The 3-Act Structure: Follow This Outline and Examples to Create Your Story
Today we’re talking about—DUNH DUNH DUNH—the 3-act structure.
I used to be very intimidated by the 3-act structure. I listened to a very intimidating audiobook called Story, and it included some line about how, if I made one wrong decision, my entire story would fall apart, and I turned it off immediately.
But the 3-act structure kept coming up.
And so every few years I’d find myself doing a little research on it, and, every time, I left that research feeling icky. It felt so formulaic—not at all how I liked to create.
Not only that—it felt impossible. I couldn’t imagine sitting down saying, okay, now I’m going to write a story according to these 15 beats. That felt like trying to fall in love with someone on a certain schedule, scripting a romance (literally).
So I just started paying more attention, organically, to story structure, noticing the structure of the stories I loved. And what I discovered is that the 3-act structure isn’t some static, boring formula…even though it’s often presented that way.
The simplest way to break down the 3-act structure is to put it into 3 words: I was wrong.
The 3-act structure, in a nutshell
It’s a perspective shift. A person changes internally.
If you think back to every story you love, you’ll probably note that there is a perspective shift on the part of the main character.
It might be subtle, and unstated, but it’s there. It’s the ghost in the background that gives the story meaning, that makes it a story and not just a fun anecdote you’d hear or tell at the dinner table and then forget.
The character discovers a new kind of love.
Or learns to value herself apart from external validation.
Or finds her voice.
But you can’t just say, “I discovered a new kind of love,” or “I learned to like myself more,” or “I found my voice.”
Those aren’t stories; they’re just statements.
An internal shift alone doesn’t make a story—the journey of how the person got there makes a story. We must see the movement from Point A to Point B.
But you can’t just leap from Point A to Point B with nothing in between—that’s also not a story.
Imagine this:
I didn’t know how to love in a way that wasn’t self-involved.
I discovered a new kind of love.
That’s not a story, either, right. You’re like, “How?! How did you change?”
The stuff that happens between them, we can call Point C:
I didn’t know how to love in a way that wasn’t self-involved.
SOMETHING HAPPENS HERE TO CHANGE HER
I discovered a new kind of love.
Enter, the 3-act structure.
Let’s keep this simple. If the simplest definition is: I was wrong, we can call that Act 3.
Acts 1 and 2 can be boiled down to equally simple statements, then this outline:
Act 1: I have a problem.
Act 2: I think I know how to solve it.
Act 3: I was wrong.
That’s it. That’s the 3-act structure.
(I am intentionally writing the first two acts in present tense and the third act in past tense. Can you think of why?)
(Okay, I’ll tell you: because the first two acts should feel very present, whereas the third act is often backward-looking in coming to the new understanding. I like how using the tenses in this way captures that phenomenon a bit.)
If you never learn anything else about the 3-act structure, you now know everything you need to know. One simple statement for each act.
How to write toward the 3-act structure
Here’s the thing I absolutely love about simplicity: you don’t have to keep it in your short-term memory and work with it.
You also don’t have to write according to a formula, in case for you, like for me, that sucks the joy out of writing.
You just let this very simple structure simmer in your subconscious.
Still, even though I wouldn’t try to do anything with this structure actively while drafting, you can help your subconscious out a bit by doing a few things.
How to work the 3-act structure into your subconscious
1. Write it down
The act of writing things down helps you remember. When we write things down, we’re more likely to retain them.
And I don’t mean type on the computer; I mean write this 3-act structure outline down on paper, in a notebook somewhere, or on a piece of posterboard to put on your wall (your spouse or roommate will be thrilled):
Act 1: I have a problem.
Act 2: I think I know how to solve it.
Act 3: I was wrong.
Then, just let it exist the way you let your sink exist.
You know it’s there, you occasionally interact with it, but you aren’t thinking about it all the time.
2. Notice the structure when you consume stories
When you’re watching a movie or reading a book now, notice the way it does or doesn’t follow this simple structure.
I think you’ll find that most stories do follow this structure in a general, loose sense, and it’s also fun and interesting to notice the ways in which writers make this structure their own.
Since there are an infinite number of stories that can be told according to this structure, it can be inspiring to realize how much variety is possible within it.
Let’s do a deep dive into each of the three acts—starting, naturally, with Act 1…
How to Write a Strong Act 1 Without Feeling Miserable
Here’s a true story. When I started law school at 25, I was certain that I was the dumbest person there.
(That’s the word that I used in my head: dumbest.)
This certainty ran so deep that when a group of students went out to dinner together one of the first nights of school, and someone asked me how big the city I grew up in was, I was too embarrassed to tell him that I had absolutely no idea, so I just said, “medium.”
Not even medium-sized, just medium.
The first time I was cold-called in class, I couldn’t speak. I froze and stared at the suited professor in silence until he moved on to someone else out of sheer awkwardness. It was the only time I ever knew of that happening in a class in all of law school. So that’s fun?
My anxiety about being a fraud waiting to be found out was so great that I started skipping class. I knew it wasn’t sustainable if I wanted to graduate law school, but the anxiety was overwhelming...
You may be thinking: What does this have to do with the 3-act structure, Mary?
Good question. Let’s come back to it!
Earlier, I broke down the 3-act structure, a simple and powerful way to tell your story.
Now, it’s time to tackle Act 1 (cue brass fanfare).
First, name your problem
In every story, there’s a problem. The problem may not be apparent on page 1, but it becomes apparent by the end of the first third of the story—so apparent, that your main character has to do something about it.
The first step of implementing the 3-act structure is to figure out what the big problem in your story is.
Stories (interesting ones, anyway) are centered around a conflict. Whether internal or external, something is not going right for your characters.
In the story about law school that I’ve just begun telling you, I’ve introduced a problem: my insecurity.
Let’s take a look at some famous examples of 3-act structure stories and their problems that arise in Act 1:
In the classic Little Women, we meet a quaint little family living in Massachusetts during the Civil War—a mother and four daughters. Their father is a chaplain serving in the military and not home. Apart from the fact that they don’t have a lot of money, things proceed pretty well until they get the news that their father is sick and in the hospital, right near the end of Act 1.
In the contemporary novel Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng, we meet two families whose lives have just intersected when the Warrens, Mia (the mother) and Pearl (the daughter), arrive in a small community in Ohio and rent a house from the Richardsons. When Mia’s coworker at the Chinese restaurant where she gets a job reveals to her that her baby her missing, the problem has been introduced. The rest of Act 1 is building the world around that baby.
In The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett, about adult twin sisters Desiree and Stella, we learn immediately that Desiree has no idea where Stella is and hasn’t since Stella fled as a teen, disappearing and never contacting her sister since. The rest of Act 1 is building the world around Stella’s mysterious whereabouts.
Finally, in my novel Palm Beach, we meet Mickey and Rebecca, new parents who have recently escaped New York to live in Florida with their baby Sebastian. When Mickey gets a job working for a billionaire who Rebecca thinks is evil, the question is: what is his choice going to do to their marriage? A problem has been introduced.
A simple 3-step breakdown
Because we all love steps and simplicity, another way to think of Act 1 in the 3-act structure is a 3-step process:
Create a world
Name a problem in it
Aggravate that problem
Let’s return to my law school story (I know you’ve been dying to hear more) as an example of these steps.
1. Create a world
Law school, specifically a classroom full of people and thick books that weigh more than human heads. People who speak in long sentences with many adverbs and prepositional phrases. A professor in a suit.
2. Name a problem in it
There’s a student (me) who is too insecure to let herself succeed, too panicked to answer the professor in class, and absolutely certain that someone in the admissions department has made a huge mistake.
3. Aggravate that problem
I haven’t done this, yet. So let’s do it now by continuing the story…
The law school story, continued…
My anxiety and insecurity got worse.
When friends and family would check in to see how school was going, I would tell them very assuredly that I wasn’t smart enough to be there, that I couldn’t keep up, and that I was going to fail.
My mom staged an intervention, convincing my aunt, a seasoned lawyer in Texas, to call me to tell me all of her own law school horror stories. The call made me feel better, but it didn’t leave me any more confident in my own ability to succeed.
I considered getting a tutor, but were there even law school tutors? Did those exist? The fact that I had never even heard of such a thing only made me feel more alienated…
And there you go: I’ve written an Act 1 in a 3-act structure with all three key elements. What happens next? I drop out of law school.
Nope, just kidding, but I’ll tell you the rest of the story in the next section when we talk about Act 2!
Now that you know how to think about Act 1 in a 3-act structure, spend this week noticing Act 1s in the stories that you consume.
Ask: What’s the problem? How does the writer establish it? When does the writer establish it?
In the next section, we’re tackling Act 2, the hardest (and usually longest) act to write, in my opinion.
How to Write an Engaging Act 2 Without Boring Yourself to Tears
Rumor holds that Steven Spielberg once said—and excuse my French—“third acts are a bitch.” Not to contradict the God of the 21st Century Box Office, but I actually think second acts are harder.
With that being said, let’s dive in! Here’s the nitty-gritty of Act 2 of the 3-act structure.
Try to solve the problem
To kick us off, I'm going to continue my story about my first year of law school.
After the conversation with my aunt, a lawyer who tried to make me feel better about being in law school and not feeling smart enough to be there, I thought, “Okay, Mary, it’s time to get your act together.”
I had found that in college, I did better in class when I didn't use my computer. When I started writing my notes by hand, I paid attention better, which meant I understood better, which meant I felt more confident. Since it worked in college, I thought it might work in law school.
So I put away my computer in class so I could stop hiding behind it—physically and metaphorically—and I moved to sit in the front row where I didn't have to look out over a sea of heads belonging to people who intimidated me intellectually.
Now seated in the front row of my classes and writing in a notebook, I felt like I could really pay attention: I wasn’t as intimidated by my classmates, and I felt like the professors were speaking more directly to me.
I started to get more confident. And by the end of the semester, while my confidence was not where it had been before law school, I was no longer fatalistic.
By exam week, I was actually feeling pretty optimistic. I didn't think I was going to completely ace my exams, but I felt capable of passing them…
Let’s pause again.
What’s just happened in the story?
Recall that the 3-act structure outline can be boiled down to three simple statements:
Act 1: I have a problem.
Act 2: I think I know how to solve it.
Act 3: I was wrong.
In the law school story, I'm trying to solve the problem using a set of tactics: handwriting my notes, sitting further up in the classroom, reducing the distance between the lecturer and me, etc.
And those tactics are the reason you're continuing to read—well, besides wanting to know more about the three-act structure. But if you were reading this story on its own, I imagine the reason you would continue to listen without just being polite is because you know something more is coming—there is going to be a twist of some sort.
Let's return to our contemporary examples and assess their Act 2s in their 3-act structures.
In Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng, we learn that a baby is missing at the beginning of the story. At the start of Act 2, one of the main characters tells the mother of the missing baby that she thinks she knows where the baby is. In other words, a potential solution to the problem has been introduced into the narrative: the baby is missing but might be found. This is a complicated solution because the suspected baby has been adopted by another family. Now it’s getting really tricky.
In The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett, in Act 1 we learn that the protagonist’s twin sister is missing and has been for a while. At the beginning of Act 2, this character sets out to find her sister. In other words, she thinks she knows how to solve the problem: she's going to find her twin.
Find the 30% mark
The 3-act structure is also pretty common in movies and screenplays, and you can get a better sense of their stories’ turning points into Act 2 by identifying them via a little trick: find the 30% mark of the film.
Let’s try it: take a movie you love from any era and find the 30% mark. Since math doesn't tend to be a strong point for us writers, I’ll walk you through it:
Take the length of the movie in minutes.
Multiply it by 0.3.
For example, if the movie is an hour and 44 minutes, you need to take 104 minutes and multiply it by 3: 31 minutes.
Go to the 31-minute mark of the movie and notice what's happening at that exact moment.
Is it a turning point? I’m guessing it is in some way.
(And if you're wondering why I'm not saying 33%, which is technically a third, I don't know why—I was just told this by a film buff and screenwriter a while back that it's actually the 30% mark and not the 33% mark. On average, films that use the 3-act structure tend to have an Act 2 that is slightly longer than Act 1 or Act 3, so perhaps that’s why.)
In any case, you can almost certainly characterize the event occurring around the 30% mark of a film as some kind of solution being tested.
Perhaps someone has just decided to move: “That's it, I'm off to Canada!”
Perhaps two people have just met who we hope are going to fall in love.
Whatever it is, Act 1 has introduced some kind of problem, and by the beginning of Act 2, we are embarking on an attempt to solve that problem.
Write the attempt authentically
How do you write an Act 2? One word: authentically.
INVEST YOUR HEART, TOO, IN THE ATTEMPT
Here's what I mean: your character is trying to solve a problem, right? And even though as the author, you know that they're going to fail because that's what makes it a story. You have to suspend that knowledge while you're writing—you have to genuinely allow the character to try to solve this problem.
Not fake-try to solve it, but genuinely try to solve it.
In order to do that, you also have to try to solve the problem as the author, using the tactic that the character has chosen. Your heart has to be in it. Otherwise, it's going to feel contrived to the reader because it will be contrived on your part.
Yes, it can be a little hard emotionally to show up sometimes. But once you make the decision to do it, it is actually so much easier than trying to plot out your story by “playing God,” planning out exactly what's going to happen, keeping all of your characters at an arm's distance emotionally, and just putting them through the motions.
If your character believes hard work will get her there, really invest in that belief. Truly try to make it work for her. Sincerely attempt to solve her problem by using hard work.
If you approach it this way, it'll make your story so much better, and it'll make it so much more interesting for you as you write as well. You’ll have more fun.
SHOW UP FOR YOUR CHARACTER
But what if hard work does solve your character’s problem? What if you attempt it so well on her behalf that it works? Where does that leave you?
It leaves you at a really interesting place in the narrative, because now you both have to find out what's on the other side!
Congratulations, you’ve discovered the power of writing fiction: the moment when it takes over. It’s exhilarating and terrifying.
In sum, Act 2 of the 3-act structure is about trying to solve a problem, and you write it by sincerely investing in your character's attempted solution. Don't fake it. Show up like a good friend who is rallying and ready to jump in when necessary, not like a fair-weathered friend who's got one foot out the door and an eye on the clock.
Now, I’ll be walking you through the third and final act of the 3-act structure…
How to Write an Authentic and Satisfying Act 3
Here we are at the Big Kahuna of the 3-act structure: the third act.
I’m sure you’ve been wondering how my law school story ends, so let’s wrap it up!
“I was wrong”
(The law school story, continued…)
I make it through my first law school exam period feeling pretty good about my performance—I don't think I’ve aced my exams, but I feel like I’ve at least passed them.
One evening, I'm sitting at my desk in my room when I get an email from my contracts professor.
In the email, my professor explains that he’s attached our grades and class ranking in a spreadsheet that he has anonymized.
(He has ranked us because law schools love ranking people.)
I open the spreadsheet and the first thing I notice is that it is indeed not anonymized. There are my classmates' names.
I recognize every person on the list, and I’m horrified.
But I don’t see my own name.
So I search. And I search.
And, eventually, I spot it: at the bottom of the list.
I am ranked last in my class, and my professor has just accidentally sent this list of names to everyone in my class. My worst fear of being a person who does not belong is not just confirmed in this moment, it is also now public knowledge.
I scream for my roommate. She comes in, and as I frantically explain to her what’s happened, I can tell by the look on her face that it’s just as bad as I think it is.
But then, the horror drains from her face, and she says something that is really the one thing that no one has said that I really need to hear:
“Honestly, everybody right now is so relieved that they're not you that I’m sure they won’t remember. They’re just glad it’s not them.”
I realize that she’s right.
There’s a saying: whenever you find yourself worrying what other people think about you, remember they aren't.
No one is thinking about you.
Everybody's thinking about themselves. No one thought I was dumb. Or if they did, they did for about 30 seconds before they resumed worrying about their own self-confidence issues.
Ironically, by feeling like I didn't belong, I was actually just like everybody else.
...
Let’s step back. What happened in this final phase of the story?
What has happened is that we have completed Act 3, which can be summed up as, “I was wrong”.
Change your character’s perspective
To review, our very simple breakdown of the 3 act structure outline is:
Act 1: I have a problem.
Act 2: I think I know how to solve it.
Act 3: I was wrong.
Notice that the statements for Act 1 and Act 2 are in the present tense, and the statement for Act 3 is in the past tense. Again, that’s intentional.
Act 1 and Act 2 need to feel very present. It's important to remind ourselves of that as we're writing them.
Act 3 is backward-looking because it’s centered on the realization that the character is wrong, and therefore needs a perspective change based on everything that has happened before.
In the law school story, I’ve had a perspective shift because a confrontation with the truth has forced me to face that my solution isn’t going to work.
Now I want to look at the same novels I’ve used as 3-act structure examples:
In Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng, the custody battle is lost, and the attempted solution has failed. That loss leads the mother of the baby to take drastic action and break into the adoptive family’s home to recover her baby despite what the judge has ruled. This major event at the end of the book echoes a significant discovery for another character in the story: that she, too, is legally someone else’s child. The taking of the baby also leads yet another character to face what motherhood really means to her when her greatest fear comes true in that she, too, loses a daughter, just in a different way. There's just a lot happening, but suffice it to say that in Act 3 of this novel, there is a lot of “I was wrong.”
In Act 3 of The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett, there’s also a lot of “I was wrong.” The missing twin Stella is found, but it doesn't look like what the other twin Desiree had hoped. Ultimately, the sisters’ reunion raises as many questions as it answers. And as they return to their lives, we know their lives are not going to be the same.
Open yourself up to authentic discovery
So how do you write an Act 3?
If you write an Act 2, by bringing your authentic self to the quest, you write an Act 3 by opening yourself up to authentic discovery.
Every time I write an Act 3, I'm surprised by what it has to teach me. And I’ve come to believe that that surprise is essential to the fiction writing process. It's part of the magic of Act 3. You, as the author, want to discover a truth as well, alongside your characters.
This is how we write books that are bigger and wiser than us. We allow them to become; we don't limit them to our present understanding. We expand at their behest. We grow because they pull us to grow.
It’s one of the beautiful, incredible things about writing. And we achieve it, I believe, through openness.
In sum
You’ve conquered the 3-act structure! Now that you’ve got this simple yet powerful story structure down, now it’s time to get it down on paper—literally.
Apply for my program to write your book and get your free training on my 4 notebooks method.
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