image—of the first. Not all stories have this mirror image structure, but many do have this moment of self-reflection at the midpoint.

At the end of Act 2, we come to another pivot point. Here the character comes to their lowest point, the moment where it seems like all is lost and nothing can possibly make things right. This is again a moment of choice for the protagonist, though in this case it is more subtle. The character must choose whether to continue on their current path, give up, or go in a new direction. Readers know the character is not going to give up. (It would be the world’s worst ending if they did!) Still, giving up must feel like a reasonable choice that the character could make. Just like with the first pivot point, there is usually an external event that drives this moment in the story followed by the character’s internal choice. Something must happen to make it feel like all is lost for the protagonist and then they must choose to keep going despite how bad things seem. The moment where they make that choice is often called the “dark night of the soul.”

Once we pass this second pivot point, we are solidly in Act 3 of the story. Here is where the tension rises until the story’s central conflict comes to a head at last. This moment is the climax and it is a scene (or sequence of scenes) where the major dramatic question of the story finally gets answered one way or another. The major dramatic question (or MDQ) is the question that drives the story. For example, the MDQ for Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games would be “Will Katniss survive the games?” and the MDQ for The Wizard of Oz film would be “Will Dorothy get back to Kansas?” Usually the MDQ is closely tied to the main character’s primary desire, the thing they most want in the story. Katniss wants to survive the Games and Dorothy wants to go back home, so it makes sense that the MDQs would focus on whether or not they achieve those things.

There are four possible ways in which a story can resolve at the climax, and these depend on the answers to two questions: (1) does the character get what they want? and (2) do they still want that thing? The diagram below shows the four possible endings based on the answers to these questions.

A happy ending occurs when the character gets what they want and they still want that thing (as in The Hunger Games or The Wizard of Oz). A tragic ending is when the character doesn’t get what they want, but they still want that thing (like in any Shakespearean tragedy). Where things get interesting is when the character doesn’t still want the thing they first pursued. If the character doesn’t get what they want but they don’t want it anymore, we have a “change of heart” ending (for example, Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen). If the character does get what they want, but they don’t want it anymore, it’s called a “be careful what you wish for…” ending, (example: Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton). Note that this last type of ending is relatively rare in novels. Often when a character gets what they want, it happens at the midpoint of the story (often called a Temporary Triumph), and then the character has that moment of introspection and realizes maybe what they wanted wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. We’re more likely to see this scenario as an ending in short stories and novellas than in novels.

Regardless of the type of ending, the climax is the moment where the central conflict of the story resolves, and after that happens, all we have left is the denouement. I’ve written about the denouement before. It’s that “sigh of relief” after the climax, that extra scene or two that wraps things up and gives the story a sense of closure. If the story were to end right at the point of the climax, it would be extremely unsatisfying for the reader. If the job of the climax is to answer the MDQ, then the job of the denouement is to answer the question: “So what?” At this juncture in the story, the reader wants to know what the point of this whole journey was. That’s the purpose of the denouement.

I once heard a writer explain that the best story endings are both surprising and inevitable. The reader shouldn’t be able to see the ending coming from a mile away, but when it gets there, it should feel like the story couldn’t have ended any other way. Sometimes the denouement also opens the door to more possibilities for where the story could go. This is especially true with books in a series, where one book’s ending might drop hints as to where the next book might go. Still, even in a series, the story needs to have a sense of closure, with each installment feeling like it has a true ending and not leaving the reader at a cliffhanger.

There you have it: an overview of the three-act structure. If you’re someone who loves plotting your story from beginning to end, this 3 + 2 = 1 formula can give you a basic framework, but you can fill in additional details to create your own unique story. If you’re a pantser, on the other hand (i.e. someone who writes by the seat of their pants), the 3 + 2 = 1 formula gives you a general direction without boxing you into a specific plot. You may not even use this structure while you’re drafting your book, and may only apply the concepts later in the revision stages. Regardless of your approach, I hope this format gives you some insights into story structure and that it helps you craft a compelling narrative.

Until next time, keep writing and keep being awesome!

The post Writer Fuel: The Three-Act Structure appeared first on DIY MFA.