Writer/Instructor and Script Consultant Shannan E. Johnson (The Professional Pen): This is the goal,
this is the story and the writer is doing this…
Film Courage: What are the elements of story that have to happen in Act 2?
Shannan: Oh good question. In Act 2 some people call this the fun and games place I call it the
trial and error place I look at it like this is your recipe this is your I want to bake a cake how
step one do this step two do this right so in act 2 we're actually watching the character try
to achieve the goal successfully or unsuccessfully so being able to see them actually take physical
steps towards doing that thing is what we're watching now we're going to start putting in the
complications and I like to call it complications and not conflict because people see conflict and
they go just add some negative something right but a complication is something that's very
specific to stand in the way of the goal right so they're going to start coming in contact with
things that are hindering them from getting what they need things that are redirecting them things
that are causing them to hit rock bottom and then you need a midpoint and your midpoint sounds like
what it is right happens kind of in the middle of your story doesn't have to literally be on page
45 of the 90 pages but it's gonna happen somewhere around there and it basically means that something
big enough happens to cause that redirection either i'm gonna hit rock bottom or I have a
false victory or I receive some information that changes my goal so I believe I gave this example
i've given this example before because it's the easiest one for me if my goal was to find
my kidnapped child at the midpoint i'd find out that my kidnapped child has already been killed
right that doesn't mean the story is over though because we're only at the midpoint that means
my my goal has to change so now my goal is not to find my child my goal is to find the killer
to get revenge to get justice and so for the rest of the screenplay we're gonna watch the the parent
do that right instead of looking after the child so the goal changes something causes a redirection
and then some people look at the climax as what happens at the end of act two some people look at
it as what happens at the beginning of act three either way it's in the same place in my opinion so
you're also going to be getting your character up to the point where they actually are
face to face with that goal or face to face with that antagonist so they can win or lose
so those are the biggest beats they need that trial and error time or fun and games time
or you know steps to their recipe time they need those complications that get in the way of that
so they can grow so they can redirect they need that big moment whatever that midpoint is
that causes a new goal makes them redirect makes them hit rock bottom so someone has to come in and
re-motivate them right now your mentor character gets to come in and give a speech or whatever
and keep get them going if you're watching an episode of grey's anatomy that's the moment where
it's like I found the new cure right at first we thought we'd never be able to do this surgery oh
no we didn't do well I found this new thing and now for the rest of the episode they're
gonna do the new thing until they win or lose or save the patient or not save the patient
and then you'll go up to the climax which is where they save the patient or not save the patient
so those are the beats that you're looking for in act two so if we used our pam from the office and
so she's at home doing the zoom she's already now met this woman at a store who says email
me i've got this really cool job if you want to make some extra money and pam is already doing
the job by act two maybe okay it depends on what the goal of the episode is so if we're looking at
meeting this woman as the inciting incident the problem can be deciding to call her or not
and if that's the pro if that's the goal deciding to call her
then the journey is going to be the decision now she's going to have to I don't know what
she's doing to figure out whether she should make this call or not but that may mean that everything
we're watching in her normal every day is telling her I need a change I need a new thing that
motivates the call because it could be the end of the episode where she finally makes the call
or it could be that I already know i'm gonna call I said I was gonna call so that means we're gonna
watch her call we're gonna watch her get set up with the new job we're gonna watch her do all of
that in the second act where she figures out what it is and then again seeing how that may cause
friction with her current job so it really again is always gonna depend on what's the intended goal
is is the pilot let's say this is her this is the pilot is the pilot about her choosing to go
into this nefarious work or is the pilot about I admit it what are the repercussions of it
okay so something would have to happen so let's say so and the stuff that was happening for her
to decide what happened in act one no that's going to be act two okay and only because we're
talking about television now and television if it's in television we need that inciting
incident by the end of act 1. so now your act two is going to be all the stuff that yeah I
decided to take the job I didn't decide to take the job this is why this is what's happening with
my other job and then in act 3 you resolve and and depending upon what the goal was if she's choosing
to take the job then in act three we finally hear her say i'm gonna take the job if it was
no i've chosen this job and the problem is trying to balance then by the end of act three we'll know
what the rest of the season is going to look like because we just saw how this balance works
or doesn't work or maybe she didn't find out that it was nefarious until the climax of the episode
so in act 3 she has to decide to continue even though she knows that it's nefarious
so it can go a million ways but basically whatever that goal is that we get by the
end of act one when that inciting incident happens she meets pam at the end of act one
pam says call me in act two we're gonna either see her call and then get on board it
or decide to call which means now we have to see well what motivates that because if this is so far
out of her life she would never do something like this then that means whatever's happening during
this day in this episode is the stuff that's pushing her to finally make the call okay so
maybe she gets a text in the middle of the night and it's urgent and they've got to fax something
overseas and hey i'm really sorry to bother you I know you're sleeping but this needs to happen asap
and then maybe she sees the webcam light come on on her work computer and she realizes there's like
some type of a snooping software and it's recording her and it knows that she took
like a 10-minute walk around the block and she wasn't at her computer and so she's now feeling
trapped by this job and she says okay I might email this interesting lady and the interesting
lady gets back to her like midnight hey here it is and this is what you do here's a link
and she goes maybe she has a glass of wine and she decides to apply for the job and now she's giving
reviews on lingerie it's not horrible it's like something where yeah because you know if we're
saying that it's in the tone of the office and that means it's a half hour single camera
so it's going to be you know kind of light kind of funny may have you know small things happen here
and there that could be a little darker right but that means we're talking about three act structure
and we're talking about half hours so we don't have a lot of time so it can be something that
simple that you know I got back I got this card oh i'd never do that and now i'm sleeping and
enjoying myself and here come these people saying they need this facts and this thing and that thing
and I just want something new all right don't make the call let's do something new okay
and so and then in act three something entirely different is going to happen possibly depending
upon what happened in your act two since it's all cause and effect but because we're talking about
television and because we're talking about the pilot by the time we get to the end of act three
we need to understand what the series is about so we need to know that she has decided to do this
and either we already know it's nefarious or we don't so that's what we're going to find out in
the series or we realize it's getting in the way of her current job and so we're gonna watch her
try to balance it throughout right so we'll we'll need that information so sometimes in
pilots usually when it's kind of like a whodunit kind of thing and a half hour single camera comedy
they usually tie up things with a pretty decent bow at the end of the episodes right but if we're
talking about one-hour dramas if we're talking about a whodunit kind of limited series thing
then at the end of every episode you're gonna give me some new information so yes something new is
to happen so that i'll come back to the next episode and that new information might be
it wasn't who you thought it was you know or this is a new person's doing something sneaky or
whatever it is yeah what mistakes do writers make in act 2 that end up ruining their screenplay yeah
this is where you know they don't know structure this is where you know they haven't figured out
what their story was before they got to the page because this is where uncle such and such shows up
this is where this is the goal this is the story and the writer is doing this
because they don't know what the goal or the story is or they don't know how to get to z from a
and you know maybe it's because they're just a new writer so they really just don't know how
or they don't understand structure so they're doing all of these other things to get to z
but none of those things connect going back to cause and effect none of those things connect
so that happens quite often and I think that's the biggest thing sometimes there is no midpoint
and you know depending upon what kind of story it is what the tone is what the genre is the
midpoint doesn't have to be something huge but it's you know bigger than your other
trials and tribulations so sometimes people are missing that thing that gets us over the hump
because once we get into act two and you get into those those trials and tribulations if it's take
a step fail take a step fail take a step fail by the time they're doing that the fourth time
i'm no longer invested you know what I mean I need something that's going to change this thing to get
us going in the story so it goes back to you know having that friend or cousin who's really great
at telling stories right they know how to hook us in make us think that this one thing is happening
and then take us to the next thing right so that midpoint kind of gets us over that hump of they've
been trying and failing or trying and succeeding and here's something that's going to change this
whole thing for us so that the pacing can kind of start to rev up and we can get to the climax
so a lot of times that's missing also the climax is missing but more so in television pilots that
I read than in features it seems like future writers kind of understand a little bit more that
there needs to be this high point in tv because people are thinking about the series and if you're
writing a pilot then you're you know creating a world and characters that people can be invested
in they sometimes forget about the structure of it and forget that yeah but we're still telling
a story so I need them I need we got to get up right and so a lot of times that's missing
and so if you're writing a half hour single camera comedy that means or a dramedy then you have three
acts so your climax is gonna happen at the end of act two or at the top of act three depending
upon how you write it if you're doing a one hour drama and let's just stay in the five act place
because there's a four act that exists in the six act whatever let's stay in the five act place then
it's gonna happen at the end of act four or top of act five depending upon how you write it so a
lot of the times in tv there's just it never makes it to a peak it just kind of stays here the whole
time and no matter what stories you're telling pilots features even if you're writing a spec and
you're doing an episode of something we're looking for stories to do this we're on a roller coaster
so we don't want to spend our whole time like this we don't want to spend our whole time like
this we don't want to spend the whole time like that we have to have all of it happening if not
it's not a fun ride and no one wants to get on it and so uncle gus's method would be he would just
be selling too much sort of sidebar detail that we don't need whereas the other person at the
let's say the family barbecue they have like a a b and c a very clear point very clear points
a very clear path and by the time uncle you know gus is done and you ask uncle gus so what happened
he probably wouldn't even tell you the same story if you asked again right because he's
just talking about everything and doesn't know you know his his point his end goal right or he gets
to the end goal but we're all lost because none of the stuff between when he started in the end
goal made any sense because they're not connected everything has to be connected right and the other
cousin knows how to make a connect to b connect to c connect to d uncle gus is saying a g you know e
m and it's like wait but what happened to b and c and d you know I got missing something
like give me this other information and he's cracking himself up no one else is laughing
because we miss the joke you know what I mean yes that kind of stuff that starts happening.