The Nine-Act Paradigm


David Siegel has made a name for himself on the Internet with his website explicating his "two-goal, nine-act" dramatic structure. [URL]

Siegel starts with the same objection to the three-act structure that the four-act paradigm people do: something happens in the middle of a movie that has to be dealt with. But rather than calling this a plot point, Siegel calls the story's new direction a "new goal" for the hero. There is evidence in Siegel's favor for doing this.

Siegel then breaks down his nine acts this way:

  1. "A good story is a train wreck," writes Siegel. "A good train wreck involves two well-built trains speeding toward each other from far away. The farther away, the more spectacular the impact. Time is the basis of legitimate conflict." Siegel's paradigm is not a recipe book but an order of strategic concerns. To begin, he says, establish your backstory, the seeds of conflict, the roots that will lead to disaster. Siegel actually calls this "Act 0."
  2. Next Siegel tells the writer to find an opening image that sets the theme and/or place of the story. Act 1.
  3. Then something bad happens, and it had better happen in the first four minutes. Siegel also calls this "the catch of the yarn that unravels the sweater." Act 2.
  4. Someone steps in to fix the problem. This is the hero, whose goal is clear. Act 3.
  5. The hero goes through a door from which there is no turning back. Act 4.
  6. Without all the facts, the hero starts out after the wrong goal, thinking this will fix the problem when it won't. Act 5.
  7. At a low point, the hero finally gets the clue that reveals the true goal s/he must pursue to fix the problem. Act 6.
  8. Facing a ticking clock, the hero races to action, on the right track at last. Act 7.
  9. The hero solves the problem. Victory. A new day. Act 8.

Comments

I have no real quarrel with any of this and especially like the way Siegel emphasizes the ticking clock at the end. The two goal notion is a good concept that frequently matches a reversal by the hero at midpoint. And finally "Act 0" is a good way to remind the writer that when the movie actually begins, a lot (backstory) has already happened. In other words, stories begin in full stride. Beginning writers too often enter stories leisurely, with pages and pages of set up and exposition.

All the same, I find this paradigm less helpful than others, primarily because of its vague attention to pacing. Where exactly do these various steps go in the time line of the story?

Changing Goals

The changing goals of the protagonist are also considered important by Kristin Thompson, author of the excellent book Storytelling in the New Hollywood. She writes:

"We can, however, account more precisely for the structural dynamics of Hollywood storytelling by suggesting that the most frequent reason a narrative changes direction is a shift in the protagonist's goals. We have already seen that such goals are central to plotting in the classical film. If we can account for plot structure by means of these goals, we have a schema that has some initial plausibility."

Thompson finds screenplay structure to move in four large narrative blocks (she abhors the term "acts" for them), with each turning point (the movement from one block to the next) usually reflecting a new goal for the protagonist in the shifting narrative landscape. (See my discussion of the four-act paradigm for more about Thompson's theory.)


MODULE 4: SCREENWRIGHT: the craft of screenwriting

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