Understanding the First Half of Your 2nd Act

Understanding the First Half of Your 2nd Act with Some Help from Harry and Sally:

Sequence 5: Let’s Get Into It

You’re rumbling along on a road trip with your girlfriend, boyfriend, spouse, or partner. Let’s just set that stage for a second. You’ve been on the road for a few hours. The high and excitement of hitting the open road has kind of dwindled, though there is still some eagerness there. You are, however, starting to get annoyed by your partner’s choice in music, maybe a little bickering over which highway to take or which at hotel to stay that night. Nothing really bad or enough to have the two of you decide to never speak to each other again, but there have been a few sideways glances and increases in the volume of the radio in order to drown out the other person. You’ve just finished up Sequence 4 of your trip. 

You’ve hit a couple of setbacks. Maybe you ran into some snow in Iowa or heavy rain in Nebraska that you didn’t expect. Maybe even a flat tire forced you to stop at a gas station somewhere in New Mexico, but you’ve plowed through. You’ve gone through it together, helping and assisting each other. The trip is building toward something, even though you don’t quite know what yet (and I don’t mean the final destination). There is a level of tension, at the very least, and you’re realizing that if you continue to bicker, if you continue to dwell on the flat tire, the trip will be a disaster. It’s time to move forward and move forward together. Whether it’s a conscious choice or not, you both know this to be true. 

You’re easing into Sequence 5 of your trip, and like I said in the previous post, Sequence 5 is kind of a continuation of Sequence 4, but with a very important distinction. The Main Character and Secondary Character start to work together – there is a level of cooperation. Now...that is a very, very basic way to describe Sequence 5, so let’s jump into some specifics. It is important to note, as I always tend to make disclaimers, that it always depends on genre and what’s happening specifically in your story. And you don’t have to have the Main Character and Secondary Character cooperating in Sequence 5. I’m summarizing here, so stop your complaining and eyebrow raising. The important element to remember for Sequence 5 is that you are leading the audience toward one of the most important moments in your story – the mid-point complication. Sequence 6. Sequence 6 is a rather huge series of scenes and moments that change and raise the stakes of your story and your character’s adventure. Sequence 5 is meant to lead the audience toward that moment without necessarily telling them,

 - “Hey, watch out. Something important is going to happen in a couple of minutes.”

At least not in a spell-it-out kind of way. Yes, you are building momentum and getting the audience to be completely engaged in the story, but we’re all about subtlety here, not on-the-nose kind of stuff. So how do we build the momentum in Sequence 5?

Since Sequence 6 will have some kind of a twist, complication, or (and again, depending on genre) a consummation, we need to once again create a Set-Up Event, or a series of Set-Up Events, so that the complication in Sequence 6 is that much stronger. The Main Character and Secondary Character must impact each other in Sequences 4 and 5 so that their relationship unfolds in a way that bridges the end of the 1st Act to the mid-point complication, and thus, the audience buys into the progression. 

This is an extremely delicate part of your script

It’s usually where writers who have not done enough pre-writing or planning end up faltering or stopping. For the writers out there who immediately jump into writing pages after having only a basic idea and set up for a story, Sequence 5 – which is roughly pages 40 through 50 – is when a writer backs away from his or her laptop and stops. And it’s difficult for the writer to begin again, because they don’t know what will happen next. Suddenly six months pass by and the writer hasn’t written a word or continued the story. Why is this? 

It’s likely because the writer doesn’t know the recurring moment that will take place throughout the 2nd Act. What is a recurring moment? Let’s use a simple and formulaic movie as an example. Jim Carrey’s, LIAR LIAR. What’s the logline for that story?

 - “A workaholic lawyer and absent father is unable to tell a lie for 24 hours during the biggest case of his career, because his son made a birthday wish for his dad to never tell a lie.” 

What is evident in that logline? The type of moment an audience can expect to see over and over again. And what is that moment? A lying lawyer physically unable to lie for 24 hours while trying to present a high-stakes case in court. That’s it. That’s all that movie is, and it’s easy for an audience to understand what that movie will be, because the recurring moment will be Jim Carrey physically trying to lie over and over, but consistently failing...over and over. 

So Sequences 4 and 5 need to have a fully developed recurring moment that is clear and obvious, not only to the audience, but to the writer, so that the writer can create hundreds of scenes that...what did I say in the previous post? 

Prove the promise of the premise

The primary shift is that in Sequence 5 the Main Character and Secondary Character are working together, as opposed to bickering and allowing each other’s emotional flaws to annoy them or get in the way. They’re cooperating instead of competing. Also, the recurring moment doesn’t necessarily change, it only seems to change, because a few setbacks have taken place and it has altered the characters’ plans, but the core premise of the story is still there; the core plot pursuit remains the same.

Let’s dive into another example, one of my all-time favorite movies, WHEN HARRY MET SALLY. It’s an easy one for me to talk about, because I’ve watched it a hundred times. And let’s take a second and consider why that movie is so re-watchable.

The recurring moment is so easy to understand and remains relatable throughout. Everyone watching can relate to what these two characters are experiencing. It discusses the difference between a successful romantic relationship and a friendship, but the hook is defined by a questions,

 - “Can men and women be friends without the sex part getting in the way?”

So that is instilled within every scene. Maybe not directly and in an obvious way, but in Sequences 4 and 5, we’re seeing the so-called fun and games and relationship woes of Harry and Sally over the years, and then they finally get together and become friends. There is even a line that Harry says,

 - “Are we becoming friends now? Hm...a woman friend. You know you may be the first attractive woman I have not wanted to sleep with in my entire life.”

They do exactly what they said couldn’t be done, a man and a woman being friends but without having sex with each other. I’m assuming you have all seen the movie, and if you haven’t, shame on you, but what happens in Sequence 6? What’s the complication and twist? They have sex! It’s so simple and yet it still works, and works extremely well. 

So to compare Sequence 4 and Sequence 5 of “Harry and Sally”, what is happening in those two sequences? In Sequence 4, we see them still not on the same page. They meet up in different points in their lives and have very opposing views, especially where relationships are concerned, but they both end up going through major break-ups (Harry gets a divorce, and Sally ends a relationship with a long-time boyfriend) and then what? They come together and technically work together, becoming very good friends and support each other through their adventures in dating. 

I mentioned in the previous chapter that the Secondary Character can be, at times, considered the Opponent to the Main Character. This happens a lot, but there is a very important distinction to make between a Secondary Character being an Opponent, and an actual Opponent or Villain. Here’s the basic distinction: an Opponent gets in the way of the Main Character because the Opponent either wants the same thing as the Main Character, and thus there is a battle that ensues – a battle of power, strength, domination, ego, etc. - or the Opponent has some form of a vendetta, because what the Main Character is trying to do will impede upon the Opponent’s own goals in some way. Either way, the Opponent is putting obstacles in the Main Character’s way in order to, what? To stop him. 

That’s pretty basic, but it helps to spell it out just so it’s clear. Now, the Secondary Character does what? Very basically, and like I said in previous posts, the Secondary Character puts obstacles in front of the Main Character, but not to stop him or her from achieving a goal, but to assist the Main Character in becoming a better person in some way. Obviously, the Secondary Character is trying to assist the Hero in achieving a goal, but the Secondary Character is also putting these obstacles in front of him in order to help. 

The Opponent?

He’s putting these obstacles in front of the Hero in order to hinder or to stop him. It’s a very fine line, and this is why in romantic comedies the Secondary Character can and will almost always be both: the Secondary Character and the Opponent. They will switch off between the two. 

What happens in WHEN HARRY MET SALLY? Sally starts as an Opponent, switches to a Secondary Character, and then flips back to an Opponent in the latter half of the 2nd Act. It is then Harry’s need to switch Sally back to a Secondary Character. That’s pretty much the entire movie summed up in one sentence. 

So...Sequence 5, as a brief summary:

It’s a continuation of the fun and games, the setpiece memorable moments of Sequence 4, but now the Hero and Secondary Character are cooperating in order to achieve a goal of some kind. The Hero – and this is an important point to make – the Hero is starting to see that his emotional flaw, the old ways in which he used to act and be, aren’t really working for him. He’s facing some fears and noticing that those fears really aren’t as bad as he thought they were. He’s experiencing setbacks, yes, but it’s not so bad! And the Secondary Character is helping him see this, even though the Opponent is coming into play a lot more, and the setbacks are becoming that much more dangerous, or difficult, or challenging...whatever your story needs, really. We’re building up to the midpoint complication here, folks. So it’s imperative that stakes are being raised, the audience is “in” and completely believing the relationship between the two primary characters, and you’re setting the story up to fail in some way. I shouldn’t say “fail”, but you’re allowing the audience to see that something pretty bad could happen if the Hero fails, and that a new direction in the story will take place (in Sequence 6).

It’s also important to note that when I mention the stakes being raised, it is through the raising of the plot stakes that the emotional and character stakes are raised. It isn’t just new complications within the plot that raises a story’s level of stakes. It is what the plot complications do to the characters emotionally and internally that ultimately make the plot stakes feel that much more, well, raised. So what I’m trying to push you beautiful writers to realize is that structure is actually character development, and not just plot development. No story is a paint-by-numbers, “Save The Cat” kind of presentation. Everything…and I mean everything in your story revolves around the evolution of your Main Character and his/her experience within the core relationship of the story.

There ya have it. Sequence 5. Pretty simple, right? Yeah, not really, but we’re building up toward one of the most important sequences in your story – Sequence 6. Your road trip with your girlfriend or boyfriend is starting to get interesting and possibly even going off the rails. So have fun with this! Make the journey as difficult as possible for your Main Character. Not only through plot-oriented action, but through personal and emotional obstacles that force her to be better, to be stronger, and to change. 

I jumped right into this post without any kind of intro, and I did that on purpose. Sequence 5 is kind of like a locomotive that is at full speed. It’s very difficult to slow it down, and you should be feeling some heavy momentum by this time. Enjoy the ride.

Finishing off this quick post, here is your quote of the day. It is the perfect example of Sequences 4 and 5, because those two sequences show the Main Character failing, or at least experiencing setbacks over and over – tests and trials. This quote happens to inspire me in that it reminds me that on this path that I have chosen, failure is inevitable, but perspective and how we process that failure makes us who we are and defines our ultimate success. So here is a little something that hopefully puts things in perspective:

 - “I’ve missed 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot, and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life...but that is why I succeed.”

That, my friends, is from my childhood Hero, Michael Jordan. Get out there and fail. Let your characters fail. Fail miserably! But don’t let failure cause you to stop adventuring. 

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