Plot Structure

Here's the structure we're using to create the plots for our audience participation workshops. You can use this to continue the story!

ACT ONE

• Set up ORDINARY WORLD
• Create an INCITING INCIDENT to CALL the hero TO ACTION.
• The hero REFUSES THE CALL or shows reluctance.
• What are the STAKES FOR REFUSING?
• What are the STAKES FOR ACCEPTING?
• The hero reaches a TURNING POINT OF NO RETURN, where she must commit. 
• THE STAKES GET HIGHER, and she does something she wouldn’t have done or been able to do at the beginning.

ACT TWO

• THE NEW REALITY is vastly different from previous. Character makes a plan and amasses helpers and resources.
• BUT WAIT, things are even worse than they seem.
• The hero shows NEW DETERMINATION as she overcomes five or six increasingly harder obstacles that prepare her for the midpoint ordeal.
• THE MIDPOINT TEST shifts the hero’s understanding. Things are more complicated and dangerous than they seem, and they’re about to get worse.
• THE STAKES GO UP AGAIN.

ACT THREE

• At THE CLIMAX, the hero attacks the villain head on in a gamble for all or nothing. They fight and only one of them emerges victorious.
• LOOSE ENDS ARE TIED, and there’s a glimpse of the new world order, either positive or negative, that suggests how things will fare for the hero in the ever-after.