Broken Frontier

So we’ve finished off the second act. We’ve answered the dramatic question. We’re ready now to examine the consequences of that answer. This is the province of the third act, which encompasses both Sequence G and Sequence H.

I’m going to take them together because, in one sense, that’s really the way you should think of them. To illustrate my point, let’s take a quick look back at some of the films I’ve discussed and look at their third acts.

In Chicken Run, the third act begins when Ginger determines to escape from Tweedy’s Chicken Farm without Rocky’s help. Together, all of the chickens build the giant flying machine and manage to get it airborne. Of course, Rocky returns to give some help and Mrs. Tweedy refuses to give up the chase. But they make it. And they live happily ever after NOT on a chicken farm.

In Toy Story, Woody and Buzz work together to scare Sid into leaving toys alone forever, then they race to catch up with the moving truck so they won’t be left behind. They make it and live happily ever after until Christmas, when Woody and Buzz worry together about what sort of toy could possibly take their place.

In Midnight Run, Jack Walsh makes a deal with the cops to deliver Serrano if he can take Mardukas in himself. They agree, which leads to the final confrontation in the airport where Jack finally gets to tell Serrano, “You’re under arrest.” Jack lets Mardukas go, but he still gets the money for that restaurant he wanted to open.

In Collateral, Max crashes the cab, but Vincent manages to escape and proceeds to the last hit, which turns out to be the lawyer Max met in the very beginning. Max must use everything he has learned from Vincent to save the lawyer and defeat the hitman.

As you can see, most of these movies end big. In fact, I suspect that almost every Hollywood movie ends big. Star Wars has the battle around the Death Star. Raiders of the Lost Ark has Indy chasing the Ark to get it back. E.T. has the government agents chasing Elliot and E.T. And so on.

There are several reasons for this. One was perhaps best stated by expert screenwriter Robert Towne (who wrote Chinatown). He said the ending was the most important part of a movie because that’s what you leave the audience with. If you give them a good ending, they’ll leave the theater excited and ready to tell everyone about it, which is what word of mouth is all about.

Another reason most stories end big is because we writers have been working to escalate the tension as much as possible and we have nowhere to go but up. Imagine if Raiders started with the chase for the Ark and then went back to Indy in the classroom. We’d really wonder what the heck was going on.

But confrontation between the main forces, while good, isn’t enough to make a really great story. You’ll notice also in each of the above examples that something else is at work and it has to do with the protagonist.

Woody and Buzz have to work together, Ginger needs to act without Rocky, Jack has to arrest Serrano, Max has to become Vincent, Luke has to “use the force.” The best stories make sure that the protagonist’s story -- what we’ve been following all along -- isn’t lost in a hail of gunfire and screeching tires. In fact, the best stories give us something to take with us...something personal to chew on after the movie is over. Hopefully, the something the story has to say is worth listening to and thinking about. Hopefully, we’ve learned something about our world or ourselves in the process of hearing the story.

Take a look at some of your favorite films and see what makes up their third act. Then see if you can figure out what other force is at work under the surface of that confrontation. What does the protagonist get at the very end and how does it make us feel? What does the story have to say? Can you think of any stories that don’t have a major confrontation in their third act? When you’ve come up with a few, post them in the forum.

Until next time, keep writing.

(For those of you both inclined and in the financial position to do so, I highly recommend the purchase of the two best books about the sequence approach to screenwriting: Screenwriting: The Sequence Approach, by Paul Gulino, and The Tools of Screenwriting, A Writer’s Guide to the Craft and Elements of a Screenplay, by David Howard.)