The Fiction Toolkit, Part 10
Shelly Lowenkopf -- September 8, 2007
Another in a series of excerpts from Shelly Lowenkopf's forthcoming book, The Fiction Writer's Tool Kit: Terms, Concepts, and Devices for Building a Better Story. In this installment Shelly looks at the act as an organizing principal.
act -- the noun, not the verb; a component of a play. An act contains one or more scenes. It is useful to think of the act being to a play or filmed drama as a chapter is to a novel. The act is a thematic framework in which story is set in motion, then advanced. But it is important to realize that at the same time the conflicts and choices involved in story are put forth, characters are revealing their strengths, flaws, alliances, and hidden agendas.
An act should seem to have within it more development of story and character than it can possibly contain. Just at a three-act play has become a conventional model of story format -- the first act introducing a problem or impending confrontation; the second act adding pressure and tension, causing the problem to seem too acute for solution; the third act driving the characters toward some resolution -- it is useful to see a one-act play as a short story, with a beginning, middle, and end. Many short stories are readily transformed into a one-act play.
Instructive examples of acts: act one, scene two of Richard III, by William Shakespeare sets characters and their agendas in immediate and irresistible motion. Act one, scene one of St. Joan, by George Bernard Shaw, quickly establishes a political climate, introduces the background of an as-yet unseen major character, and evokes the ambience of a time in the distant past. Act one, scene one of Entertaining Mr. Sloan, by Joe Orton, presents an immediate agenda and foreshadows a bold, arresting conclusion, ironic in its Solomon-like logic.
Shelly Lowenkopf's soon-to-be-published The Fiction Writer's Tool Kit: Terms, Concepts, and Devices for Building a Better Story. is more than a lexicon. It defines a conceptual language for thinking about fiction, providing the writer with the tools to raise the level of craftsmanship of his own work.