Thomas Funicello's Blog - Posts Tagged "acts"
3-ACT STORY STRUCTURE
A critical part of structuring a story is to understand what the main character is experiencing, physically, emotionally, relationally, spiritually, etc.
The 3-Act story structure will help, and my expansion of the concept can help even more.
There are plenty of resources to describe the standard 3-Act story structure, here is my expanded concept of the traditional Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis.
OMNITHESIS - This represents the story universe with people and events that form the story setting.
DIATHESIS - This is the everyday normal routine of the character in the Normal World. Many times, presented as backstory or Prologue.
THESIS (Act 1) - This is what I call the last day in the Normal World.
HYPOTHESIS (Act 2a) - This is the naive view of the Strange World through the Normal World normalcy bias of the main character.
ANTITHESIS (Act 2b) - This is the literary "punch in the nose" where the main character is faced with the realities of the Special World.
SYNTHESIS (Act 3) - This is where the main character is able to combine the Normal World with the Special World to survive in the New World.
NEOTHESIS - This is the new normal routine of the New World, typically seen in an Epilogue.
Next time I will show how these elements are utilized at every level of storytelling.
The 3-Act story structure will help, and my expansion of the concept can help even more.
There are plenty of resources to describe the standard 3-Act story structure, here is my expanded concept of the traditional Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis.
OMNITHESIS - This represents the story universe with people and events that form the story setting.
DIATHESIS - This is the everyday normal routine of the character in the Normal World. Many times, presented as backstory or Prologue.
THESIS (Act 1) - This is what I call the last day in the Normal World.
HYPOTHESIS (Act 2a) - This is the naive view of the Strange World through the Normal World normalcy bias of the main character.
ANTITHESIS (Act 2b) - This is the literary "punch in the nose" where the main character is faced with the realities of the Special World.
SYNTHESIS (Act 3) - This is where the main character is able to combine the Normal World with the Special World to survive in the New World.
NEOTHESIS - This is the new normal routine of the New World, typically seen in an Epilogue.
Next time I will show how these elements are utilized at every level of storytelling.
