- What's up my friend, Abbie here, and welcome back to Writerslife Wednesdays, where we come together to help you make your story matter and make your author dreams come true. Today we're continuing with, you guessed it. The three act story structure, story beat breakdown series.
I've been taking you through the three act story structure step by step and showing you why it's so amazing and also the brain science behind why it works. Because why else would you follow a structure? Unless it was scientifically proven to work.
If you haven't seen the previous videos in this series, you can check them out right here. But if you've been following along, let's jump right into today's video. We've already explored act one and act two.
Wow! We're in the home stretch now, act three, which starts off with one of my favorite story beats, the disaster. Yes.
The time has come to destroy your characters. - Why does your story matter? Good question.
What if I told you that there's a science behind every great story. I don't just teach you how to write. I teach you how to change the world with your story and make your author dreams come true.
- Contrary to popular belief, the disaster, isn't just some crazy horrible thing that happens to your protagonist. No, that might be what you think it is, but you and millions of other writers would be wrong. See, when most writers arrive at this part of the story, they get a little too excited.
They've been saving up their sadism for this moment, and now they just wanna make their characters suffer by inflicting some random and terrible pain on them and make the reader cry and just be alone some person in general. But what if I told you that is not the best way to make your character suffer? What if I told you that is in fact, the most bland and non riveting way to handle this climactic moment in your story?
I'm serious. Don't squander there's a moment, not when you've spent so much time building up this amazing internal conflict for your character, because here's the thing. A horrible thing is a horrible thing if it happens to anyone.
Just like we talked about in the pre mid point reactionary hero video, your story becomes a boring when the stakes are the same for everyone, or let me put it like this, if the disaster that you have in mind would be equally terrible if it happened to any one of your characters, you need to think of a different disaster. Let's pause here and read the description of the disaster plot point from my three act story structure template, which is linked in the description box below, by the way. And then we'll go into the brain science behind this.
First, right before the disaster plot point, we have an extra plot point that's kinda optional and it is the supposed victory. Protagonist thinks they have overcome. Making progress with their new and improved plan, protagonists feels confident they will be victorious, or perhaps they have already overcome the smallest of the challenges and feel pretty good about their plan.
Little do they know disaster is on the way. Note, this plot point is optional, but awesome. Prompt, ask yourself, why does my protagonist think they will be victorious?
What is happening to make them feel so close to achieving their goal and finding happiness at last? Okay, so I say this story beat is optional because not every story has it, not every story needs it. Sometimes it just doesn't fit into the narrative that you've crafted.
And that's totally fine. But if you have the time to fool your protagonist into thinking that they've won and things are going good, and the ultimate plan that they have plotted out is going to be a success, then it's all the more devastating, isn't it? When disaster strikes.
Just something to think about, it could greatly enhance your story. Okay, boom! Disaster.
Everything goes wrong. Bring your protagonists to their knees by rooting the disaster in their greatest fear and misbelief. And might be something that's terrible for anyone to experience, but go beyond that and make it something especially bad for your protagonists because of their fear and misbelief.
Every decision they've made throughout the story has led them to this moment, which means they are to blame for their own ruin. Prompt, ask yourself, what does this disaster specifically mean to my protagonist? How does it force them to realize that they're the one to blame for this crisis?
How does it completely disarm them and make them face off with their fear and misbelief? Okay, there's so much to unpack in this description but I don't wanna overwhelm you with too much information. I just wanna stay super focused on one thing, rooting the disaster in your characters greatest fear.
That's it, that's it. Because you've been showing us what their fear is this whole time, right? You've been building their internal conflict and letting us see their misbelief and where it came from.
Right? Well, now why to totally destroy them because nothing else will. I mean, think about it.
Some things may hurt them may cause them pain, may make them suffer just like it would for anyone. But this isn't a story about anyone. This is a story about your unique protagonist.
So what would destroy them? Hmm, I don't know. Maybe the thing that they've always been afraid of, maybe the thing that's so deeply rooted in the core of who they are, they would do anything to stop it from happening.
The thing they've spent most of the story running away from like the plague. I don't mean literally running from it. I don't mean the antagonist.
Okay? If you have an antagonist that's actively hunting the protagonist down. I'm talking about the thing behind the thing.
The reason why the protagonist does what they do, the misbelief that shapes their reality more on crafting a misbelief in this video, by the way. See, this is the trap that most writers fall into. They get so caught up asking themselves what that thing is going to happen to my character.
And they forget to make the bad things specifically meaningful to the character. They forget to ask themselves why does it matter? Just like we talked about in the inciting incident video, the definition of your characters comfort zone is what makes the disaster disastrous.
In the case of the inciting incident, it was the difference between characters pushed outside the door to characters shoved outside their comfort zone. Small change, but it makes a huge difference. Why?
Because it forces you to think about why it matters to them. It forces you to draw the lines of the comfort zone, which means that you have to think about their misbelief, which is basically the reverse engineered big idea or theme that you want to convey through this story. Well, see what just happened there?
That bad thing happening, just turned into something really meaningful. Not just to the characters, but to you as the author. Without the meaning, all you're doing is engaging the readers mirror neurons.
Their brain is reacting to what's happening as if it's happening to them, but they don't step in the shoes of the character and become the character. They don't feel the same desires and fears as the character. They just feel their own biochemical reactions to the peril happening on the page.
Don't let your character be a punching bag for the plot. Remember, but wait, Abby, if the disaster is going to destroy my character, then doesn't that make them a punching bag? Yes and no, because they are more or less punching themselves.
Remember what I said in the description. Every decision they have made throughout the story has led them to this moment, which means they are to blame for their own ruin. This is really what makes the reader want to scream because they saw it coming.
They may have picked up on your first shadowing, they may have called it, but even if they didn't, they've had a front row seat to this character, getting themselves in deeper, deeper, deeper trouble. They've been waiting for disaster to strike. And after disaster strikes, it's time for the dark moment.
When your protagonist is hopeless, it's always darkest before the dawn. Your protagonist needs a rock bottom moment in order to have an "aha" moment. And that's what makes the revelation so satisfying.
But right now in wake of the disaster, your protagonist is feeling utterly and completely broken, confused, lost, and disappointed. Prompt, ask yourself, how is my protagonist forced into the ring with their kryptonite? That's another really helpful prompt.
How are they forced into the ring with their kryptonite. By that I don't necessarily mean their fear. It could be their specific fear, but more likely it's the thing behind the fear.
The thing that emotionally disarms them and leaves them hopeless. Now this has a lot to do with personality, and we talked about personality types in my Enneagram video. In fact, in my Enneagram video, I included this infographic, which is like a cheat sheet for the various kryptonite of each Enneagram type.
So for example, once kryptonite is being criticized. Yap. For sure.
(Abby laughs) So if your characters are one, maybe take this concept of criticism and just turn up the volume. Make it really bad because of who is criticizing them or why. Some of these will obviously have to be intensified like the nine, never talk over a nine.
That's probably not strong enough to be a disaster plot point, but maybe it is. If you're a nine that might just destroy you. But the point is, you can turn up the intensity on all of these things and just use this as a springboard to spark some ideas for a disaster that's super meaningful to the characters because of who they are.
Again, the three act story structure can be bent and edited to suit your specific story needs. Don't get too obsessed with trying to make your story align exactly with every letter of the structure. It's okay if you need to make some changes.
And the most important thing is to just remember the principles behind the structure, why it works, why it matters, and always, always, always make it matter to your characters. Okay, so I really, really wanna show you some story examples of what the disaster in dark moment plot point looks like in real stories, but I'm going to save those examples for the next video, because that's when we're going to unpack the "aha" moment and you really need to see how all three of these plot points, the disaster dark moment and "aha" moment, all come together to create incredibly powerful climactic moment in your story. So next time, we'll talk about the "aha" moment, my favorite story beat and why it is the most important part of your story.
Plus in that video, we'll do a major case study of real stories, all different genres, and look at how the disaster to "aha" moment all flows together. And if you're from the future, the link to that video will be right there. I also wanna add real quick that there is an alternative to the disaster dark moment story beat, and that is a moment of temptation.
And I'm gonna do a whole separate video on the temptation story beat. So, stick around for that. I don't wanna overwhelm you with too much information in this video, it's already getting super long.
So stick around for that video and eventually the link will be right there. Okay, let's recap what we learned about the disaster dark moment today. The disaster isn't just some random, terrible thing that happens to your protagonist.
If the disaster you have in mind would be equally terrible if it happened to any one of your characters, you need to come up with a different disaster. To really make your character suffer, root that disaster in their greatest fear and misbelief, it might be something that's terrible for anyone to experience, but go beyond that and make it something especially bad for your protagonist because of their fear and misbelief. Every decision your protagonist has made throughout the story has led them to this moment.
Which means they are to blame for their own ruin. This is the extra layer of pain that is so deeply satisfying to your audience. If it's just random thing happening, then your protagonist is a punching bag for the plot.
But if it's a direct result of their own actions, then your protagonist is the creator of their own suffering and the cause of their own destruction. Ask yourself, what does this disaster specifically mean to my protagonist? How does it force them to realize that they are the one to blame for this crisis?
How does it completely disarm them and make them face off with their fear and misbelief? How is my protagonist forced into the ring with their kryptonite? Okay, boom!
That's it for this week, don't go away. Make sure you subscribe because next week we're going to dig into the "aha" moment and I'm gonna show you how all of this flows together, again, I'm gonna show you the exact story examples of the disaster, dark moment, "aha moment", and how that looks and flows so beautifully in some of my favorite stories. Smash that like button if you liked this video and be sure to subscribe to this channel, if you haven't already because I post writing videos and publishing videos every single Wednesday, and I would love to have you here in the community.
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