The Three-Act Structure

So, now that you have your plot outline, you can begin to piece together your story by arranging your plot elements into three acts (PowerPoint attached here).

Here’s a great video of the practice that I will encourage you to employ in this worksheet and this worksheet. YouTuber Katytastic lays out how stories are told in three acts, something that has been done since storytelling began.

Setup, Conflict, and Resolution

This is a mantra that you should repeat to yourself over and over again. So, the way she sets it up is:

Act One-Setup

Act Two-Conflict

Act Three-Resolution. 

This can be broken down even further.

So, Act One can look like this:

Act One-Setup

1. Setup

2. Conflict

3. Resolution

This can then be broken down even further, to look like this:

Act One-Setup

1. Setup

  a. Setup

  b. Conflict

  c. Resolution

2. Conflict

  a. Setup

  b. Conflict

  c. Resolution

3. Resolution

  a. Setup

  b. Conflict

  c. Resolution

This gives you 9 sections for each act, or 27 sections overall. Planning out these sections will give you a greater appreciation of what to expect in terms of requirements to move your plot along. Katytastic calls these chapters, but it’s impossible for me to think in such rigid terms, so I prefer to think of these as sections, where scenes pull off the desired requirements. So, the setup of act one may be one chapter to one writer, but it may be less than that or multiple chapters to another author.

To give you an example of how you can piece your story together here is mine.

Here is my plot paragraph: Alien Story Plot Paragraph

Here is my three-act outline in 27 sections: Act Outline