How to Tell a Great Story in Three Acts - Story Structure for Authors

Join Drake and Marie as they discuss how to use the 3 act structure to your advantage.
 
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Transcript

Marie: That's it. That's all structure is. It's a scaffolding. It's it's, it's just a guideline. It's, it's just and not everything is going to resonate with you and not everything is going to resonate with every story that you do.

Marie: So there are some things that you might use one thing for and other things where you're like, Wow, But this story, I really want to use this other structure for because of what I'm doing, you know, the revenge story arc, the romance story arc,

Marie: It's very similar to the Hero's Journey. Matter of fact when I'm teaching my heroes and maybe we'll do that in the next podcast, I'll kind of push in because that's what I do when I'm teaching my Hero's Journey classes.

Marie: I actually have, as I'm going through the hero's journey story arc, I'm going, and if you're doing romance, this would be this moment. This would be this, because they're very, very similar in what they give. But again, are they very, very similar? Because it doesn't matter. Somebody wanting to read, somebody falling in love versus somebody defeating a demon

Drake: Releasing your inner dragon.

Drake: So Drake. Tell us about the three act structure.

Marie: You know. No, I'm not going to tell you about the three act structure I'm going to take it. I want to chase a rabbit. Okay? Because I think the number one thing that I've found in the decades of teaching this, when I start getting on the subject of of structure or plotting or, you know, the hero's journey or whatever, the number one thing that I get pushback on is, don't want to learn structure.

Marie: It will hurt my creativity. I don't want to you know, I want to hurt myself. I want to. And, you know, the funny thing is, every time I read people who say that it's not not a huge amount, but there's still plenty. But the people that read this say that to me. I read their stuff or look at their stuff or whatever.

Marie: And I'm like, Yeah, you need to learn structure. This is horrible. And they're like, Yeah, you know, I've only got five reviews and they're all one star, but I love what I do and I don't want to learn structure, you know, I'll figure it out and I want to start there. I want to start with because in one of my classes I do this thing that tends to impact a lot of people.

Marie: And so I kind of want to start by sharing my screen. So for you that are not on YouTube, if you're not watching this live, you'll still get it because I'm just going to read it to you. But if you want head on over to YouTube and you can actually watch the slide as I'm doing it.

Marie: But let me let me do that and then I'll throw the question back to you once we get this. So let me share my screen and let's just kind of go through this. So let's go through of probably the most moneymaking IP in the history of ever, which is the Star Wars franchise. And it was all built off of the very first Star Wars movie, which is star Wars a new hope.

Marie: So this is basically just the synopsis of Star Wars, A new hope. It starts off Luke Skywalker is an orphan living with his aunt and uncle on a remote planet. Luke is rescued by from aliens by a wise mentor named Obi-Wan Kenobi, who turns out to be a Jedi knight. Obi-Wan tells Luke that his father is also a Jedi knight and was the best pilot ever.

Marie: Luke is instructed on how to use the force and the lightsaber so he can become a Jedi Knight as well. Through a series of mini adventures in the galaxy, Luke develops his skills and talents, and he also makes two close friends in Han Solo and Princess Leia. Luke also learns that his real nemesis is Darth Vader, who murdered his father.

Marie: And then at the end, Luke shows this new world that he can be a top pilot while battling the Death Star and making a direct hit that gives the rebels victory over the Empire. And then it ends the last scene. It ends with Luke and his new friends receiving medals of our. Now this. It's one of the most moneymaking IPs in the history of humanity, and it is incredibly structure oriented.

Marie: You know, Star Wars is used so often in teaching the hero's journey because it is literally a step by step guide to the hero's journey. Now, George Lucas actually took the Hero's Journey class from Joseph Campbell. You know, he was a student of Joseph Campbell. So, you know, it's no it's no big secret. Why he would be follow this.

Marie: But let's see, his structure hurts. So let's bounce forward 20, 30 years and let's look at the synopsis for Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, the first Harry Potter movie. So for those that you can't see, it still has the Star Wars synopsis on top of it. And basically we're going to go through here and I'm going to read the same synopsis by just changing out names.

Marie: So Harry Potter is an orphan living with his aunt and uncle in remote suburbia. Harry is rescued from muggles by a wise mentor named Hagrid who turns out to be a wizard. Hagrid tells Harry that his father was also a wizard and he was the best Quidditch player ever. Harry is instructed on how to use magic and a flying broom so he can become a wizard as well.

Marie: Through a series of mini adventures in Hogwarts, Harry develops his skills and talents and makes two close friends and Ron and Hermione. Harry also learns that his real nemesis is Voldemort, who murdered his parents. Harry shows this new world that he can be a top Quidditch player while battling, slithering and a catch that gives Gryffindor victory over slithering.

Marie: And that includes with Harry and his new friends winning the House Cup. It is literally the exact same movie. It literally follows the exact same structure.

Drake: It's so I have a slight push back there and that is the that the the Harry Potter summary left out the fight against Voldemort.

Marie: Certain you know going that route that he just doesn't use his flying broom in there and I wanted to use the flying broom to kind of tie the two together because they're both flying. But I mean, I could have done the same thing and still just used the fight with Voldemort, set up the fight with the Death Star. It's still the exact same structure.

Marie: They both follow the hero's journey to the T. And here's the thing. Yeah, I guarantee you, any one of us would love to write a story that was as successful as either of those two IPs. Learning structure does not hurt your creativity. It frees it. Learning structure will help you develop more dynamic stories will help you develop more creative stories when you do that and not just help you create them, but it'll help you create them more successfully.

Marie: Because structures have been developed over thousands of years. No one created structure. No one sat down like the Hero's journey was really developed from Joseph Campbell by just looking at hundreds and thousands of stories for the last thousands and thousands of years and going, there's a pattern in every one of these stories. They all have this about the same time, and they all have that about the same time.

Marie: And that's really all structure is. It's it's understanding the psychology of.

Drake: A read this. Yeah the structure is the descriptive, not prescriptive.

Marie: Right.

Drake: That the structure was defined by stories that existed. It describes the structure of stories.

Marie: Yes.

Drake: Yes. You can use it as a tool to define your own story so that you follow a read the pattern that a reader is familiar with and wants to experience the story through. But it is a descriptive element not a prescriptive.

Marie: Yeah, exactly. And that's why it's adjustable. That's why it's once you learn it, then when you make adjustments and you change things and do things, I mean, like, you know, I don't I'm not a huge fan of Stephen King's, just not my bag. But one of the most amazing things in writing, in my opinion, is how he pulled off doing the everyman moment in The Shawshank Redemption in act three.

Marie: That doesn’t ever go in Act three like you can't put the Everyman moment accurately, and yet that's when you're, you know, and that movie is when you go, he's innocent. He's he's just like me. He didn't murder his wife. Holy cow. And then you look at the fugitive is basically the exact same movie. We had the everyman moment and Act one where almost everyone else puts it because we know he didn't murder his wife.

Marie: We were there with when he caught the murderer murdering his wife. We know he was framed, so we already connected to him that way. So that's the thing. Structure allows. And I guarantee you, Stephen King and I don't know this for a fact, this is just my opinion, but I will bet you he you know, what he was doing.

Marie: And he's like, I wonder if I could pull this off. What if I could really mess with the readers and not connect them to the reader and to the character until Act three? And it's because he really has a great understand of structure. So with that out of the way now let's get back to the original question. What is the three act play?

Drake: Marie? So the three act play is actually a very simple structure. It is the setup, the conflict, the conclusion. That's actually what the three act structure is. Now. We've had a great producer who's given us some viewing material that's been fantastic and every single other video on this topic basically based the hero's journey onto the three act play.

Drake: But you don't have to use the three act. You don't have to use the hero's journey in the three act play. The three act play is just those three things you can fit any other structure or no other structure in there. As long as you meet setup conflict resolution, you're in a three act play. We are also going to talk about the other potential structures that you can have in this episode.

Drake: So tell us about the one and two acts.

Marie: So yeah, and you kind of touched on this, but I do want to do a shout out to Monique because she has been an amazing gift to us this year and it's changed everything. So all the other videos that she gave us in the past for research where they are, everyone has good things to say. Sometimes I don't think they teach it as well as whatever.

Marie: But but you should be watching a lot of videos, listening to a lot of things, studying a lot of things. Because the reality is, is what you're looking for is you're looking for someone to say something in a way that you go, I finally get that. And then start using that because, you know, you can hear the same thing about the three act play from five different people and four of them.

Marie: It just doesn't really sink in until somebody says something. You're like, I finally get it. The trick is to just use that as a starting point. So now you finally get it. Great. Now start growing it because the way you use something at the beginning of your career is not going to be we're going to use it in the middle of your career.

Marie: It's not going be the way of your needs. At the end of your career, you're going to grow. So with those videos that, like you said, they kept just really describing the hero's journey. And the thing that frustrated me about that was I just wrote a story for Harn World. I used the Hero's Journey. It's a one act play.

Marie: I've written many musicals, you know, in a musical you have a 20 minute section where the audience stands up and leaves like you. You have to structure it in a way where the end of that first act has something that makes them want to come back and watch it. You don't want them out there eating their snacks and going, Do you really want to stay for the next act?

Marie: I mean, this is boring. And then they bolt so, you know, you have this structured way and it's a two act play because of that break in the middle and yes, the three act play, most of us use the direct play. The hero's journey fits really comfortable on three to play. But I've used the two act play are that the hero's journey for my one act plays my two act plays never written a five act play.

Marie: We're going to talk about it. You've you've got way more experience in five act plays than I do.

Drake: But I will also modify it. I have way more thoughts, not necessarily experience.

Marie: True. That's true. I mean, yeah, the five act play is kind of a a more antique way of of storytelling as opposed to where we're at now. But still, even the funny thing is, is the three act play the reason why it's so prevalent, like you said, those three things, that literally is what a story is. We have to have a setup page or, you know, some of the things that I like to call Act one is more connection.

Marie: Act one is the connection. I'm going to connect you to the world. I'm going to connect you to the character, I'm going to connect you to the conflict. All of that has to happen. Why does that have to happen at the beginning of every story? Because there's got to be a reason for the reader to want to read it or to watch it or to consume it.

Marie: Like you don't do that at the end, but you have to have a connection point. You have to have that setup, you have to have a reason, otherwise they never go any further. So it's a natural little, hey, we've got we got that there. But it has to happen in act in a one act play, and it has to happen in a two act play when we get into the conflict.

Marie: You know, we have the story, the trials and tribulations of the road of trials, the the fun and games. There's so many different terms that it's called, but there's got to be a story that doesn't matter if you're writing in one act, Act five Act, There has to be some type of journey, either internally or externally or whatever, and then something has to resolve.

Marie: I mean, I've bitched many a time on this podcast of how much I hate movies and stories that that just don't end. And it's like, why did you take the time to create this if nothing is resolved? Like, why do I just waste my time with you? So that's why even when in a want to clean it, to act play, you're really kind of going through the same steps as a three point play.

Marie: You just don't have these delineating marks.

Drake: And I think that that is because the thing that people don't understand about the hero's journey and about the other structure that we're going to talk about is they're also about the internal journey that a character takes. It is not just about the plot events, and you can have the plot events divorced from the character journey. Not fully divorced, obviously, but but somewhat divorced in your three act structure, you can be like, these are the things that need to happen in the plot because I have multiple characters, because I have multiple scenarios, I've got the bad guys actions, etc., etc..

Drake: Right? And then this is the journey that the character takes, the growth journey that they take their internal conflict and that maps onto the hero's journey or onto Dan Harmon story cycle, which I'll take us through.

Marie: Yeah.

Drake: So that that is is my kind of key takeaway is that you have to remember the plot can be slightly separate that yes, of course the characters are deeply part of the plot. Yes, of course. That's why the plot happens, etc.. But they still plot events that don't necessarily match the character that still goes into different.

Marie: Yeah, I mean, there's still something internal that they're struggling with that may not. Well, I mean, a great example of that would be V for Vendetta. Now I'm cheating a little bit because we have both an external story arc and internal story arc. But VI is struggling internally with her own kind of what society she would like to live in.

Marie: And then V is struggling with destroying this society that he hates to hopefully replace it with a better society. So you have the external struggle of that war that's on between V and the government. But then you do have like, like that whole part where VI goes, where she thinks she's kidnaped by the government and she thinks she's being tortured by the government and she thinks she's going to be murdered by the government.

Marie: And then it turns out that it was just V all along because needed to show her the reality of what things were like. I mean, that really has nothing to do with attacking the government. That has nothing to do with that external war. That's that internal thing. And so, yeah, I mean, it's we do have that ability, but to kind of put a pin in the one act two act, and then I want you to at least give your thoughts on the five Act.

Marie: It's still about the psychology of readers. It's still about so even if you're doing a one act play, it just means that you don't have these, you don't have time. You know, Just short stories I think are different. But novellas, I think, is where my mind wraps around one act. I'm not saying you can't do a one story in a short story I can't do.

Marie: I'm my my short stories are Twilight episodes. They are all set up and then a twist, just some mind altering mind screw kind of twist at the end. So they're really just like a Twilight Zone episode. That's the way I look at them. That's where I write them. That's just kind of my thing. But once I get into 20,000, 15,000, 20,000, 25,000 words, that's when I can go, okay, this is a journey for me.

Marie: I can actually make that. So like the Harn World story is 25,000 words

Marie: So when I get to a novella size, that's when I can start thinking about, you know, a set up a conflict and an end a resolution. So I just don't have, like, lot of things we're going to talk about in the three act play with different moments like pinch points and and all this other stuff.

Marie: You just don't have that kind of time. You don't have time to make an entire scene that is, you know, the aha moment. It just kind of has to happen while the other stuff is happening. And then same thing with a two act play. You just have to know that that middle of that story has to be this massive cliffhanger that makes them want to come back 20 minutes later to finish that.

Marie: The show it's still all the same thing. Really. What you're doing is just trying to figure out how much time you have and how to best utilize that time to psychologically manipulate your reader to wanting to continue. Because that's, you know, and I use I know a lot of people don't like the word like it when I say you're manipulate your readers, but that's what we're doing.

Marie: We're just not doing it for evil. We're manipulating them for good. You know, I'm going to manipulate you to like this character. This character's not real, but I'm going to manipulate you in not only thinking the characters real and the world there in is real, but I'm going to get you into liking that character and wanting to see them succeed and wanting to, you know, watch them grow and overcome.

Marie: And then I'm going to manipulate you. The bad things are happening in their world and they're not real like nothing's happening to them. And then I'm going to manipulate you at the end to care about the overcome that that that you're like, Yes, I'm so happy that I took this journey with them. And maybe if I'm really good, I'll manipulate you into wanting to be a better person at the end of it.

Marie: Because you learned a lesson. You learned, you know, maybe you should try harder in life or be a better parent or be a better spouse or just be a better neighbor or whatever. So it still is I still do see it as manipulation. I just see it as manipulation for good and not manipulation for evil. But yeah, that's really it.

Marie: I mean, that's the the structure is time. And when you need certain things. So in a three act play, which 95% of everything today is, is told off a direct play, maybe 99% of everything told today is on a three act play. It's just we've been looking at stories for 10,000 years. We've been watching which ones rise to the top and succeed.

Marie: And last year after year after year because I mean, we all know Beowulf, we all know the Iliad. We all know, you know, some of these really famous stories have been around for hundreds of years, thousands of years. But like somebody asked me one time, if you could travel back in time, what would you do if you could only do it once, what would you do?

Marie: And my answer is instead, I would go to the library Alexandria the week before it burnt down and take everything because we lost hundreds of thousands of stories that that was the only copy of what was in there. What what did that library contain that the mob just burnt down to the ground? So but the reality is the stories that stick are the stories that follow certain aspects.

Marie: This structure that we talked about. Why does you know Stephen King Not my words. Stephen King Stephen King said J.K. Rowling with Harry Potter. Stephanie Myers with Twilight.

Drake: Twilight.

Marie: They wrote the same story. The difference is one of them will still be relevant 20 years from now. And he said that about 20 years ago. And if we look now, one of them is still very relevant, still selling books, still making money, still, you know, has an IP going and the other ones are not. And it's because Rowling did a better job of hitting the right moments at the right times to push the right buttons, to manipulate the people to care at the right moments so that they really walk away from that story feeling fulfilled from the journey.

Marie: Whereas depending on who you are, like my wife, her favorite story about Twilight is she's like, Yeah, I read Twilight. I didn't want to. And my friends were like, you have to. It's the greatest. And she's like, So I read Book one and I hated it. And so I was done. And they're like, No, no, no. It gets much better in book two.

Marie: You have to read it. And she's like, Fine, It didn't get better for her. And she's like, I hate it even more now. And that's only because I know I get it, I get it. But book three, book three is it. It's great. And she's like, fine. She's like, was it better? It actually got worse.

Drake: And so if you want to read that kind of vampire action read, read the Sookie Stackhouse books, they're way better. Yeah, they're fun.

Marie: Yeah, exactly. I mean, and, you know, she enjoyed those way better. Now, again, I'm just telling you, this is this you know, it's subjective. So this is just what my wife. If you're a huge fan of Twilight, then awesome. Then you got exactly what you paid for. I never want to see a story be unsuccessful and stories that I don't like.

Marie: I never want. I never put down on people who are like, I love that story. Great. I'm so happy that. I you know, you didn't waste your money, but I did like that. At least you got your value. And that is awesome because I don't want people to not have value in stories. So But yeah, that's really it.

Marie: I mean, just kind of bring it back structure is really just that it's understanding that we as human beings, we do have times where we need certain things. And if you give us those things in your stories, at those times, we're going to like your story more. We're going to connect to the story more. When you don't give us those things at those times, then it doesn't mean that we won't enjoy your story.

Marie: It just means we won't enjoy it as much. It may mean we don't enjoy it. It may mean we put it down. It may mean we leave you a one star review and tell all our friends that it's terrible. But you're always going to find an audience. It's just how big is that answer? And the more you understand structure, the more you have the ability of really nailing those moments when the reader needs those moments.

Marie: And so that's really it. And then. Before we

Drake: dive into Yeah, before we dive into how you put different character journeys onto the three act structure, because we'll look, we'll look at two and we won't just restrict ourselves The hero's journey. I just want to discuss the five act structure. So the five act structure is typically used by Shakespeare, for example, and the principle of the five act structure is that you have an Act one, which is the Prolog.

Drake: Normally then you have a an Act one conflict guy. And so you Prolog sets up the world. Then in Act one you have a conflict. Then in Act two, you have rising action. Then in Act three, you have the climax of the story. And then in Act four, you have falling action leading into a. Now if you look at Hamlet, which is a, you know, great example of this, the Prolog basically tells us who the characters are in the setting and so on.

Drake: And then the Act one conflict is that Hamlet is seeking revenge, his uncle, and he struggles with the authenticity of the ghost that he saw. And he's indecisive about how to proceed. Act two is the rising action, which is basically Hamlet trying to figure out if Claudius truly killed his father and him organize. The play. You know, the play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the King and then Act three.

Drake: The climax is the play. That is actually where the story climaxes. It's the play And when Claudius leaves the play and Hamlet has that opportunity to kill him and he backs away from it. That's the climax of the play. And then the falling action is just that, the downhill all the way into tragedy. So it's Hamlet confronting his mother, killing Polonius, Ophelia drowning herself then the fencing match.

Drake: Yeah. He gets kicked out of the kingdom.

Marie: Pirates, if I remember correctly.

Drake: It's a it's a it's a long shot. But anyway, so everybody dies because it's a tragedy. But but basically that that long slope down is the the falling action and the tournament after the climax. So an act, a five act story moves your climax point to earlier in the story and gives you a way longer falling action and the now but now and then I think.

Marie: That does lead to we'll be remiss if we don't say this. That does lead to the final end, which is him killing himself and everybody else in the final.

Drake: The everybody dies.

Marie: Right?

Drake: So the thing is, I think that the five act play actually works really well for political fantasies. And I might actually do a full episode over on Just in Time world's on this because I talk about political. Polit political fantasy. They're quite a bit the thing is because political fantasy has a climax point that involves societal change. If you move that climax point to earlier in your story to the 60% mark and you give yourself that longer falling action.

Drake: And then now you can slide down into the impact that this has had, which is what makes the political fantasy, which is what is satisfying to readers of political fantasy, right? Because they're not just reading it for like Viva la Revolution and there were people in the streets. They're reading it for like the impact, the changes, the societal structures and all of those kinds of things.

Drake: And that is best shown in that very long development structure. So I do think there's a place for the five act structure, but I think you need to have a specific story in mind that needs the longer the now and falling action structure.

Marie: Yeah.

Drake: Robin Hobb actually kind of used that in her lost the Lost book of her series with Fitz. There was a very long development where she wrapped up everybody story arcs in a very kind of slow way and took you through them, you know, like, like a slow, long falling action and dénouement and I think to a certain extent, Joe Abercrombie's first law does that.

Drake: So you have the climax with a save the world and then you have the long, slow descent into tragedies. Everybody returns home very, very Shakespeare.

Marie: Yeah. And it's the reason why in like I'm proposing a Shakespeare play, I'm actually turning into a novel. And when I sat down with it, I still turned it into a three act play, even though technically, you know, he wrote it in a five act play. But that's not.

Drake: That. You can always change the structure of the thing by combining certain parts and elements of it shortening your drop down period and so on. Yeah, that the differences in how long is your slope down off to. It's not. Yeah. Yeah.

Marie: Really for me it's, it's when so a structure is more like a scaffolding so it's when do you pin the story onto the moments that the reader needs at those times. So like, you know, with the everyman moment for the hero's journey, we're going to put that in Act one. Why? Because that's the moment where the reader gets to go, this guy's just like me.

Marie: I can relate to that. I got family, I got a wife, I got a husband, I've got children, I've got desires, I've got a job, I've got I'd like to get a promotion. I'd like to get a, you know, find a girlfriend or boyfriend. I'd like to you whatever whatever it is. And and so it's that's kind of really hard to do.

Marie: Like I said, with the Stephen King Shawshank Redemption, really hard to do. Connect three after you've already gone through the whole thing.

Drake: And you did it. I mean, you know you can do it. Yeah.

Marie: It's I am not a Stephen fan and I'm a huge Shawshank fan. That story is off the charts. Well written. But, you know, again, for the most part, most readers, because again, I don't know if I think of any story of The Shawshank Redemption where they put the everyman moment at the end of the story pretty much, why do we put the everyman moment in Act one?

Marie: Because we need to hook the reader. We need to make the reader care about this person so that they'll go through the rest of the story. And so it really is just about understanding the psychology of readers. That's what all this is about, and that's all Joseph Campbell did. But the hero's journey as he sat down and he went, Why do these stories have why have these stories risen and stayed for hundreds of years, thousands of years in the the psyche of humanity?

Marie: It's because they resonate. Why do they resonate? Well, they all seem to always this at this moment and always do this at this moment and always do this at this moment. I wonder if that's because we as humans need those things at those moments, and then we start testing it out. And now we're in the information age where there's just a plethora of stories.

Marie: And sure enough, the stories that really resonate with people, they're still hitting these same structure points and that's why we say.

Drake: It's like, So I

Drake: One of our peanut gallery says in the comments. So structure is our way of mapping out the natural flow of the human psyche through stories. Yes, that is very well-put.

Marie: Yeah, that's it.

Drake: It's just the natural structure of how people consume stories and it's pretty universe.

Marie: Yeah. And yet now culture does affect a little bit. And I do want to talk about that for a second. But before I do that, it's one of the reasons why, like with the thing I did at the beginning of this where I went through Star Wars and Harry Potter, it doesn't limit you at all. It actually frees.

Marie: So I've had so many people come up to me after like one of my class, like my plot in class or something like that, and I'll be like, my God, took six years. I spent 200 grand and six years on an MFA program, and I learned more about theme in the last 45 minutes from you than I did in the entire six years.

Marie: And the heartbreaking thing is, a lot of people that go through those MFA programs, they'll come up to me and they'll say, Yeah, I have never written since I left the MFA program when I learned that every story is exactly the same, it broke my heart. I don't want to do it. Why would I try? And then they're like, And then I just watch your class.

Marie: And now I finally get it. Because, yes, when you learn structure, you're free. You're freed to really be creative because you know that you need to come up with a creative way to hook the reader and connecting with the character in that every moment you know that your pinch points, you're meant to climax, you're false, overcomes you're, you, that the reader needs these things at these times.

Marie: So now you can just creatively come up with these these moments in your story, but you also are realized that the terrifying ness that, my God, I'm literally telling the same story that every single human being has told for 10,000 years, and I have to do it and make it feel different. I can't actually make it different.

Marie: You can't make a different wheel if you put triangles on your car, it's going to suck. Like round is a wheel. That's what works. That's the only thing that's work. I mean, you could say, Well, what about treads? But it's it's a bunch of round wheels, you know, they're doing a tread, it's still round. Any other shape is going to destroy your vehicle.

Marie: And it's the same thing with stories You can't make your own structure because that's we as humans need things at certain times. So when you learn structure, it's great. But it is a little terrifying because you're like, but now I'm using the same structure as everyone else. But, but, but that's why I do the Harry Potter and Star Wars.

Marie: No one walked of here out of Harry Potter and went, I want my money back. I've already seen this. It was Star Wars. I've always seen it Star Wars. You know, all of that is is terrible. No one, because everything feels different. It is exactly the same, but it feels different. And that's all we're doing the same thing about guitar.

Marie: Guitars have six strings and unlimited combinations of sounds. You're not going to invent a new string. You're just going to invent a new way to mixing what you already have. And that's really what it is.

Drake: We've got to get a good comment from the peanut gallery. Endless ways to Save the cat, which is. Yes, exactly. There are endless ways to save the cat. I just want to say.

Marie: There’s more than one way to skin them. Yeah.

Drake: So I want to say briefly that in in Asian storytelling you often have a four act structure, but it it is very much like you'll see the same rhythm. It's an introduction, it's a development. Then there's a twist which might not be as climactic as the Western climax, but it's still kind of like the concluding moment, the thing at the pinnacle of your story.

Drake: And then you have the conclusion.

Marie: Yeah, so good.

Drake: So it's the same principle steps because you've got to introduce, you got to have some kind of like development to conflict or something, and then you got to have like the, the thing and then you've got to conclude like, yeah.

Marie: And that's where I was going to get into cultures can impact how you know, what stories are relevant, but the structure underneath is usually pretty the same. So like one of my private clients, one of the books I have over there that has my name in it, the only thing that is English is the dedication to me. The rest of it is in Japanese.

Marie: The whole book, because he's a Japanese author and he is like a New York Times bestseller over there. And he hired me because he wanted to write English books. Now, he never was able to kind of get there, but he still learned a lot. But the funny thing is, is the genre that he's in because he's an Westerner.

Marie: I'm just like, What? But he's a New York Times bestselling author in a genre called business Fiction. It's a genre where the character goes to work and then has a problem, and then he solves the problem and the book ends. So like they're manufacturing something and some parts didn't show up, but without the part, they can't finish it.

Marie: Don't miss their deadline. So the stories about what he does to get the parts from a different vendor or whatever, and then I'm like, that's literally just called work. But like people read that genre I mean but it's a he sells you know hundreds of thousands of copies. Yeah. Be successful with that story in America. It's not going to happen that's a difference in culture.

Marie: But when you look at his stories, you know, when he obviously don't read Japanese, but when he would walk me through them, they still have a lot of the same structure, 99% of the same structure that I would do in a story. You still have to introduce the character, make the reader like him. You have to introduce the conflict.

Marie: You just have to work through that conflict. You have to overcome that conflict. And then you you have this satisfying ending. So the structure underneath, even though the culture Japanese are very interested and get a lot of pleasure out of reading somebody fix a business problem,

Marie: they get a lot of pleasure out and it's great. I'm very, very happy for them.

Marie: Again, anyone who gets pleasure out of stories is awesome.

Drake: 100%.

Marie: okay.

Drake: So let's let's I think migrate onwards to putting the character of journey on to a three act structure.

Marie: Yeah, Yeah.

Drake: So drag, do you want to tell us what typically goes from the hero's journey into Act one?

Marie: Yeah. So Again, if we're looking at three act structure, that first act is just we need to connect the reader, connect them to the world, to the character, the, the conflict. So a lot of things that we're going do, obviously the everyman moment, which is just that, it's that moment where, hey, look, this is the life that the character lives.

Marie: What it does is it allows the reader to learn what the character appreciates so that if they lose that they're going to hate that what they want to fight for. You know, I want to maintain this you know, I love my family, I love my job, I love whatever. And so all of that is that set up phase.

Marie: It builds the world. It builds the connection to the character. You want me to keep going with the stuff in the accent?

Drake: No, no, just stop. Just stop it at one. But. But also do the hook and the inciting.

Marie: That's what it is. Then let me do the rest of the things that are in Act One. Then we have that hook. We have something that's going to come along the the we want to get the hook in before the inciting incident. The hook is just kind of like what we might lose. And then the inciting incident is the thing that comes along and shifts them, shifts them out of their comfort zone.

Marie: Take something away. It's not the all the the point of no return. They can be the same. So like in Finding Nemo, the inciting incident is when Nemo gets kidnaped and the point of no return is when, you know, Nemo gets kidnaped, gets kidnaped changed. Now he has to go save his son. There is no Well, I tried that.

Marie: I guess I'll go back to my house. There is none of that. But sometimes they can be different. So like in The Matrix, the inciting incident is when Neo wakes up with a knock, knock and follow the white rabbit. That's the inciting, is it? That's the thing that shifts him from I'm just sitting here night after night after night doing programing and and going to work during the day.

Marie: And now I have been told to follow this white rabbit. This girl shows at my door. She's got a white rabbit tech, too, on that on the on the neck. Do I follow it? Do I not follow it? It's not life changing. It's just the thing that's going to shift us.

Drake: So I think I think the knock knock was the hook. I think the inciting incident is when he sees the white trap.

Marie: Yeah, exactly. Actually, no, the hook in the matrix. Because this is the thing you haven't in movies that we don't get in novels. So if we look at like Jurassic Park, the hook is when we get to see the dinosaur in the cage. We never see the dinosaur. But but we know it's a dinosaur who sees all the movie poster.

Marie: So then I guess we don't get to see him getting in the Matrix. The hook is, you know, I think, you know, my guys can handle one little. No, Sergeant, your men are already dead. Like, that's the hook. But movies get that. So like, in Star Wars, I would never start that novel if I was writing as a novel, I would never start it with the employed, with the empire taking over the the the Princess Leia ship.

Marie: Then personally, I would start it with Luke because I would need to connect to that because I don't have the visual elements. So. So yes, you could say that and I'm not arguing with you, but that whole thing, in my opinion, is the inciting incident, the knock knock, the foul, the white rabbit, the see the rabbit, the going to, the bar, talking to Trinity, finding out that she's, you know, the not only is she real, but Morpheus is real.

Marie: The thing he's thinks he's searching for. But he didn't really even know if Morpheus was real. All of that, in my opinion, is the inciting incident. But notice at that point, he can still just go to work, he can modify, he does, he shows up and he's late and, you know, the guy's like, you know, Mister Dumb ass, when that his name Thomas Anderson.

Drake: His name was.

Marie: No, no, no, no. The boss. The boss. Wasn't it your boss called him. That might have been from something else, but whatever the boss's name was. But the boss is like, you have a choice to make. You can come to work and, you know, do your job and make a good living, or you can go find another job.

Marie: And then they ask that same question when he's with Mr. Smith, you know, you have two lives. You can be this programmer or we can destroy you, you know, So we asking that we keep putting these two things until he finally makes a decision, because that's what we're doing. We're like, Look, you have two choices. Look, you have two choices.

Marie: And then the last time is you want to eat the red pill or the blue pill. So we have two choices.

Drake: And so and that is the point of no return. In a way.

Marie: That's the point of no return. And so that's the things we're going to get in that act One, we're going to get the set up, which usually is the all hope is lost. Manana, the everyman moment where we connect the reader to the world. The character what they loved, what they could lose, what their desires are, what their hopes are, what their dreams are, where they would love to be One day, all of those different that connect us to that character, we're going to have the inciting incident that comes along and kind of shifts them.

Marie: Maybe something isn't exactly what you think it is, and then we're going to have that point of no return where it's like, if you make this decision, if you cross this threshold, there's no going back. And then that there's two ways to do that. One is a decision what Neo makes the decision? Do you want to take the blue pill and wake up tomorrow and believe whatever you want to believe?

Marie: I don't care or do you want to take the red pill and see how deep this rabbit hole goes or the decision we made for them? Luke Skywalker comes home and his aunt uncle are dead and the Empire is going to kill you. And Finding Nemo, your your child is kidnaped like you have. So those are the two ways the character can decide or not.

Marie: Events know it can be. It can be taken from them. That decision can be taken from them.

Drake: So there's another story structure that is quite popular that comes from a screenwriting rule that is called Dan Harmon Story Cycle. And it's got basically the the half of order and the half of chaos. So it's a circle and it's got eight points on it and there are eight points above the order line with a character is, you know, in an audit state and and so four points above the line and four points under the line where the character is in a chaos.

Marie: On each side.

Drake: On each side. So your act one basically is you. It's all in the order. Act one is basically all in order. It's you establish the protagonist. The protagonist needs something, they are driven by something, they have a motivation, and then they the threshold, they go through the point of no return. Yet it's not exactly the hero's journey, but you can see the same beats because you can see the same beats and all stories, right?

Drake: So that is another way to think of it, is to think of, okay, Act one is all in the ordered segment. The character is in a state, there is a need and it drives them over the threat threshold and that thing takes us to act. So tell us what Act two is, where the hero's journey.

Marie: Actually, I do want to take a step back first. Yeah. So I finally was able to go see my vampire. It's one of the reasons why I'm so much clearheaded. So for those who don't know everybody, every five months, I need to get drained of my blood because it thickens and it really slows me down and I get really exhausted.

Marie: But while I'm sitting there because the nurse has to stay with me, he had a lot of questions about stories and he was he's an uber fan and like not of mine, but like a Game of Thrones and all this other stuff. And so he had when he found out, he's like, let me ask you about this.

Marie: Let me ask you about that. There is a difference between novels and scripts. Yes. So that's one of the reasons why there are different ways to look at like Save the Cat, even though I really push that is kind of the thing that really you know, that was that moment for me. That was the moment where I was like, look, I finally get this now.

Marie: I don't use it's a hybrid. I've grown and changed. But that Save the Cat was where I really broke my understanding of of, okay, I finally am starting to see how to do this stuff. And it's a screenplay writing book. Yes. There's a Save the Cat writes a novel. I literally am in chapter one of that, but I've been in chapter one for like eight months now, so I'm really not reading it.

Marie: It's just sitting in my reading area. But the difference, really, the only difference between the two is speed. In a novel, we have a lot of time, especially in like what me and you do is epic fantasy. We have a lot of time. You have less time in other genres, but in movies and it goes it goes super fast.

Drake: And so that's the thing about Dan Harmon stories Right. What what I found interesting about it is I'm writing this urban fantasy and it works so well for an urban fantasy because it.

Marie: It is.

Drake: Faster and harder than the hero's journey.

Marie: Yeah.

Drake: It is. It's got your necessary points. Connect the audience to set you up and to go, go, go, go, go, go.

Marie: Yeah. And so that's what I did want to take a minute to talk about that because they are so it's, it's not that you have to use the Dan Harmon for movies only, you know, like you said you're writing a novel with it. It's just the the big difference is the reason why Dan created that was he's a script writer and so he's really focusing on the same thing with Blake Snyder was Save the Cats.

Marie: He was a scriptwriter and so he he that's his thing. But it's about it's about just learning all of it, seeing what clicks for you, seeing what you can from, from what, and then just kind of growing. So I just want to take a moment to just explain kind of why the differences are.

Drake: So the hero's journey is is a longer process with more steps. But again, I mean, you can shorten it, you can leave out steps, etc.. Dan Harmon Story Cycle is a is a border foster story. It's a foster story, yeah. And it depends a little bit on the kind of audience you're aiming for. An epic fantasy audience don't necessarily want that speed a political fantasy story.

Drake: You actually need to take more time. You need to really go because otherwise it gets lost in the story. Yeah, but a mystery type thing.

Marie: That epic fantasy wants a thicker book. Yeah, You know, you're like, look, do you want to read my epic fantasy? They're like, That's a pamphlet. That's not an epic fantasy. What are you talking about? So, yeah, it there. There's a reason why different genres exist because different people are attracted to different things. It's the same thing when I do meet the occasional fantasy person, it's like, I don't really like your writing.

Marie: It's it's just too heavy for me. When I find out who they like, they like, you know, David Eddings and Terry Brooks and stuff like that. And I'm like, you're an adventure fantasy fan, so here's an easy way to do it. Just measure the spine. If it's under an inch, you're going to like it. If it's over an inch, don't because they don't like Brandon Sanderson.

Marie: They don't like Robert Jordan, they don't like George Martin. They didn't like me. And I'm like, Yeah, just just use the rule. If it's less than or you'll probably like it. If it's over an inch, you're not going to like it. It's epic fantasy. I it's not that hard. And yeah. All right, so let's get.

Drake: Back to.

Marie: So the funny thing is I break act two into two acts, the first half of act two in the second half, Act two. But really Dan does as well. And I'll that and let you do that but for the hero's journey in the first half back two is really the character's just reacting to the character doesn't it's the characters being dragged along.

Marie: The character does not have the ability to to to fight this new world that they find themselves in. They're completely of their depth, you know, And it doesn't have to be, you know, obviously me and you write a lot of action adventure, but it could just be a, you know, a slice of life book where we start married.

Marie: And then the inciting incident is, you know, they walk in on their spouse being unfaithful and so they divorce them. Well, now they're in a strange new world. This this world where I was married for 20 years and now I'm dating again. What the crap is this like? Because what I mean, I can't even imagine it because using an app to find somebody to go out with, like, I don't even know what that would be like.

Marie: Like, that's why being my wife was just like, it didn't matter if. I don't like you anymore. It's still to death. Do us apart. It doesn't matter. We're just not going down that path. It's too terrifying. But so the first half is that it's just reactive. It's It's they're trying to learn things. They're trying to learn what they need to do to survive this new situation.

Marie: They found them and they're gaining things, but it's still very reactive. They're reacting to things that are coming along. So if we look at Jurassic Park, you know, when when the action starts and the dinosaurs attacking, they're not doing anything. They're not planning, they're not proactively trying to, we need to do this so that we can action.

Marie: They're just running. It's just constant same thing in the Matrix when we get you know, once we get into the Matrix, it's, you need to learn kung fu and you need to look to, to learn about the woman in red. can you jump across, you know, off the building. can you, you know, whatever. There's, it's just all of that.

Marie: It's just all learning, learning, learning, learning, learning. But he's out of his depth and. He doesn't really see anything. Then you have that mid act two climax that mid act two. Yeah, to climax. And then you get into the second act too. And everything changes because now the character's proactive. The character's like, No, no, no, no, no. I need to take it to them.

Marie: I need to, you know? So in that romance I was talking about, now it's going be like, you know, I've had all these crappy dates and I've had all this stuff that's just like, my God, I should just quit. Obviously, I'm gonna be single for the rest of my life. And it's like, You know what? No, I'm doing this wrong.

Marie: I'm going to go. I mean, maybe it's like, I'm going to find my faith again. I'm going to go find a woman for my faith because that's what I should do. Or I'm going to go I'm really into, you know, D&D. So let me actually instead of doing this stupid app, maybe I should try and get into what I like and see if I can find a partner there or whatever.

Marie: So they become proactive. They start taking the lessons that they learn from the first half of that and they start actually using them. And so what we have in there is really that the only real big thing we have are the the two points for me are the middle to climax and then the Act two climax. You know, those are the two things that I really worry about.

Marie: Everything else is as long as I know that in the first part of it, before that minute to climax, the character's just reactive, just being dragged along and having to learn stuff. And then the next part of it they're actually trying to do stuff. I'll fill in that stuff later. So the minute two climax, some people might call it the moment, it's when they either figure out something, they figure out, my life is crap because I need to take care of this thing.

Marie: And now they start pointing to it or or something changes. I mean, like, I love the Matrix mid act to climax because it's exactly what Neo needs, but it doesn't feel like a minute to climax. So they act. To climax over The matrix is when Neo is told you're not the one, it's the Oracle scene where he goes to it.

Marie: Why is that what he needs? Because if he thought he was actually the one cause he's starting to think it. He's starting to believe that he might be the one if he actually was told in that act to climax. Yes, you are the one. When Morpheus gets captured, he would have said, Wow, But Morpheus already did his job.

Marie: He found me. I'm the one. That's what his job was. His job was to find the one. So. Okay. I mean, he's supposed to die now, but then Neo never would have been tested. Neo never would have. You know, who knows what would have happened at that point. But by giving him what he needs, which is you're not the one that's what allows him when Morpheus is captured, to go, No, I'm not the one I must.

Marie: I can save him and he needs to go find the one. He's important. I'm not. And with that knowledge, with that opinion of himself is what makes him proactive. Yeah, that's literally that that moment when he sits down in the chair and he's like, No, I'm going back. I'm going to save Morpheus because I'm now proactive. I'm no longer reactive, I'm going to do this, I'm going to change this.

Marie: And so that's exactly what we want. We're looking for that, that switch in Act one, what we go from reactive to proactive, and that's what that medic made, Act two climaxes. And then the Act two climax is when we now really do have everything we we are on a collision course. We're for the climax and we're going to, you know, we're going to cross that threshold into Act three.

Drake: So the the Danhausen story cycle is slightly different here in terms of where it puts the ACT Act two to Act three progression. But the act the Act two starts the simplest. It is the introduction of the unfamiliar situation, right? So the characters now cross the threshold. They're in the chaos nothing is ordered and then then they start to adapt to the chaos.

Drake: They start to cope with the new situation. Remember that they've still got this motivation. Then they get what they desired get and that's he's kind of middle to climax point. And

Drake: so they go from adapting to the situation to get to driving for and getting what they desired. Yeah. And then that to me is where he starts moving into the Act three.

Drake: So he goes like, Woo, because these next step is they pay a heavy price for winning and then you return to the familiar situation and that that is his kind of act three is where you start paying the price for winning. You return to the familiar situation and you have the overall. So it's just slightly different structure, but it's got the same beats.

Marie: It still kind of divides act two into two halves. Yes, because that's kind of again, no matter which structure you start looking at, you're going to start finding, wow, there's a lot of similarities between these and what are the similarities? The similarities are this is when the reader needs certain things to be swept up in the story.

Drake: Because you've introduced the character, the characters, the chaos role, all the characters now, you know, in the Strange New World or whatever, whatever you want to, however you want to phrase it, they have to adapt. They have to react with surprise is because you want the reader to act with surprise. So the character, then the character gets accustomed to the world and now actually comes up with a plan, and that is your where your act two hit.

Drake: So they come up with a plan, they're good and they ruled and they start driving towards the conclusion and then they enter conclusion land. And then what is our hero's journey? Act three generally speaking.

Marie: So there's, there's several things and I'll skip a few of, but the big ones are. So the act to climax is the character knows how to win. They feel they and they convince the audience of it. They're like, you know, if you look at Star Wars, we have the plans. We know the weaknesses of their star. We have the rebel force, we have the element of surprise.

Marie: We are going to just pop in, blow up the Death Star, win the day and go home 100%. You usually have a refusal to the call at that point. It it's this one isn't used all the time, but it basically is that moment where we allow the reader to know that, yes, they have a plan. Yes, I've convinced you that it's going to work.

Marie: But I also want to put a seed of doubt in there. So like and it doesn't always have to be the main characters. Like in Star Wars, it's Han Solo. Han Solo is the refusal of the Return, where he's like, What do you mean you're not going to go with us? Do easy job of blowing up the Death Star like we're definitely going to win.

Marie: And he's like, Yeah, you have fun with that. I'm going to take my money and I'm leaving and. That's just that worm of doubt in there. But then that leads to the all hope is lost moment and the hope is lost moment. Can I think this gets confusing because some people will call it the the the dark night of the Soul.

Marie: That is definitely a romance arc. So when I teach the romance, I talk about The Dark Knight. And so the way I see it, they're both halves of the same thing. The orb is lost is the physical house, and the Dark Knight is soul is the mental house. So in the physical half, we have to lose something that makes us think, you know, that it's all over.

Marie: You know, maybe that I don't get the girl in a romance or I don't get the boy in the romance. You know, something happens that we're a rope. A rope irrevocably broken apart in action. It's usually action. Or, you know, Darth Vader is on my tail. I'm going to die in the Matrix. The Matrix, you can't get more stark of a loss of the physical layer.

Marie: He takes five bullet to the chest and he dies. He's that. It's over. All hope is lost because our main character literally is dead. But that's only half of the picture. The Dark Knight of the Soul is the other half of that to me, and that's why I don't like talking about them separate, because sometimes they'll either use the all hope is lost or they'll use Dark Knight of the Soul.

Marie: And I actually think they're like yin and yang because The Dark Knight of the Soul is the internal side. It's the internal doubt. It's the internal I'm going to lose. So yes, Darth Vader's on my tail, but now I have to deal with the fact there's nothing I can do about it. I'm actually going to die. And so there's that moment.

Marie: It's very short in in Star Wars. But there is a moment with Luke in the in the cockpit where he's kind of looking around and he's like, That's it. I'm dead in the Matrix. It's much longer because it takes place with Trinity. We go back to the Nebuchadnezzar where, you know, Trinity, while she's on her knees next to Morpheus, laying there on the little chair, lounge chair, thinking that he's on.

Marie: And she's now bearing her soul about if you're dead, then I was lied to Like, this can't be this. You have to do this. You have. You cannot be dead. And so it's her finally bending to love in this, you know, hardcore, violent world that she's been fighting. She didn't want to have that. And I think you could make an entire movie on the Trinity arc.

Marie: Most of it happens off screen. But I think she has an amazingly interesting story. If we were to just delve that short, actually, I think they really would have done themselves justice to do a Trinity story instead of the direction they took. The Matrix in. But that's that internal side. So I think that you have both those and then that leads you to the Overcome because once you get past that, you have if we convince the audience that the character can't save themselves, the next moment in a hero's journey is the rescue from without.

Marie: Somebody has to come along and actually save them. In Jurassic Park, the T-Rex, like the all was lost woman dressing park is we're literally penned by the velociraptors. There's no way out. We're dead. And then it lunges at us like it literally leaps into the air at our heroes. We're like, my goodness. And then the T-Rex coming.

Marie: He goes, I'll take that. Thank you very much. And then that's our rescue from without now, unfortunately. And the reason why I bring that up is because, unfortunately, some people screw up and do a dues ex machina. God in the machine. So that's what they did in Jurassic Park, basically, because they don't actually get to defeat anything. The T-Rex eats the velociraptor and then they just run and they just leave the island.

Drake: So what's the risk? Kind of the victory, right? That that is distracting with their lives.

Marie: Is the victory. it does not hurt that movie at all. Yep. I'm just saying that sometimes, depending on what doing, you may end up using your rescue from without as the overcome as well. So that'd be basically like in Star Wars. If Han Solo comes in, shoots Darth Vader in the butt and sends him flying up in space and then goes, All right, kid, get out of the way, let me do this.

Marie: And he pushes Luke out of the trench, and then he uses the Millennium Falcon to blow up the desktop. You'd be like.

Drake: Wow. So this the reason why Jurassic Park works despite being a deus ex machina is because the goal of the characters was never necessarily to kill the dinosaurs. It was to get out alive.

Marie: Yes.

Drake: And therefore, the rescue from the without the Tyrannosaurus rex deus ex machina eating the velociraptor works because the audience is like, Hey.

Marie: Who's. Run, run. RIght.

Drake: And then are.

Marie: What it also has to do. Now we're going to get geeky and go into the invisible layer because it also has to do with a theme. One of the themes, one of the big themes that we're playing with Jurassic Park is you guys are masters of your world because you are the apex predator. Yeah, If you stop becoming the apex predator, you lose control of your world.

Marie: So you may end up with the ability to bring dinosaurs back, but it's not going to end well for you.

Drake: But you shouldn't.

Marie: You should not do that. And so that's another reason why it works, because it still does deliver on the theme that we're playing with, which is a you know, a theme of caution. It's a cautionary tale. And so that's why it also works there where it wouldn't work otherwise. But anyway, so that's the risk of an out. And then that leads us to the Overcome, where since we saved our characters is something else is saved our character.

Marie: The character can now take a moment, realize that their plan was flawed because it kept them on the wrong side of the theme. They take all the lessons that they learn. They put them on to the right side of the theme. So like in The Matrix, more are Neo has said, I'm not the one, I'm not the one.

Marie: I don't want to be the one. I'm told I'm not the one. And now it's like I, I was wrong. I am the one. And, and it means that I have a whole new level of responsibility and power and everything else. It's when Luke Skywalker has been trying to use technology this whole time. He's been using this typewriter and blah, blah, blah, and he finally listens to the dead ghost of Obi-Wan and he turns off his target computer and he believes in a power greater than himself.

Marie: So he switches and then overcomes the story. Yeah.

Drake: Exactly. Now, the Dan Harmon cycle takes us with the they adapt to it, then they get what they want. That's all still in the chaos area. Then they pay a heavy price for it. So instead of having a direct, you know, a direct moment of darkness, whatever, they get what they want, but they pay a heavy price for it.

Drake: That's kind of your trade or that is that is made this you don't necessarily have a dark moment of the soul or a all hope is lost, but you have this price attached to victory.

Marie: But Then come. But that can come with a depression moment like the dark, you know. And then also you could say all hope is lost. The cost could have been not worth the.

Drake: 100%. Yeah, exactly. But but that is, that is the kind of difference in the cycle. And then then they return to order. So after paying the price for victory, they return to order with they return to their familiar, their familiar situation and then we have the establishment of them having changed and that takes us to the end.

Marie: Yeah. And the hero's journey, that would be the return where we to see the hero return to their world as a changed person. And that's something I think you really should do for your readers because you've taken them on this journey. You showed them what life was like before this event happened. I think you owe it to your readers to show them what the character is going to be like when they when they go home, when they when they get back into their regular world.

Marie: But they're different now. And so what is that like? What does that feel like? And, you know, and it can be little things. And Star Wars, a new hope. They just have the little ceremony, you know, where they they put the medals on their neck and Chewbacca, you know. Does it? Yeah. And everybody claps and laughs. But it's still that moment of I love what your terminology is still.

Marie: It's that moment where the readers to breathe. Yeah. This kind of take a moment and revel in the fact that we did this thing.

Drake: Yeah, exactly. And it gives the reader that sense of satisfaction that they walk away with at the end of the story.

Marie: Yeah, Yeah. And it's this structure. Now in the next podcast, I think we're going to go through the hero's journey, like we're going to really dive deep into the hero's journey and kind of go through it. So we'll definitely be using the three act structure for that. But the thing about the three act structure that I really wanted to kind of hammer on is there's the Save the Cat method.

Marie: There's Dan Harmon's method, there's the there's the what's it called? I actually have a the story clock. I think it's called the story Clock Method or something like that.

Drake: Basically, you know, like method, which is the.

Marie: Snowflake method there. And that one still I've never really wrap my head around. I know a lot of people love that, but that one is a tough one for me. You can tentpole, you can like really what it is is about learning these structures, finding those moments for you and going, okay, I really like it. And it's not even like they're exclusive.

Marie: It's not like you're like, I really like this part of the, you know, the, the Harmon method, but I don't like this other part, so I guess I can't use the Harmon method. No, you absolutely can. Just use that part.

Drake: It's your process. Use whatever works for you. The structure isn't there to imprison you. It's there to free you.

Marie: There to let you know that the reader, if you fulfill things for the reader at certain times, you are going to be more successful with that reader.

Marie: That's it. That's all structure is. It's a scaffolding. It's it's, it's just a guideline. It's, it's just and not everything is going to resonate with you and not everything is going to resonate with every story that you do.

Marie: So there are some things that you might use one thing for and other things where you're like, Wow, But this story, I really want to use this other structure for because of what I'm doing, you know, the revenge story arc, the romance story arc,

Marie: which we didn't really even go through.

Marie: It's very similar to the Hero's Journey. Matter of fact when I'm teaching my heroes and maybe we'll do that in the next podcast, I'll kind of push in because that's what I do when I'm teaching my Hero's Journey classes.

Marie: I actually have, as I'm going through the hero's journey story arc, I'm going, and if you're doing romance, this would be this moment. This would be this, because they're very, very similar in what they give. But again, are they very, very similar? Because it doesn't matter. Somebody wanting to read, somebody falling in love versus somebody defeating a demon

Marie: like it's still about a human journey through this process that's going to affect us.

Marie: And the only way you're going to affect us is if you connect us, have us actually work through the journey and then have us actually have a resolution that we are satisfied with. Kind of the three act play structure like we're doing. So that's it. I mean, that's just it's it's just guidelines.

Drake: And I think that that is a great place at which to end this episode and we will see you for another one Bye.