Film Courage: As a script doctor what do you see most
screenwriters get wrong with the second act of their screenplays?
Cody Smart, Writer/Script Doctor/Teacher: Writers sort of forget to keep surprising the audience.
They write this killer first act where maybe the first three pages are really engaging, the
inciting incident is great but then the story just becomes this low and they're kind of just making
us wait until act three where they'll deliver all of the big things again. They sort of forget
that act 2 is kind of the bulk of your story, that central conflict should be in motion, so
they tend to kind of forget that they should be tracking the protagonist arc through that. A lot
of times one of the things I see is that they do set up the protagonist well in act one, they
set up their core wound, they flaw we know what they need to overcome, but then we don't actually
see the evolution of that enact two we just see a change in act three that kind of suddenly happens
because oh it needed to happen because it was set up that's what act 2 should be about we should
be seeing that central conflict evolve we should see ups and downs and that emotional journey the
midpoint should throw us in a different direction and help us see the growth in the character
help us see that change that will happen if we're talking about Juno for example
she has this ups and down when she's talking about whether she should keep the baby or not
and act two is really good because she goes into the subplot with the potential
adopted father that they start bonding and they have this kind of friendship where the
adopted dad kind of starts resembling Juno if you pay attention to like the little details he
starts dressing more and more like her which is a brilliant thing that they did in the movie the
costume department was great about that so they Implement that that's one of the things in the
second act that you should always bring into things that subplot that kind of revives the
story after the midpoint because that's one of the problems with Act 2 right we always say that act 2
is where things get kind of like lull and boring because it's kind of long so you should bring new
things into the mix if you're thinking about Back to the Future for example after the midpoint where
all of the excitement is about getting back to the future and everything happening we get the
subplot of the parents right he needs to get his parents back together or he won't exist in present
time so that's where things get interesting with kind of an outside story which is the parents
this love subplot of bringing them together and like the dance and everything and that's what
you should be giving to your story you should but at the same time that supplement still reflects
on his emotional arc we are not forgetting about it he still needs to grow and understand because
part of his core wound and Back to the Future is that Marty is kind of like fed up with his
family and doesn't like what he has he's bored he doesn't get it he needs to kind of fall in
love again with his parents and the relationship they have and he does that through helping them
fall in love in the past so he'll exist in the future but then when he actually gets back to the
future and the resolution of that movie we get that his family has kind of improved right the
relationship with the parents then everything is much better because he played a part in that past
but that's the beauty of it we're still tracking his arc even through that subplot he's still
growing and evolving so we see that change in him at the end act two in a movie would be different
than act two in a TV series yes well it depends on what you're thinking if you're thinking of
hour or an hour long show right usually hour-long shows have a teaser and five acts and a half hour
show has a teaser and three acts so they're kind of structured a little different and yes
obviously we have streaming these days where we don't technically see acts because we don't
see commercial breaks but I believe that writers should still kind of be writing with that concept
in mind whether they put that on their page or not because that helps you track the emotional arc
so I always say that when you're analyzing television and when you're writing a pilot
whether you keep the act breaks or not on the page which you can or can't do whatever you decide
every act out should map your protagonist's emotional arc so you should always end an arc
on your protagonist and tracking that arc so if you're thinking about a pilot you're tracking how
let's say Breaking Bad you're tracking Walter's journey into becoming whoever he's going to become
right so the different act breaks and Breaking Bad would relate to finding out he has cancer and then
deciding he's going to reach out to Jesse Pinkman and things like that always tracking him and that
arc and change that they're doing so in that sense if you're kind of like trying to compare the arc
of TV versus the art the accent TV versus the ax on features sort of like the problem of act two
that you see in a feature compared to television would be either act two and a half hour or acts
kind of like three in like an hour long show which is kind of like in the middle where you're like
oh where are things going I'm showing like the subplots that's where you should introduce really
your subplots and your secondary characters because in television your supporting cast
is really important because they're still part of the core cast of your show so in a pilot obviously
you try to focus more on your protagonist because that that's really who the story is about and then
maybe in future episodes you'll focus more on the other characters but you should still introduce
all of that in the pilot and it's sort of like in the middle where you should bring them in and kind
of start showing like the B C or D stories with them and all of the subplots to really lighten
things up when things are getting like oh my goodness we're getting a little bored about this
like main story of the protagonist let's bring in the supporting cast and reflect the same themes or
things that they're going through through them and help them see where they're going and so is that
something you spend the most time with in with a lot of new writers is working on that second
act yes that's a lot of the the work I would say especially tracking that arc tracking the
protagonist showing that they need to be tracking things and not just expect a sudden change at the
end let's say this morning I was working on a script for a writer and I was writing my notes
and everything and they have a great setup for what they want the character to do it's a common
of age story so usually the teenager has to grow and learn something because something happens to
them right they could be injury or they could have a heartbreak or whatever by the end but then act
two kind of doesn't show us any of that growth what you want is to track all of that so give us
little a little journey show us why we should be watching this and how that ending is going to come
so for example if you have someone that needs to overcome a stutter track that through act 2 before
they have the big speech that they might give in act three where they're not stuttering anymore
so show us all of the obstacles they have to face perhaps they fall for someone and then makes them
start even more then they get an other obstacle in the way because they have to do a presentation
they're set up for a project at school and they're like how am I going to do that I won't be able to
present and then my crush is going to be watching me it's going to be even worse so give us those
tidbits that keep tracking that arc when you're setting up those uploads of the love story and
how am I going to handle that if I'm looking at a person that makes me stutter even more and then
set up that they have to do a project because then by the end we're expecting that we're expecting
that the promise coming or the project they have to give a speech or something like that tease
that so we know that they're working towards something and we're tracking that evolution.