The 3-Act Paradigm at Work: The Hours

written by David Hare

(based on a single theater viewing)


A brilliant adaptation of the award-winning novel. The story of Virginia Woolf's struggle to write Mrs. Dalloway and with her own sanity is reflected in the lives of two women a generation apart, in the 1950s and today, whose lives finally cross.

Structural Analysis

  1. Hook
    • Virginia writes her suicide note and walks into the river.
  2. Complication
    • 20 years earlier, she is struggling to begin a book and not eating, not being a "good patient" for her husband.
  3. Call to Action
    • She decides what her book is about: a woman's life in a single day. This gets reflected in the lives of the two women a generation apart.
  4. Act One Plot Point
    • Virginia is cooking, her muse active. Mrs. Dalloway must die.
  5. Midpoint Plot Point
    • Virginia rebels against her care-givers, including her husband. Her sanity is her own business. Mrs. Dalloway will not die. The 1950s woman can't go through with her suicide.
  6. Act Two Plot Point
    • A poet with AIDS dies (the son of the 1950s woman, the soul mate of the present day lesbian). Virginia decides it is the poet who must die, the visionary -- herself.
  7. Climax and Resolution
    • The two women choose life. Virginia (the poet must die) walks into the river.

Notes

This is one story, the story of an emotional journey through life by three women of three different generations, all asking the same questions about their lives and their deaths. From this perspective, the dramatic structure is seen to be tight and traditional (beginning-middle-end storytelling), great testimony to the power of 3-act structure.


MODULE 4: SCREENWRIGHT: the craft of screenwriting

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